People all over the globe are going bananas for Korean rapper PSY and his hit video "Gangnam Style," which went viral almost instantly after being posted on YouTube.
The video, which features PSY doing what's been dubbed the "invisible horse dance," has garnered nearly 50 million hits since being posted on YouTube on July 15th. The song is currently #1 on Billboard's K-Pop Hot 100 Chart, it has also made its debut on the American iTunes chart as well and is currently the #2 on YouTube's top videos.
The invisible horse dance is being adopted into mainstream culture, with Nelly Furtado having reportedly performed it at a concert and a stadium full of fans breaking into it at a Dodger's game when the song was played over the loudspeaker. Rapper T-Pain recently tweeted "words cannot even describe how amazing this video is," and it's rumored that Justin Bieber's manager is interested in doing business with PSY.
The dance definitely has a certain something to it, but fans everywhere are perishing from curiosity over what the lyrics to "Gangnam Style" mean. Gangnam is a super affluent neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea that PSY refers to as "Seoul's Beverly Hills," and is chock full of fancy cars and trust fund babies. The song is meant as a commentary on the excessive materialism and over-emphasis on apperances in Gangnam.
"Beneath the catchy dance beat and hilarious scenes of Seoul's neighborhood, there might be a subtle message about wealth, class, and value in South Korean society," The Atlantic noted in a recent article on the "submersive message within South Korea's music video sensation."
"Gangnam Style" is the first track off PSY's sixth album PSY 6 (Six Rules), Part 1. PSY, whose real name is Park Jaesang, is a 34-year-old bad boy who is a staple of mainstream South Korean media. His popularity was hard-won, though, with his first album being fined for "inappropriate content" and his second album banned in the country. However, like they say, "you can't keep a good man down," and this man is on his way straight up to superstardom.
'Gangnam Style' Lyrics Translation (English)
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