It takes a lot of internet buzz to sit upon the YouTube music charts, with Carly Rae Jepsen, One Direction and Justin Bieber having dominated the charts for some time. Now though, the YouTube 100 has a new king, Korean popstar PSY.
He may not look like the typical pop star, with his strange suits and Elton John esque sunglasses but PSY has become an internet sensation over the last couple of months. Racking up nearly 150 million views since the middle of July, his Korean rap track ‘Gangnam Style’ and its bonkers video have knocked Carly Rae Jepsen off the top of YouTubes chart.
Featuring rapper PSY dancing around like a brilliantly gurning idiot while all sorts of craziness happen around him, it’s gotten the South Korean signed by Justin Bieber’s agent Scooter Braun and hit the 130 million views mark in just 58 days.
Just to put that into perspective Justin Bieber’s ‘Boyfriend’ took three months to break that barrier and Lady Gaga’s Poker Face three years to reach that benchmark.
He’s now even appeared on Ellen DeGeneres’ chat show, where he taught Britney Spears how to do the video’s now world famous dance and a cameo at the VMA’s last week. It’s fair to say the Gangnam Style has taken over the US.
PSY’s not a new face in Korea though, as he’s been steadily churning out fun, silly songs for over a decade, with the first of his six albums coming out back in 2001. He’s actually a slightly controversial figure, not sitting in the usual realms of K-Pop and has even been labelled as a bad influence on the youth of South Korea due to his rather blunt lyrics.
With Gangnam Style though (the title refers to a highly affluent area in the nation’s capital Seoul), he’s hit the top of the charts in not only Korea and Finland, as well as charting in Denmark, Holland and New Zealand. Not the usual sort of success for even the best exponents of K-Pop.
Now Scooter Braun wants to make PSY an international artist, the first Korean to have a big hit in the US and abroad. He needs to make sure that he doesn’t over-egg the pudding though, as while PSY’s enthusiasm is infectious, there may be a time in the not so distant future when public opinion swings the other way.
While Gangnam Style may be strong right now, it’s only a matter of time before someone outdoes PSY and becomes the new king of YouTube.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith
Tagged in Britney Spears Lady GaGa Justin Bieber PSY