Gangnam Style - {sped Up}

The story behind this video pandemic is extraordinary. This music video was produced in a style known as k-pop by a South Korean musician called Psy, who was relatively unknown outside his home country. It was released on July 15, 2012, and immediately become popular in South Korea.

Gangnam style - {sped up}

Well before you can shake your head, realize that it's happened. A full YouTube playlist created by Rosalina Sama takes every single track off the 'Hybrid Theory' record and reworks it with lyrics from 'Gangnam Style.' Of course, 'Gangman Style' in its most familiar state is not the perfect fit for every song, so the vocals are sped up, slowed down, scratched and chopped up to fit the Linkin Park tracks.

None of this commentary is particularly overt, which is actually what could make "Gangnam Style" so subversive. Social commentary is just not really done in mainstream Korean pop music, Hong explained. "The most they'll do is poke fun at themselves a little bit. It's really been limited." But Psy "is really mainstreaming it, and he's doing it in a way that maybe not everybody quite realizes." Park Jaesang isn't just unusual because of his age, appearance, and style; he writes his own songs and choreographs his own videos, which is unheard of in K-Pop. But it's more than that. Maybe not coincidentally, he attended both Boston University and the Berklee College of Music, graduating from the latter. His exposure to American music's penchant for social commentary, and the time spent abroad that may have given him a new perspective on his home country, could inform his apparently somewhat critical take on South Korean society.

It's difficult to imagine that much of this could be apparent to non-Koreans, which Kim told me is why she decided to write it up on her blog. "I thought people outside Korea might take it just as another funny music video. So I wanted to explain what's behind [it] and the song." Still, is it possible that the video could have caught on for reasons beyond just its admittedly catchy beat and hilarious visuals? After all, Korean pop really does not seem to typically do well in the U.S., and this has gotten enormous. "It's kind of the first genuine pop-culture crossover from Korea," Hong said, noting it's "more in the American style." Maybe it's possible that, even if the specific nods to the quirks of this Seoul neighborhood couldn't possibly cross over, and even if the lyrics are nonsense to non-Korean speakers, there's something about obviously skewering the ostentatiously rich that just might resonate in today's America.

Whatever the case, Koreans seem to be proud of their first big musical export to the U.S., Hong said, noting that the Korean media has meticulously covered the video's tremendous reception here. "Koreans are definitely talking about it and pointing to it as a source of national pride." Maybe there's something relatable about Gangnam style. 041b061a72