Track of the Moment: Gangnam Style by PSY

One of the things about the internet that if it’s just that right mixture of weird, funny, and somewhat skilled, people will flock to it, love it, and share it. And this summer, it was this combination that introduced America at large to K-Pop (Korean pop), and the man known as Psy.

For those who don’t spend much time on the internet (which is impossible, if you somehow stumbled across this blog), “Gangnam Style” has been sweeping across the internet and causing everyone everywhere to make memes. Even the artist, Psy, was on the VMAs a short while ago. This is easily the biggest thing from Korea since Lim Yo-Hwan competed in international Starcraft tournaments, or since Old Boy was released.

Psy himself has been making music since about 2001, and even then he was creating a firestorm of attention. (I’m far from an expert on the genre, so I’m just going to be summarizing his Wikipedia page.) He broke the K-Pop mold, showing that you didn’t need to be incredibly attractive and great at dancing to be a male singer. He also seems to prefer having fun with his music, doing things like imitating popular female Korean singers at live shows and doing ridiculous things in his videos, as evidenced by the “Gangnam Style” video. Essentially, he’s the LMFAO and Lady Gaga of Korea (although, as a fan of both, I will say that I think their music is a bit more original, but whatever). He’s also immensely popular, being big enough for the government to hire him to make the Korean Fight song for the 2012 Olympics.

Now, unless you’re from Korea or are somehow very familiar with its language and history, everything about this song is foreign to you, pun intended. The song is essentially about how awesome this guy is, and “the perfect girlfriend who knows when to be refined and when to get wild.” Here’s the fully translated lyrics, courtesy of kpoplyrics.net. Now, if you took the time to look those lyrics up, you’ll find something strange – the title/most repeated line isn’t translated. “Oppa is Gungnam Style” is the best they can give us (which, by the way sounds like “Open Condom Style”, which makes the 12 year old in me giggle). Here, we have to explore the Korean language, culture, and history if we want to make some sense of this (which, if you’ve seen the video, is a tall order). Literally translated, “oppa” is a female’s older brother, or just an older male in comparison to a female. However, in current Korean culture, it’s generally used to signify a boyfriend or husband, and in the song it’s used in the first person. So, we know that Psy is saying to his girlfriend/wife “I, your boyfriend/husband, am Gangnam Style”. But what the hell is Gangnam Style?

For those unfamiliar with Korean geography, Gangnam, meaning “River South”, is a district of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. To summarize this great article on the song, up until the 1970’s, the Gangnam district was just farmland. But then these strange, new companies like Hyundai started to build high-rises there, probably in order to provide housing for employees. Suddenly, this old farmland became worth a lot of money, and the farmers in the area walked away with millions of dollars and the area became the heart of a modern, upper class city. Of course, this made everyone else resentful of the people of Gangnam, who just happened to own the right land at the right time and got lucky, rather than worked hard for their massive wealth. Nowadays, saying you’re from Gangnam is the same as saying you have a summer home in the Hamptons. And the kids of those farmers live the same kind of opulent, decadent life filled with bar hopping and partying and shopping sprees as the rich kids of Instagram.

So, essentially, he’s saying that she’s a hot girl who’s reserved during the day, but can party at night, and that he isn’t just an awesome guy – he’s the typical guy from Richville, Richington, so she should totally party there/bang him/marry him. Apparently, "Gangnam Style" is roughly the equivalent of saying "swag", but I'm not 100% sure of that connection. Mystery solved. Now go spread this knowledge like the herpes you’ll get from bar hopping in Gangnam.

As for the song itself, it’s a solid song. It has a catchy, but slightly generic Euro-dance beat with Psy’s fairly aggressive delivery make it pretty interesting to listen to. But the real reason it’s so popular is because of the music video and the dance. It’s impossible to describe how great of a video Psy put together, but it’s very funny, and worth checking out. But as for Psy’s music…

The thing about K-Pop is that every song is different. I checked out a few of Psy’s other songs, and found everything from relatively serious rap to pop rock to Euro-dance. So even if you do like this song, you may only end up liking about 30% of his album (note: I haven’t listened to the album “Gangnam Style” is on, but I did listen to PSY Five, his previous album, which was a complete mixed bag, and given my basic research into the genre, is typical). The other thing with K-Pop, or any pop music, is that it’s fairly generic and kind of stupid. Regardless, anyone can sit down and enjoy a 35 year old Korean man having a dance battle in a parking garage while a catchy electro house beat plays in the background.

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