Opinion | 10 years after Psy’s Gangnam Style, has a K-pop song ever hit in the same way?
- South Korean pop has grown in popularity exponentially over the last decade, but few songs have brought the world together like Psy’s 2012 hit did
- Does it even really matter? Just because songs are less likely to cross fan divides, it does not mean that the music is unsuccessful
On July 15, 2012, South Korean pop star Psy released Gangnam Style, a satirical tune that would go on to become what was once the biggest South Korean hit of all time. It captured the attention of the world, and became the first music video to pass 1 billion views on YouTube.
Ten years later, Gangnam Style’s legacy as a history-making hit is undeniable. But since then, many other South Korean acts, such as BTS and Blackpink, have set their own records, whether it’s by selling millions of albums, racking up hundred of millions of streams, or topping charts around the world. K-pop has grown exponentially, and K-pop acts have become some of the most in-demand collaborators for artists around the world.
Definitive proof that, 10 years after Gangnam Style, K-pop is bigger and better than ever came again in the past few days, via two midyear metrics.
On July 17, South Korea’s Circle Chart, recently renamed from the Gaon Chart, revealed that 34.9 million copies of the top 400 physical albums had been sold in the country in the first half of 2022. That’s up 34.6 per cent from the same period in 2021 and more than three times the figure from the same period in 2018.
Then there was the release of the midyear report by American music tracking organisation Luminate, formerly known as Nielsen Music. Of the top 10 albums sold in the US (digital and physical), three of them were from Korean acts: BTS’s Proof was second, behind Harry Styles’ Harry’s House; Stray Kids’ Oddinary ranked sixth; and Tomorrow X Together’s Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child ranked 10th.
In terms of physical CD album sales tracked by Luminate (i.e. not including vinyl sales), BTS’s Proof (1st), Stray Kids’ Oddinary (2nd) and Tomorrow X Together’s Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child (4th) were joined by Seventeen’s Face the Sun (8th), NCT 127’s Sticker (9th), and Enhypen’s Dimension: Answer (10th).
