A chubby 30 something with wacky dance moves, Park Jae-Sang falls far short of the prettified, teenage ideal embodied by the stars of South Korea’s phenomenally successful K-pop industry.
But Park, known as Psy, has succeeded where the industry-manufactured girl and boy bands have tried and failed, making a huge splash on the mainstream US music scene thanks to a viral video and a rare sense of irony.
Since being posted on YouTube in July, Psy’s video for Gangnam Style—the title song of his sixth album—has racked up more than 150 million views and spawned a host of admiring parodies.
The accompanying worldwide publicity has earned him a US contract with Justin Bieber’s management agency, a guest appearance at the MTV Awards in LA and a spot on NBC’s flagship Today show.
A few weeks ago, he was given the opportunity to school Britney Spears on his increasingly famous signature dance moves on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
The breakout success of Gangnam Style has been viewed with a mixture of pride and surprise in South Korea, with industry analysts scrabbling to identify the magic ingredient that made it such a phenomenal success abroad.
Psy is so far from the pretty stars of the K-pop factory, like Seungri from boy band Big Bang. He’s older, chunkier, but he’s someone people want to party with.
Psy is so far from the pretty stars of the K-pop factory, like Seungri from boy band Big Bang. He’s older, chunkier, but he’s someone people want to party with.
The Gangnam of the title is Seoul’s wealthiest residential and shopping district, lined with luxury boutiques, top-end bars and restaurants frequented by celebrities and well-heeled, designer-clad socialites.
The video pokes fun at the district’s lifestyle, with Psy breezing through a world of speed boats, yoga classes and exclusive clubs—all the while performing an eccentric horse-riding dance accompanied by beautiful models.
Humour, especially satirical humour, is rare in the mainstream Korean music scene, and that coupled with the 34-year-old’s embrace of his anti-pop idol looks has helped set him apart.
According to Simon Stawski, the Canadian co-founder of the popular Eat Your Kimchi blog on K-pop and Korean culture, Psy is the “antithesis of K-pop” and its stable of preening, sexualised, fashion-conscious young stars.
“K-pop bands are exceptionally controlled by their management. Psy doesn’t buy into that at all, and that’s partly why he’s such a breath of fresh air,” Stawski said. “Above all, Psy doesn’t take himself seriously and uses irony and self-deprecation that are absent from K-pop.”
This, he adds, is what has allowed Psy to jump the language barrier and find a wider audience for a song that, apart from its title, is almost entirely in Korean.
– Daily Chilli
