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Year in Ideas: What a Korean rapper taught us about pop culture today
The video for Gangnam Style, the unlikely hit from South Korean rapper/fancy dresser Psy, has been viewed on YouTube more than one billion times since June. Of these, half a billion involved people watching it so they could memorize the moves for their own Gangnam Style parody and a quarter billion that involved curious watchers who, at the end of four minutes and 13 seconds, were left baffled as to how that song became the most-watched internet video of all time. (These are estimates only.)
But aside from the fact that people still seem to get a kick out of bow ties, the Gangnam phenomenon says something about how we experience culture in an internet world. Just don’t expect Psy to be a big deal in 2013, too.
Psy is not particularly handsome, nor does he approach adorable. Fans of Justin Bieber, whom Psy surpassed to break the YouTube record, generally consider their man to be one or the other. Gangnam Style has an undeniable earworm quality to it, but it’s hardly the first catchy song to be released in the YouTube era. And, the lyrics? Who knows? There’s the part where he says “Gangnam Style” and the part when he says “sexy lady”, then all the other stuff in Korean. He could be reciting the dictionary for all most of us know.
The Quantified Month: May
Sarah Lazarovic renders May’s most notable events in convenient chart form.
Culture Club: Are pop stars and celebrity kitsch ruining the fine arts?
Last week, Paul McCartney announced that he is writing a major orchestral work for the New York City Ballet and film director Danny Boyle unveiled his stage version of Frankenstein in London’s West End. Meanwhile the Alberta Ballet which brought us contemporary works based on Joni Mitchell and Elton John, is set to premiere Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, featuring the music of Sarah McLachlan in May.
In this week’s edition of the Post’s Culture Club, we debate star-studded classic art. While it’s wonderful that pop stars are lending their cachet to classic forms of entertainment, does a constant obsession with star appeal overshadow the art form itself?
The Week In Peaks: Our five-day cultural mood swing
