The story of the Gangnam Style song that made PSY a millionaire
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The hit song Gangnam Style was released on 15 July 2012 and climbed to the top of the Korean charts. In November of the same year, the music video for the song took the first position among the most viewed videos on YouTube. The video retained the top position on the resource until the summer of 2017.
Other achievements of the clip include an MTV award and a Guinness Book of World Records for the record number of likes.
Gangnam Style's rise to fame
When the song was first released, only a few K-pop fans knew about it. PSY himself said that he had no plans to promote the song outside of South Korea at all. It was a track intended for local fans only.
They played a major role in spreading the song around the world. The fans started posting the track so intensively on their Factbook and Twitter accounts that the whole internet soon took notice of the song.
The track's first victory was winning the Music Bank Korean music competition in August 2012. In September, Gangnam Style reached number one on the iTunes charts.
The world press wrote that the song was unstoppable, it was taking over the planet. The clip was called the best video of all time ever to appear on YouTube. And on 1 December 2012, the video became the most viewed video in the history of the Internet. It reached one billion views on 21 December 2012.
On 12 August 2012, Gangnam Style was re-released with the addition of a female voice. The single was titled Oppa Is Just My Style. Korean singer Hyuna sang along with PSY.
What the song is about and how much PSY earned from the video
The song became a kind of revolution in the world show business. Before its appearance, the success of any song was determined mainly by the popularity of the track in the developed countries of Europe and America. Gangnam Style shifted this vector towards other parts of the world.
The video now has 3.5 billion views. YouTube pays the channel 1-4 dollars per 1000 views. It turns out that PSY earned at least three and a half million dollars just from the online video. And the number of sold digital copies of the single in the world is now even difficult to count.
The audience was captivated not only by the song itself, but also by the incendiary dance performed in PSY's video. The moves were repeated on stage by Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Madonna and even Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary General.
The lyrics of Gangnam Style are as simple and light as the tune itself. The lyrics are about an attractive and hot girl, modest in appearance, who knows how to have fun. The track is performed on behalf of a guy who also seems modest, but "he's got more ideas than muscles", but when the night comes he transforms and lights up just like the beautiful girl he's addressing.
The chorus "Oppan gang-namseutayil" is only fully understood by Koreans. "Gangnam-gu is an elite administrative district in Seoul. The luxurious life led by its residents has given rise to the slang phrase "Gangnam Style." It is a synonym for glamour, "ponts" and partying.
And the expression "Oppan" has nothing to do with our "oppa". Young Korean girls can use this word to refer to a brother, a fellow student, a colleague, a close acquaintance, etc. The meaning varies depending on the situation and to whom the address is addressed. So it can be "friend", "brother", "dude", "dear", "sweetheart", etc.
