PSY's “Gentleman” video passes 100 million views setting World Record

SEOUL--(Korea Newswire)--The ‘Gentleman’ music video, released at 9pm on the 13th set a new world record after reaching 100 million views after only 4 days. It’s the fastest time an event reached 100 million views in the history of the internet.

Most people would agree that the greatest singers in the global pop history are Elvis Presley of the ‘50s, Beatles of the ’60s, and Michael Jackson of the ‘80s and ’90s. When the global singer Psy captivated the world with hit song ‘Gangnam Style,’ lots of Americans downgraded him as an unsophisticated singer. Furthermore, there were criticisms at home and abroad, accusing the song as low quality music and ‘one-hit wonder‘. However, the worldwide popularity of his new music video ’Gentleman' fundamentally changed the evaluation.

On the 13th, a global singer Psy’s new music video ‘Gentleman’ was released and it instantly captivated the world, thanks to the ‘B-list song’ and ‘B-list humor’ of the ‘B-list singer’, as Psy says. Within 24 hours after the release, the record of Justin Bieber‘s ’Boyfriend‘ which attracted 8 million views on YouTube was easily broken by Psy’s ’Gentleman‘ with 18 million views. In less than 65 hours after the release, the number of YouTube views of ’Gentleman‘ exceeded 80 million, setting unprecedented records in the music video history. Now lots of people are wondering “How far the popularity of the new song ’Gentleman’ will lead to?“ and “Will it go beyond the singer’s greatest hit ‘Gangnam Style’?”

Conservative music critics who downgraded Psy overlooked the global music trend of 2010s. It is the beginning of ‘active two-way music video’ era involving participation of internet users by watching, hearing, creating and enjoying together, which is completely different from the auditory music of Elvis Presley and visual music of Michael Jackson. For instance, the average-looking Canadian singer, Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit song ‘Call Me Maybe‘ was extremely popular in 2012, thanks to numerous parody videos. The 3 core components of modern music videos are described as [humor, turnaround, and fun] and ‘Gangnam Style’ was a perfect fit. In addition to the 3 components, ’Gentleman’ is equipped with title and lyrics in English for wider globalization and contains black comedy about gentleman that appeals to anyone. As a result, the song will produce more parody videos and the popularity will exceed 'Gangnam Style.’

The Korean Wave Research Institute (KWRI), which had predicted a billion views at YouTube for the first time in the world and stimulation of tourism in Gangnam, attributed the popularity of 'Gangnam Style’ to the competitiveness of global singer Psy. According to KWRI, Psy(Park Jae-sang) is a genius in the show business and instinctively knows what the public wants. In addition, he is smart enough to get into a prestigious American university after studying for a short time and has a good understanding of PR and marketing. He comes from a wealthy family in Gangnam and a millionaire of top 0.1%. He is an extraordinary singer who knows how to attract popularity with his hilarious gestures and hiding his claws. Although he acts modest by saying ‘Gangnam Style’ craze was based on pure luck, his success is largely based on his unique words and actions.

In this day and age, performance on YouTube is more meaningful than Billboard. “Psy’s 'Gentleman’ is expected to outperform ‘Gangnam Style’ by becoming the number one on the U.S. Billboard chart and the UK singles chart, based on its performance on YouTube," says Han, Seung-Bum (former Han Koo-Hyun), the president of KWRI. “The question is how long it could maintain its number one status, rather than whether it could become the number one.”

In addition, president Han provided a positive outlook on the future of Psy.

“Now he is a rival of Justin Bieber, the world’s top star. His every song attracts over 100 million views, but Psy will challenge his popularity by garnering at least 500 million views for his every single new song. If Psy releases another mega-hit after 'Gentleman’, he will rise to become the world’s greatest singer by exceeding the 3.5 billion views of Justin Bieber on YouTube, in terms of total number of views.”

“Ten years from now, people would mention Psy in the same sentence as Elvis Presley, Beatles, and Michael Jackson,” predicted President Han.

Korean Wave Research Institute(KWR, http://www.haanryu.comI)
Korean Wave, the front runner of Korean culture reaching out to the world. Korean Wave that has the foundation of excellence and mobility of Korean culture has captivated the people on the world to add its power on daily basis has become the representative culture icon of Korea. Korean Wave Research Institute (KWRI) is committed to undertake aggressive effort to expand the power of Korean Wave for entire world by undertaking the research on Korean Wave, survey of influence and analysis of demand, presentation of advancement direction for steady advancement and expansion of power for Korean Wave. KWRI will place its best effort for delivering graceful, friendly and powerful Korean culture and unlimited advancement of Korean Wave through profound understanding and research of Korean Wave.

Website: http://www.haanryu.com

This is a news release distributed by Korea Newswire on behalf of this company.