‘Gangnam Style’: The first YouTube video to hit 1 billion views turns 10
Ten years back right now, Psy released “Gangnam Style.” In the hazy rear window of our collective memory, the observe may possibly look like a silly little pop music we clumsily imitated with good friends or relatives for a summer. In reality, “Gangnam Type” shifted the overall landscape of music and online video society to enable make the online we know now.
The tune transformed meme lifestyle (by inspiring remixes and covers), contributed to the dominance of on line video clip (by reaching new heights of virality via sharing), and modernized the new music industry at big (by urging overall performance charts to account for songs movie views in addition to radio overall performance). It was also the very first ever YouTube video clip to hit 1 billion views.
It took “Gangnam Type” just 159 times to access that mark and it would be the only member of the “Billion Views Club” for a 12 months, till Justin Bieber’s “Newborn” matched it. “Gangnam Fashion” was earning 14.8 million views in a single working day at its peak, and is even now racking up 900k views per working day, according to YouTube. The music movie is among the the 10-most seen music videos in the platform’s heritage with 4.4 billion sights.
Psy suggests BTS has achieved the ‘unfulfilled dreams’ of ‘Gangnam Style’
The song’s legacy, nevertheless, is additional than just staggering quantities. In 2012, Psy was by now an set up artist in South Korea. And whilst the globe turned “Gangnam Fashion” into a meme, the track reworked Psy into a countrywide treasure. In 2016, a towering bronze statute of the dance’s signature crossed wrists was unveiled in the Gangnam district. Other “Gangnam Type”-themed image ops are sprinkled all over the district, showcasing lifestyle-sized outlines of Psy mid-prance.
The singer has ongoing to obtain achievement in South Korea, with hits like 2015’s “Daddy” and 2017’s “New Facial area.” In 2018, Psy founded his have label, P Nation, which has speedily grown into a big participant in the South Korean tunes business. Its roster includes Hyuna (who, exciting reality, starred in the Gangnam Type music video clip), Dawn, Crush, and Heize.
In April, even though selling the solitary “That That,” a collaboration with BTS’s Suga, Psy reflected on how Gangnam Design expanded alternatives for South Korean artists. He explained the modern reputation of South Korean acts like BTS and Blackpink in the West as the “reverse” of his viral instant, noting that they accomplished a “permanence and persistence” he could not. BTS in certain “accomplished unfulfilled goals,” like reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Very hot 100 with 2020’s “Dynamite” (“Gangnam Style” peaked at No. 2 on the chart, bested by Maroon 5’s “One Additional Night time”).
“Gangnam Design and style” may not have offered Psy with the variety of world wide longevity he sought after, but its viral music video most likely prompted Billboard to modify its charting criteria to reduce the relevance of radio enjoy and involve YouTube streams. That transform instantly impacted not just South Korean functions, but every musician who has produced perform on YouTube. “Even for the famous BTS and Blackpink,” Psy mentioned, “the wall of American radio is pretty higher mainly because the tracks are in a international language. Our biggest weapon is YouTube.”
“If they carry on like this, even though they are not accomplishing new music for the sake of raising countrywide prestige, I think they are providing [Korea] a whole lot of happy moments,” Psy additional about BTS. “I experience pretty very pleased that I experienced a part in currently being that result in. BTS have thanked me for that part many moments, so I’m happy of it.”
