“Gangnam Style” by Psy – The Song of the Week for 9/10/2012

The viral sensation “Gangnam Style” is the first single off PSY’s Best 6th Part 1, the sixth studio album by the South Korean K-pop artist PSY

Genre: Hip House, Electro House, Korean Hip Hop, K-Pop

Readers of MusicTrajectory.com know that pop music has no place here on the site (outside of Lady Gaga who we can all agree is simply amazing and unmistakeably talented). But Music Trajectory is all about spreading good music and when I caught wind of this song a few days ago, I instantly imagined what it would be like to write something about it here on the site.

I just couldn’t resist. This song is just too good (and when I say too good I mean equal parts terrible, but that’s the beauty of it!) to not be a Song of the Week here on Music Trajectory. Perhaps what I like most is the fact that he is obviously trying to be ridiculous as possible and pulling off every cliche seen in most pop videos (ridiculous dancing, a bunch of different scenes and outfit changes, hot dancing girls, sports cars, etc.) to the effect that he is ultimately poking fun at pop music in general. Dare I say it is brilliant?

Listen to this song twice and it will be stuck in your head.

I leave you with some background: “Gangnam Style” is a Korean language colloquialism that refers to a luxurious lifestyle associated with the Gangnam district, an affluent and trendy area of Seoul. The music video depicts Psy dancing at various locations in Gangnam. The song’s theme is about “the perfect girlfriend who knows when to be refined and when to get wild.”

P.S. The official “Gangnam Style” video (seen above) is the most viewed K-pop video in history and it is also the fastest-viewed K-pop video, accumulating over 80 million views in 45 days. Not bad, not bad.