Re-Psy/Gangnam Style

Mr. Lefsetz,

I make my living as a director, cinematographer and editor of mid-to-low budget hip-hop videos, and when I first watched this PSY video a few weeks ago, my reaction was simple: perfect. This video is simply perfect.

Now I know that is a bold statement, so allow me to defend my opinion:

The video is what we would call an absurdist piece, a common genre in low-budget modern videos for artists that will never see more than 200,000 hits. Over-the-top vignettes and surrealist settings mixed with pop art characters. There's hundreds of those out there. However, the twist of originality in the PSY video is the high quality of production value.

Don't get it twisted, this is a very high-budget video for the current marketplace, but the big risk is using that big budget and playing the wild card - in this case, exploring the absurdist genre - and not playing it safe with the same stock performance video we've seen with the majority of Top 40 acts, or what we call the "trap video" in the hip-hop world (the artist and their crew in a run-down location looking hard, most likely with automatic firearms).

So that being said, the brilliance lies not solely within the concept of the video, but the gamble of using extensive resources and capital to execute the vision on a grand scale. Which yielded a product that can keep people's attention to the end of the song (less than 7% of music videos watched online are watched to within 15 seconds of the end).

I can go to CalArts and pluck 10 visual arts freshman to come up with a dozen even crazier, more absurd ideas than the scenes in the PSY video, but who the fuck is going to pay for it?? And which label executive - who has to sign the $150,000 check - is going to intellectually understand the concept of an absurdist, nonsensical visual piece that will most likely not lead to record sales?

Bravo for taking artistic risk on a big stage with a big budget. Bravo.

Long time reader,

Ron

P.S.: Many people inaccurately attribute smaller video budgets in the modern era as a result of declining record sales, which is partly true, but in reality the advances in digital video technology in the last 36 months alone have eliminated the need for half of the budget line items on a video made as recently as 7 years ago. Thanks.

Ron S. Radom
Ronnie West Media
www.ron-west.com

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in case you haven't seen the Oregon Duck version of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDpgzn7KuzE

Replicable indeed. And to delightful results I think. Even if not
exactly in the way you intended. I can't recall a "Friday" knockoff that
was as fun to watch and as fully realized as this Duck's tale. FWIW.

David B. Oshinsky

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Gagnam style actually is about something more. Don't think it will be just novelty...

"Gangnam Style: KPop Megahit Is Actually A Diss Track At South Korea's Opulent Lifestyle":

http://www.irealtytimes.com/articles/2729/20120823/gangnam-style-kpop-megahit-actually-diss-track.htm

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Not to re-open this can of worms (because I'm not an advocate either way), but it's interesting to note that Psy attended Berklee. I wonder if his success now is a result of his education there or it was inevitable.

Matt Pearson

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There's something more to Gangnam Style, its subversiveness. You should read the Atlantic's take on it. It's not just making fun of ourselves that contemporary artists can learn from Psy, it's how to subtly and intelligently make fun of the powerful, the rich, the gatekeepers. There was a great musical tradition in doing that at one time. Now, I can't think of one American artist that has been so deftly subversive as this in ages. We're too busy trying to join the club I guess.

Matthew Meschery
Oakland, CA

http://theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gangnam-style-dissected-the-subversive-message-within-south-koreas-music-video-sensation/261462/

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One of the most amazing things about that video is that he not only produced the track himself, but also choreographed and directed the clip himself. It is off his 6th album, and he ditched his label to make it.

And as for comments that he is in on the joke - take this video clip of a PSY live show. http://youtu.be/rDh8vj2xPOQ
This is a 30 year old man dressed up as Lady Gaga + Beyonce, and dancing their moves to an hugely receptive crowd.
He is genuinely doing what he wants, and having a great time.

I love trashy pop music. Just because a song isn't brilliant/well written/made by machines/etc doesn't mean you can't have feelings towards it and enjoy it.

Cheers,

Jason Morrison

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Fuck me if I haven't been saying this about K-pop, humor and honesty in pop music since 2006 (when I lived in Seoul). Now Gangnam style is huge and finally the industry will listen because people like you are talking about it... seriously I've been saying this for YEARS. Also, this isn't Psy's first track or the first great dance track out of Korea. Psy has a Berklee music degree and the other producers on the Korean scene are at least on par with the guys in the US. The Korean producers' advantage is that they aren't beholden to a behemoth market. They incorporated dubstep and UK garage in 2008 after it had already broken through in the UK and they're open to ANYTHING, they drive the market rather than the market driving the product... and dubstep, it's just now truly taking off in the US. THE US IS A SLOW LUMBERING, BORING BEAST! So late to the game but so fully confident of its own superiority. We're falling behind in music and what's worse, we're falling behind alone because London, Berlin, Stockholm, etc....they're still forging new ground or at least pumping out undeniably good material. It's not even that Korea is ahead of the game... it's that they're willing to take a chance and that puts them ahead of the Americans.

Anyway, Korea is part of the future and you're right, cool is dead.

Matthew Smith
Imagem Music

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I've been waiting to see if you'd write about PSY/Gangnam Style. I just got back from spending the summer in Korea where I was CEO of the USA Pavilion (www.pavilion2012.org) at the World Expo...yep, World's Fairs/Expos are still huge everywhere else in the world. The Pavilion was a public/private partnership with the State Department and we had over 1 million visitors over three months! It was a combination of public diplomacy, education and exhibit design centered around the Expo's theme of the "Living Ocean and Coast" (more of a multi-media Disney/Universal type attraction than science museum). Lots of opportunities to channel the time I spent in the music/live event biz. It was an intense, unique and amazing experience.

Anyway, a key part of our team was a group of 40 university-aged American volunteers ("Student Ambassadors"). A really impressive group of young people from all over the US who speak both English and Korean, they welcomed the guests, helped run the Pavilion shows/films, etc. And many of them are obsessed with K-Pop. Obsessed to the point of sometimes waiting in line for twelve plus hours to get into the nightly K-Pop concerts at the Expo (for artists like Rain who was allowed to take time off from his mandatory military service to perform). K-Pop is definitely a part of the culture in Korea, anytime you turn on the TV there are singing/dance competition shows, stars doing advertisements, gossip, etc. There is also a real pride in K-Pop being homegrown (even though its roots are in Western hip-hop/pop/boy bands), similar to the national pride in the big Korean-conglomerate companies/brands such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai/Kia. And when Gangnam Style started to get noticed outside of Korea, there was a real buzz about...our Student Ambassadors couldn't contain their excitement that their peers who are not focused on Korea finally got a taste of Korean K-Pop culture. Many saw PSY perform the song at the Expo and would play it in our queue area while entertaining our waiting visitors by dancing along with the song. Anytime Korean media would speak with the Student Ambassadors they would always ask about their interest in K-Pop and how it is perceived by Americans.

You are so right...we do live in a global village, and YouTube does connect everyone. Whether it be Gangnam Style or Michel Telo's Ai Se Eu Te Pego or Moves Like Jagger, a lot of the same songs are being streamed online or played in clubs around the world. And speaking of Moves Like Jagger...while it was playing one day, one of our Student Ambassadors, a young woman from DC who attends a prestigious New England liberal arts college, said to me "I'm not sure if I know what he (Mick Jagger) looks like". I then asked her what band Mick Jagger is in...and I kid you not, she thought about it for a few minutes and I finally had to lead her by saying "The Rolling..." and then she shouted "The Rolling Stones!". Although college-aged kids have access to an archive of music on YouTube, what they don't know about iconic music can be pretty shocking.

Here is PSY performing Gangnam Style at the Expo in July, check out the crowd reaction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byUFg7pyBP4

And a few of our Student Ambassadors did a video at Expo for a flash mob dance routine contest of the Wonder Girls' "Like This" (another big K-Pop band): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jpZBBDat6M

Last...the energy in Korea is palpable, you can feel the entire country on the upswing, becoming a key player in Asia and one of the most important economies in the world. Seoul is a super vibrant city, very trendy and it has some of the best food anywhere. Definitely worth a visit if you are ever back in that part of the world.

Take Care,

Andrew Snowhite




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