We check back in on a certain K-Pop artist who first crossed our radar almost nine months ago…
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Alfred Soto: A guy who didn’t notice “Gangnam Style” until it conquered the world last summer, I won’t hedge this time, dammit, not when “Gentleman” is the “Let’s Twist Again” of global YouTube meme-pop.
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Anthony Easton: Well that’s one way of following up a one hit wonder — making a track that sounds just close enough for memory, but far enough away from total boredom, with the same sing along chorus. Most of the points come from cracking the formula.
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Will Adams: He’s tired. Not in the “washed-up” sense, but literally tired. I don’t know how else to explain a synth lead so sleepy. Even the dance is low energy.
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Brad Shoup: With the Billboard landscape freshly aerated, the time is even nower for Psy’s puckish virality. Just like before, he hasn’t released a single so much as a second-screen-required experience: you need visuals to decode “wet Psy,” and his pensivity dance will drive the EDM squiggles further into your skull. He’s streamlined the text, outfitting large chunks with devilish melody, upping the quotables while keeping things 70 per cent Korean-language. Even though I hoped the fifth listen of “Gangnam Style” would be my last, I still adore his canniness and tight-assed weirdo energy. And, honestly, he provides the remove I don’t carve out for LMFAO or Pitbull. It’s not a huge remove, though: as an ironist, he’s a great dancer.
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Frank Kogan: Like “Harlem Shake,” this track has no give. But “Harlem Shake” throws us around, while this just loops. Its video isn’t as inventive in its meanness as it needs to be, but is what gets this over: nice guy, wants to hurt people, isn’t sure if he’s joking.
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Patrick St. Michel: Come with me back to late 2012 and let’s reflect on all the thinkpieces written in the stead of “Gangnam Style.” Weren’t a lot of them a little over the top? While folks typed out essays on the Korean credit-card industry and flexed 101-level knowledge, the reason it blew up seems obvious now: “Gangnam Style is an intentionally funny video perfectly suited for kids raised on YouTube marathons and Family Guy, it came with a built-in meme, and sonically it slid in nicely with EDM music. In Japan, “Gangnam Style” appears on compilations trying to teach folks what EDM is, and it’s less shocking hearing it on the radio after hearing everything else on the radio. For the follow-up single “Gentleman,” Psy wisely sticks to the role of EDM’s funnyman, running with the same sonic template as “Gangnam,” albeit lacking a bit of the rush of his viral hit. Also credit to Psy for not making the classical K-Pop mistake of trying too hard to win over the Western market (this is mostly in Korean, and that’s great) and maybe making a joke about “condom style” with the “mother father gentleman” line. It’s a good little dance song, not spectacular but solid, that will most likely not get probed as deeply as that other single. And thank goodness for that.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: South Korean pop veteran follows up inexplicable worldwide hit with an even more inexplicable gumbo of Kitsune blog-house and novelty song oontz-oontz; aforementioned pop veteran yelling over it that he’s a “motherfather” and goofily stating his name whilst performing a terrible Tupac impression (“West PSYYYYYYYY,” it sounds like). At this point past the “Gangnam Style” phenomenon, I feel that there’s little interest in whether he can continue to have international success with his music, but more investment in whether or not he can pull off weirdo stunts like “Gentleman” every couple of seasons. It’s official: there are no rules anymore.
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