On July 15, 2012, came out the delirious clip of a certain Psy, Gangnam Style , mocking Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district. The title of this South Korean artist touched the whole world and chained records. But also paved the way for other Korean artists, foreshadowing the wave of K-pop that would sweep the world, and helped usher in the streaming revolution.
• Chain records
Four months after its release, the clip had already accumulated 805 million views on Youtube, reaching the record for the most watched video, a place it kept for more than three years. Gangnam Style was also the first video in history to reach the symbolic threshold of one billion views on the platform. The clip has so far been viewed nearly 4.5 billion times.
• A viral dance
His signature “horse-riding” dance has given rise to a slew of parodies and emulators: on prime-time television in the United States, in an English football stadium and even at the White House, the President of the United States of America. he era of Barack Obama having declared that his daughters had taught him “a very good Gangnam Style”.
• The streaming revolution
Gangnam Style demonstrated to the music industry the power of influence of online platforms and social media, especially for non-Western artists who do not perform in English.
“Traditional marketing and advertising manuals have been thrown out the window,” said Bernie Cho, president of Seoul-based creative agency DFSB and an expert on the South Korean music industry.
In 2012, the streaming industry was still in its infancy, providing less than 7% of music revenue worldwide, according to music industry federation IFPI.
Ten years later, streaming is the main source of revenue for the global music industry – 65% in 2021, according to IFPI – with content available online via subscription services, YouTube and or short video apps. like TikTok.
The buzz generated by Gangnam Style and viral phenomena such as Harlem Shake also pushed the Billboard in 2013 to transform the way it achieves its rankings, adding streams on YouTube and other platforms to the traditional figures for record sales and radio streams.
• A bridgehead for K-pop in Europe
Finally, the incredible success of Gangnam Style has helped pave the way for artists all over the world to not only publish their music but also earn online advertising revenue and get called up for gigs.
Gangnam Style also rocked South Korea, overnight becoming the country’s biggest cultural export and a source of national pride. Because if today groups like BTS or Blackpink are known and adored all over the world, the K-pop groups which had tried to break through internationally before 2012 had only experienced regional success in Asia, without succeed in establishing themselves in lucrative Western markets such as the United States.
If he did not find an identical success with his following titles and albums, Psy therefore had the merit of playing the scouts for K-pop artists and Korean culture, which today permeates all sectors, with its series (Squid Game), his comics (Webtoons), his cinema and his cooking.