By ANGELIN YEOH
entertainment@thestar.com.my
Trapped by a tune: Psy has performed Gangnam Style all over the world, but his career needs to move forward.
BACK in March, South Korean rapper Psy was in Kuala Lumpur to perform at Future Music Festival Asia. He performed the hit single Gangnam Style twice to a crowd of over 25,000 partygoers and then dropped a bombshell.
“I don’t feel like a human being anymore, I’m a horse. It’s an honour to finish off nine months of Gangnam Style in Malaysia. Look out for my new single on April 12,” Psy said.
Released last July, Gangnam Style made Psy a global phenomenon. The music video currently holds the record as the most-viewed clip on YouTube with over one billion views and counting.
His other achievements include a win for Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Frankfurt, Germany, and Best Song and Video at Mnet Asian Music Awards in Hong Kong. Psy even performed the hit single at a new year’s eve celebration in Times Square, New York and shared the stage with American rapper MC Hammer.
However, music critics are not feeling Psy’s new single Gentleman which was released last month. In the video, Psy behaves anything but a gentleman. He plays a useless boyfriend who lets his date fall on the floor and laughs at a girl for falling off the treadmill in the gym. He shows off his rebellious side by kicking safety cones on the road and harassing girls in bikini. He also showcases a new dance move he calls the “arrogant dance”.
David Trifunov of The Global Post felt the single is not breaking any new ground for Psy.
“It feels strikingly similar to his smash hit (Gangnam Style) and it gravitated into a more tactless territory,” said Trifunov.
The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis agreed.
“The single is a fairly standard-issue pop dance single with rave-y synthesisers, four to the floor house beats and lyrics about a girl being so freakin’ sexy,” he said.
Rolling Stone magazine associate editor Simon Vozick-Levinson said it would be impossible for Psy to replicate the success of Gangnam Style with Gentleman.
“It (Gangnam Style) was a freak occurrence. It was just the right combination of factors and it’s very hard to replicate that,” Vozick-Levinson said.
He added: “One-hit wonders are going to be more common in this day and age. YouTube hits are bigger than Billboard charts. It’s easier than ever to come out of nowhere with one incredibly catchy song and have it blow up out of control.”
Critics might dismissed Gentleman but Psy continues to break records. Just four days after its release, the video clocked 100 million views on YouTube. Currently, the video has more than 260 million views.
In an interview with MTV News, Psy revealed his gruelling schedule for Gentleman’s worldwide release last month.
“I released it on April 12, then the next day I had a huge concert in Korea – so that week was like hell,” he said.
“The same week, on Monday and Tuesday, I did the shooting for the video. Then on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we were editing and I was rehearsing and memorising all the chereography. So that was the worst week ever in my life.”
Writing the song was also another matter of personal torment to him.
“I honestly changed this song so many times. I was so nervous. My only goal was to avoid being called a one-hit wonder.”
He might have just succeeded in doing that. While many are quick to label Psy a one-hit wonder, statistics show otherwise. Gentleman has managed to find its way to the No.5 spot on US Billboard Hot 100 (Gangnam Style peaked at No.2) and hit the top 10 in Britain.
The song also went to No.1 on the iTunes chart.
The public has spoken and the numbers have proven that Psy is not a one-hit wonder. So, can we stop saying his name in the same breath as Vanilla Ice?
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