Beware, users of the Internet. PSY is back.
On Saturday, PSY debuted his new single “Gentleman” at a packed concert in Seoul’s World Cup Stadium, and has also released the video online, Rolling Stone reports.
So, I took the plunge and decided to watch it. It had to be done. And in the end, the music video is exactly what most people will expect – pure fun. The song isn’t particularly great, and PSY obviously isn’t your typical pop star. But PSY has probably found another massive hit, if only because his name and style will make the video a must-see for anyone who’s ever even heard of “Gangnam Style.”
The video, which includes comedian Yoo Jae Suk and K-pop singer Ga In from the group Brown Eyed Girls, clearly had a huge budget. Over the course of the video, PSY dances around with hundreds of extras in a wide variety of environments: a library, a massive stage, a party, a department store, you name it.
In these milieus, he plays all manner of childish pranks on unsuspecting people, including pulling a chair out from someone before she sits down, cranking up the dial on a treadmill so its user can’t keep up and pressing every button in an elevator with a man who clearly has to go to the bathroom.
In one particularly funny example (that perhaps could have used another take), PSY kicks a soccer ball away from a group of playing children, but he clearly mishits the ball, which flies almost straight up into the air. PSY is undeterred. And through all these pranks, he grins and declares that he’s a “mother father gentleman.” It’s sarcasm in its most obvious form.
Which gets me to what is perhaps the most vital part of the video: the signature dance. After the horse gallop-esque move that helped to make “Gangnam Style” such an Internet phenomenon, PSY chose to keep things relatively simple for “Gentleman.” The song’s signature move is a single hip sway from side to side, with the occasional 360 circular turn, borrowed from the Brown Eyed Girls’ 2009 hit single “Abracadabra.” He also uses a variation on the Soulja Boy “Superman” move, but that’s in a supporting role.
I’ll confess, I never quite got the craze for “Gangnam Style,” and I won’t be re-watching the video for “Gentleman” over and over again either. But it will no doubt be inordinately successful because PSY’s success is not based on his musical talent. I believe it’s based on his attitude, gleeful and sarcastic, completely aware that what he’s doing is entirely meant to entertain. And it does just that.
It’s there for fun, I know, but the massive international success of PSY’s videos does make me wish certain other artists could garner such success. That being said, who knows how many artists would even want to be the kind of massive YouTube sensation that PSY has become? It’s an interesting definition of success, and I’m sure different musicians would have very different opinions.
But one thing’s for sure. PSY will be grinning on computer screens everywhere within the next couple of weeks, and he’ll be making plenty of money in the process.
Email Bain at abain@media.ucla.edu.