King of Youtube Psy makes waves with his new ”˜Gentleman’

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with Psy doing the Gangnam steps.   Psy was recognized by the United Nations as an “International sensation”

 

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Park Jae-sang known as Psy is a South Korean singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer, record producer and television personality. Park Jae-sang was born on December 31, 1977, to an affluent family in the Gangnam District of Seoul, South Korea. Psy is known domestically for his humorous videos and stage performances, and internationally for his hit single ”˜Gangnam Style’.

The song’s refrain “Oppan Gangnam Style” – translated as “Big brother is Gangnam style”, with Psy referring to himself was entered into The Yale Book of Quotations as one of the most famous quotes of 2012. On October 23, 2012, Psy met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the United Nations Headquarters where Ban expressed his desire to work with the singer because of his “unlimited global reach. His music video for “Gangnam Style” exceeded 1 billion views on YouTube, becoming the first and currently only video to do so in the website’s history. Psy was subsequently recognized by the media as the “King of YouTube” whereas MTV hailed him as ”˜Viral Star of 2012’.

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Bollywood parodies Oppan Gangnam Style

Psy went to study business administration at Boston University in 1996 but dropped it in favour of studying at Berklee College of Music taking up core curriculum lessons in ear training, contemporary writing and music synthesis from which he dropped out as well to come back to Korea to pursue a singing career.

In January 2001 he debuted an album ”˜Psy from the Psycho World’ that stirred up the Korean pop music scene with very blunt lyrics, peculiar dance moves and an unconventional appearance that earned him the nickname “The Bizarre Singer”. His second album Sa 2 also created controversy upon its release in 2002 which was banned in 2002 from being sold to the under-19 set. In September of the same year, Psy released his third album 3 PSY. The album’s title song, “Champion”, saw great success partly due to the hype from the World Cup games held in Seoul. Despite the significant amount of controversy surrounding his music, Psy was awarded songwriting accolades at the annual Seoul Music Awards, marking his breakthrough in the South Korean music industry.

In 2006, Psy released his fourth album Sa Jib, which won honors at the 2006 SBS (Seoul Broadcasting Sydnem) Music Awards. From 2007 to 2009 Psy did his mandatory military duty.

In July 2012, Psy released his sixth album PSY 6 (Six Rules), Part 1 and the song “Gangnam Style” appeared in broadcasting networks and newspapers outside Asia. On August 14, “Gangnam Style” ranked first on YouTube‘s ‘Most Viewed Videos’ monthly chart; On August 21, 2012, “Gangnam Style” officially charted No. 1 on the iTunes Music Video Charts, overtaking Justin Bieber‘s “As Long as You Love Me” and Katy Perry‘s “Wide Awake“; this feat is the first for any South Korean artist. After the video went viral, celebrities quickly jumped on board with Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Tom Cruise taking to Twitter to share their delight.

Said Psy, “When I realized that some top stars like have imagined or tweeted about me, I thought, ‘That’s joking. That’s not gonna happen…’ I never expect things like this, not because they are top stars, but because this is the biggest market in the universe for pop music, right, so everybody’s dreaming about having appearance in the U.S. so I’m still saying, ‘What going on here? This is beautiful.’

Riding high on the success of Gangnam Style, Psy was signed by Scooter Braun to Braun’s Schoolboy Records, a label distributed by Republic Records. In early September, the Gangnam district awarded Psy with a plaque and named him an honorary ambassador. On October 24, 2012, Psy was recognized by the United Nations as an “International sensation”. According to Reuters, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon scheduled a meeting with Psy in the belief that music has great power to overcome intolerance. On October 23, 2012, they met at the United Nations Headquarters where Ban expressed his desire to work with Psy. He remarked that Psy has an “unlimited global reach” and said, “I hope that we can work together using your global reach.”

Although Psy said in November 2012 that he cannot repeat the success of ”˜Oppan Gangnam Style’ his latest release ”˜Gentleman’ has already clocked over a million hits. Its name was changed from ”˜Assarabia’ because that also created controversy with a slang used by South Koreans to express thrills, or simply to describe ‘something satisfying’. There were numerous objections to the title as people of Arabic descent might misinterpret the title and find it derogatory.

In 2002, Psy participated in an anti-American concert after a U.S. military convoy accidentally struck and killed two 14-year-old South Korean schoolgirls in the Yangju highway incident. The soldiers involved in the incident were acquitted by U.S. military courts, which fueled a significant amount of anti-American sentiment in South Korea. Inspired by that incident, Psy lifted up a miniature of an ‘American tank’ and smashed it against the stage.

Although Psy’s actions did not receive any significant international media coverage at that time, this changed after the media reported about it in early December 2012. On December 7, 2012, Psy issued an apology directed towards members of the U.S. military and to the American people for his “inflammatory and inappropriate” language, and expressed hope that the American public will accept his apology.

Despite initial public outrage, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told the media that U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will attend Psy’s performance at the Christmas in Washington charity concert as planned. As a result of Psy’s controversial lyrics, a petition circulated on the website of the White House demanding that he be dropped from the concert, although the petition was deleted later in the day because the White House website claimed that the petition violated the website’s terms of participation. Time magazine’s Nick Carbone asserted that it is “unlikely that these newly dug-up anecdotes will depose Psy from his king-like level of stardom” although Carbone did go on to write that the atmosphere at the White House concert would be “somewhat subdued.”

Psy has reached his zenith based on controversy and is now the most watched singer on the planet.

Regarding his latest release”˜Gentleman’ Psy said in November 2012 that he cannot repeat the success of ”˜Oppan Gangnam Style’  though it has already clocked over a million hits. Its name was changed from ‘Assarabia’ because that also created controversy with a slang used by South Koreans to express thrills, or simply to describe something satisfying. There were numerous objections to the title as people of Arabic descent might misinterpret the title and find it derogatory.

In an interview on MTV he said, about Gangnam, “But if you think about one billion views, that means people watched it many, many times. I can’t believe they didn’t get sick of it!” Psy’s earnings from sources such as TV commercials and YouTube revenue, the latter generating almost US $1 million for 33,000 parodies and related videos identified in September 2012 by YouTube’s automatic identification system. In total, AP estimated that Psy earnt at least US $8.1 million in 2012. Well there’s no stopping to Psy”¦sigh..sigh!

(Excerpted from Wikipaedia)

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