Gangnam Agonistes
In other apocalyptic news, we see that “Gangnam Style” became earlier today the first video ever to attract one billion hits on YouTube. (That’s “one thousand million” in Oxford, or “one hundred crore” in Bombay.) We decided it was time to look at it ourself, having ignored K-pop these last twelve years. We were impressed.
We wrote something about the Korean popular music scene from Seoul in anno 2000, in the moment when Park Ji-yoon’s “Sung In Shik” (Coming of Age) was playing on every city radio. It struck us then as the catchiest throbbing dance tune of all time. But with lyrics that ought not to be translated, for the sweet willowy innocent young songstress, already popular in that teen mode, had become megastar by makeover into a Bad Girl. We could not get the tune out of our head; even while reflecting upon the moral devastation it was working.
Only a generation before, the juke boxes of Seoul had been loaded with classical, especially strings. We wrote then of Korea as “the land of the Baroque cello.” But time flies.
The pop scenes of Korea, China, & Japan were among the journalistic topics of our fin-de-siècle Far Eastern tour, which included a brief encounter with the Taipei Mandopop sensation, Elva Hsiao, then still living with her mother. She had gone from foreign-student visa issues in some forelorn Vancouver community college to the top of the Hong Kong charts, overnight. Her hit, “Qiangwei” (Rose) was then playing on the pop TV channel in every hotel room down the Western Pacific Rim; & she wove a spell even over us with such passages of Sinitic femme-fatale bilingualism as:
Zhi jue ni shi ge leng jing ai hen shen de ren, do you know —
You don’t know?
Unfortunately we lost our bloc-notes from that journey, so can no longer contrive search terms for several mostly Red Chinese singers, whose minor hits were musically interesting, whose videos were actually in good taste, & who may therefore by now have sunk into oblivion.
It was fun at the time for a person rather poorly acquainted with Western pop music, to try to make sense of its Asian derivatives. One could see that occidental models provided the opposite of an homogenizing influence, for it was dead easy to distinguish one local style from another, each tending to reinforce the current national stereotype. In general, we noticed that e.g. the Japanese were obsessed with sex, the Koreans were obsessed with love, & the Chinese were not obsessed. (By now perhaps they are all operating in the sex-only zone.)
Park Jae-sung, better known as Psy, the artist of “Gangnam Style,” is a good-heartedly vicious satirist. Gangnam is a neighbourhood in Seoul, equivalent to Rosedale or the Annex in Toronto — where the smug, sophisticated, gliberal people live in their big houses with their muchmoney & pretensions to class. It would seem the whole video was designed as an affront to them, & we shall therefore award it the Gold Reactionary Star. The dance style — riding an imaginary horse with hand twirling lasso — was wonderfully conceived to deliver this affront to an array of background Gangnam symbols, somewhat vulgarized. The video went viral to the grief of the cooler K-pop connoisseurs, who had no intention of sharing their joy with the world. But of course, they are among the targets Psy is mocking.
I have to admit, the sunglasses are cool c
David, I know next to nothing about modern pop music, which is still too much, despite the fact that one can’t get away from the stuff, it is omnipresent. I congratulate you, however, on your concept of the ‘Reactionary Gold Star’, and would propose Bob Dylan’s ‘Foot of Pride’ as the greatest reactionary pop song ever written. Have you heard it? You will find it difficult to dance to, however.
Oh, and ‘The Future’ by your fellow-Canadian, Leonard Cohen, deserves honourable mention.
I did not watch the “thing” because I have no desire today of a that kind of beat in my head. Thanks anyway. With grey skies yet again, ice-covered sidewalks and a dog that must be walked nevertheless, my “head-tune” this morning is “The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.”
David, I know you care about our language and you use it evocatively. I wonder if you would use “issue” less, if ever, unless you are referring to a magazine? I quote, “She had gone from foreign-student visa issues…”
Am I being too picky? I hope to cheer up soon. I know great joy will come to me Christmas Eve as I picture Our Lady’s joy as she awaits the birth of her baby and our Saviour.
I think you should do a music video too. I would watch it!
“One could see that occidental models provided the opposite of an homogenizing influence, for it was dead easy to distinguish one local style from another…”
I appreciate this observation as it’s not something one would consider normally. I wonder if most really are operating in the sex-only zone? In any case it is interesting to see what a culture expresses through a borrowed popular medium such as pop music. I must look more closely during my next encounter.
Alas, Mr Clint, we wasted much paper, towards the end of the last century, trying to explain East to West, or Asia to America. What we discovered is that North Americans, like everyone else, are interested only in themselves. They may therefore read avidly what foreigners have to say about them — freaking when it is not flattering enough. And they will read about how the whole world is homogenizing & turning into America.
The market for anything that challenges this view — the view that, in effect, “the whole world wishes it were us” — is insignificant. And of course, not “us as we are” but “us as we fondly imagine.”
Hence the incredible levels of stupidity in “mainstream” reporting on e.g. the Arab Spring. Hence, for that matter, the habit of reading Tocqueville (if at all) with extreme selectivity, as if 1. he were praising “Jacksonian democracy” & as if 2. that ever existed.
We do not mean to pick especially on the Yankees, by the way. They are no more parochial than anyone else, & a bit less than some owing to their foreign entanglements. Up here in Canada we are also under the impression that Canada is “exceptional” & the envy of the planet. All of our politicians reinforce this illusion, & vie to express it in the most fatuous way. Whereas, the planet does not care enough about Canada even to despise our smugness.
She had gone from foreign-student visa issues in some forelorn Vancouver community college to the top of the Hong Kong charts, overnight.
What was so forlorn about it?