{"id":14053,"date":"2012-09-13T20:09:22","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T20:09:22","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T13:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:37:08","slug":"korean-pop-star-conquers-the-us-gangnam-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=14053","title":{"rendered":"Korean pop star conquers the US &#8220;Gangnam Style&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A chubby thirty-something with wacky dance moves, Park Jae-Sang falls far short of the prettified, teenage ideal embodied by the stars of South Korea&#8217;s phenomenally successful K-pop industry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But Park, known as &#8220;Psy,&#8221; has succeeded where the industry-manufactured girl and boy bands have tried and failed<\/strong>, making a huge splash on the mainstream US music scene thanks to a viral video and a rare sense of irony.<\/p>\n<p>Since being posted on YouTube in July, <strong>Psy&#8217;s video for &#8220;Gangnam Style&#8221; &#8212; the title song of his sixth album &#8212; has racked up more than 170 million views and spawned a host of admiring parodies.<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>The accompanying worldwide publicity has earned him a US contract with Justin Bieber&#8217;s management agency<\/strong>, a guest appearance at last week&#8217;s MTV awards in Los Angeles and a spot on NBC&#8217;s flagship &#8220;Today&#8221; show.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9bZkp7q19f0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, he was given the opportunity to school US pop diva Britney Spears on his increasingly famous signature dance moves on &#8220;The Ellen DeGeneres Show&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The breakout success of &#8220;Gangnam Style&#8221; has been viewed with a mixture of pride and surprise in Psy&#8217;s home country<\/strong>, with industry analysts scrabbling to identify the magic ingredient that made it such a phenomenal success abroad.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Gangnam of the title is Seoul&#8217;s wealthiest residential and shopping district<\/strong>, lined with luxury boutiques, top-end bars and restaurants frequented by celebrities and well-heeled, designer-clad socialites.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The video pokes fun at the district&#8217;s lifestyle, with Psy breezing through a world of speed boats, yoga classes and exclusive clubs<\/strong> &#8212; all the while performing an eccentric horse-riding dance accompanied by beautiful models.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Humour, especially satirical humour, is rare in the mainstream Korean music scene, and that coupled with the 34-year-old&#8217;s embrace of his anti-pop idol looks has helped set him apart.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to Simon Stawski, the Canadian co-founder of the popular &#8220;Eat Your Kimchi&#8221; blog on K-pop and Korean culture, Psy is the &#8220;antithesis of K-pop&#8221; and its stable of preening, sexualized, fashion-conscious young stars.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;K-pop bands are exceptionally controlled by their management. Psy doesn&#8217;t buy into that at all, and that&#8217;s partly why he&#8217;s such a breath of fresh air,&#8221;<\/strong> Stawski said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Above all, Psy doesn&#8217;t take himself seriously and uses irony and self-deprecation that are absent from K-pop,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>This, Stawski adds, is what has allowed Psy to jump the English language barrier and find a wider audience for a song which, apart from its title, is almost entirely in Korean.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In South Korea, &#8220;Gangnam Style&#8221; has won Psy a new fan base by appealing to those for whom the sanitized image of K-pop bears little resemblance to their actual lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His somewhat &#8216;normal&#8217; appearance makes him feel familiar, and the comic dancing and wacky fashion style give off a friendly image, branding Psy as someone people would want to party with,&#8221; the daily Munhwa Ilbo commented.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Psy himself says he invites laughter, not ridicule.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My motto is to be funny, but not stupid,&#8221; he said in an interview with the Yonhap news agency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want everyone who sees my performance to feel the efforts I&#8217;ve made so far as a singer rather than a lucky guy who got here without anything,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A relative veteran after 11 years on the Korean music scene, Psy has always had a small but loyal fan base that has stuck with him through numerous ups and downs, including an early brush with the law for smoking marijuana.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2007, he was forced to serve a second period of compulsory military service after it was revealed that he had continued with his showbiz interests during his first two-year stint.<\/p>\n<p><strong>His overnight leap from relative obscurity to global sensation came as a personal, if welcome, shock.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s all so surreal to me,&#8221; he told Yonhap. &#8220;I never thought such a day would come in my life as a singer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>It remains to be seen if &#8220;Gangnam Style&#8221; will prove to be anything more than a one-hit wonder<\/strong>, but its success so far, especially in the United States, is likely to prompt a review of marketing strategies in the Korean music industry.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not going to be a revolution, but more of a baby-steps evolution,&#8221; said Esther Oh, online news editor at CJ Entertainment, the country&#8217;s largest media conglomerate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Psy has shown you can be successful as a human, regular guy with a touch of humour. Other artists and management companies are going to look at that and maybe rethink their own styles and strategies,&#8221; Oh said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source AP<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A chubby thirty-something with wacky dance moves, Park Jae-Sang falls far short of the prettified, teenage ideal embodied by the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1009,1001,2059,2087,1,1008],"tags":[2004,2123,2117],"class_list":["post-14053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-celebrities","category-entertainment","category-lifestyle","category-news","category-sex-in-the-city","tag-art","tag-lifestyle","tag-sex-in-the-city"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"njaiyo","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"A chubby thirty-something with wacky dance moves, Park Jae-Sang falls far short of the prettified, teenage ideal embodied by the","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Art","Celebrities","Entertainment","Lifestyle","News","Sex In The City"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":134,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":4,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"njaiyo","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=6"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1009\">Art<\/a> <a href=\"#\" 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