PSY And The Acceptable Asian Man

By Guest Contributor refresh_daemon, cross-posted from init_music

The song of the hour.

So, by now, pretty much everybody who covers Korean music and a batch of mainstream international publications have had something to say about PSY’s “Gangnam Style”, which has, as of the writing of this post, had over 190 million views on YouTube, become an internet sensation, led to Psy getting airplay over the radio in some larger metropolitan cities in the US, and even got him signed to the record label that represents Justin Bieber. And while everyone I know that follows Korean music knows PSY, even my friends and peers who otherwise don’t care a thing about Korean or Asian media know about PSY and holler “Oppa Gangnam Style” along with him.

Much has been said about the viral sensation, breaking down the best moments of the video, examining whether or not this is a boon to Korean music’s attempts to break into one of the most lucrative music markets in the world, and some pieces even went deep into the actual meaning of “Gangnam Style.” And I was happy to let everyone else talk about “Gangnam Style” and its place in our world…except that I still have yet to read an article that hits one particular reason why I think “Gangnam Style” is so acceptable to Western audiences when every Korean and Japanese pop artist that tried to make it in America before has failed.

A Disclaimer:

Now, first of all, I need to say that there is no simple “one reason” why any one song succeeds or fails in any market, so even though I’m going to be focusing on a particular aspect of why I think “Gangnam Style” gained the popularity it did, it is actually just one component of many to explain why “Gangnam Style” caught on in America. Some of the obvious reasons why “Gangnam Style” is so popular are that the music is catchy and fun; there is a goofy, but relatively easy, dance attached to the song; there is a humorous music video for the song. I won’t need to explain the viral power of that.

Asian Pop Fails On American Shores

However, PSY does have the unusual position of being a phenomenon because he wasn’t trying to break into any international markets with “Gangnam Style.” It was cooked up for the home audience. On the other hand, a number of other pop artists from Asia, in particular J-Pop (Utada Hikaru) and K-Pop (Wonder Girls, Girls Generation, Rain, BoA, and PSY’s YG label-mate, Se7en) have all tried or are continuing to try to break into mainstream Western music markets with only limited success. Most of these artists have all seen a good deal of international success within Asia; certainly much more than Psy, who predominantly played to a Korean fanbase and hardly reached the level of success that his more popular label-mates, Big Bang and 2NE1, were able to reach even in Korea. So it’s a bit quizzical that it’s not the big stars of Asian pop, but PSY, a minor player, that truly made it big.

The pop stars that assailed the US made English versions of their songs, worked with American producers, got featured spots from high-profile artists, spent a nice amount of promotional money on music videos, and yet not a success story among them, only serving to cater to the niche audience that Asian media serves in the US. So, what went wrong?

Teddy Riley produced this track. That's right, Mr. New Jack Swing himself.

Well, there are definitely some cultural differences at play here and I’m not talking about East versus West. Specifically, boy and girl bands are not especially popular in the US at the moment, outside of the niche pre-teen market, and so the tightly choreographed multi-girl units of Girls Generation and Wondergirls were fighting an uphill battle at best for any sort of mainstream popularity. So, despite the polished dance routines, hitmaker-made songs, and bevy of attractive faces, there is simply a cultural limit to the capacity of their success.

The Asian Man Who Makes It

I was speaking to a non-Asian American friend of mine who has only a mild familiarity with Asian entertainment about the success of PSY and he lamented that of all riches of cool art and pop that Asia has, it was the silliness of PSY that made it big. And that got me thinking that, yes, indeed, Asia has a lot of talented artists working in various forms of entertainment, and not a single one of them–despite being quite available to be seen, thanks to the power of social media–has ever broke the mainstream.

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