Hey, everyone, welcome back to Rewind and React. I'm Adam Eltarhoni. And I'm Rob Fine. And today we are introducing something a little different a brand new format. We are calling One Shot. One shot is where we talk about an artist that might not have a ton of great music videos. We could break down in a full episode, but they do have that one video that hit the mainstream and made a major impact. And instead of letting those videos fall through the cracks, we decided they deserved their shot too. So buckle up. It is quick, it is focused, and it is a celebration of those iconic videos that helped define an artist's career. Today we are going to cover 2012 hit Gangnam Style by Cy Loper. Gangnam Style. Gangnam style whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa Gundam Stop. Gangnam style. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. I'm done, I'm done.
Yes! Gangnam style music video is a colorful, surreal, and highly energetic satire of South Korean high society, specifically targeting the wealthy and fashionable residents of Seoul's Gangnam district. The video follows Cy as he dances in a wide variety of absurd and exaggerated settings like a beach, a playground, a luxury stable, subway station, parking garage, all while performing the now iconic horse dance. Despite the lavish backdrops and flashy outfits, everything portrayed is in a intentionally ridiculous and over-the-top way, highlighting how artificial the glamorous lifestyle can be. Sy is joined by a variety of quirky characters, including a young boy, aka Little Cy, showing off his slick dance moves. A man in a cowboy hat doing pelvic thrust in an elevator. And Hyuna, a K-pop star who flirts with Cy in a subway car.
This one is fun and I think we're past our like MTV. This was, I assume, released on YouTube when this came out, and I don't even know what you were up to, what we were up to. But like what was your thoughts when you saw this for the first time? Yeah, this is the video that broke YouTube. That kind of technically for real. I remember people talking about it before I saw it, saying, like, there's this ridiculous video. I think it might be from Saturday Night Live in Korea. Like nobody really knew where it came from. And like how it just suddenly took over America. But this was such a odd approach to a video that I. Yeah, I think just nobody knew when we're watching it. Are we making fun of it? Are we enjoying it? Like what? What what's happening here? Including Sy himself. Like, nobody in Korea expected this to be big over here. Like he didn't think it was going to, like, blow up. And so when the video came out, his label's like, hey, you got to check out YouTube. We've got a lot of really weird comments, and they're all in different languages. And like, he's like, you know, I keep having to get people to translate these things for me. I didn't know what everybody was saying. But yeah, huge sensation that it grew into. And I think it's funny, when it first came out, everybody was like kind of pointing and laughing at it, but it didn't take long for everybody to be like, oh, I want to watch that again. I want to watch that again. And the song was so catchy, they picked up that, yeah, we can laugh at it because he wants us to laugh at it. You know, it's it's intentionally over-the-top and absurd. And who has not tried this dance right.
Exactly. Yeah. You know, it's funny you say that because I think. When was Rebecca Black Friday released? Was this around the same time? It's got to be close to the same time? Yeah, because I feel like that, you know, everyone watched Friday and they were making fun of it for how silly it was. So was that like, it was this this the time period. And, you know, we had a lot of those, like, crazy dance anthems. Party rock was around the same time, I think maybe a little earlier. But there was this, like, maybe this is the phase of like ridiculous music videos and people going online and making fun of things to a kind of extreme extent. And when this came out and it was definitely what's this silliness Korean song that we're watching, but it's so over the top. It's so silly that you're right. People were like, let's watch it again. So I've got a little timeline for your party rock anthem came out in January of 2011. Rebecca Black's Friday came out in February 2011. So this came out about a year later. So we were already like, you know, embracing that goofy video. Obviously Friday was a little different. If it wasn't intentional, it must be something we all laugh at. But Gangnam Style clearly was.
Yeah. So I think good timing, right? Like maybe if this was released now, I don't know, I feel like K-pop will become so mainstream that it might have just been like lost in the sea of K-pop, but maybe not, I don't know. And if it came out earlier, I don't know. You know, without YouTube around, would it have been such a like big thing? But it was good timing, I think. Yeah. Well, so again, they had never intended for this to be big in the US. K-pop had really struggled to get a foothold in the United States market. There's like several groups that tried Snsd or Girls Generation 21, Wonder Girls. Tiara had all like made an attempt to break into the US market and it was just it wasn't working. And yeah, like I said, I didn't even try to do it. It just once it hit YouTube, the US got Ahold of it and that virality happened. It didn't just break them all to hit a grand slam. It it opened the door for K-pop. Search results tripled within the next year for K-pop songs, and they just continued to grow and grow. He laid the groundwork. There was some Korean producer, he said. He built the bridge to America for K-pop artists today.
Which is crazy because again, you probably look into him, but like, he's been around for a while before this video or the song even came out, he was a Korean rapper, I think since their early 90s, early 2000. So yeah, I believe this was his eighth album, actually, that this came off of. He'd already had a lot of chart toppers in Korea, and they did expect this song to do well in Korea. They just didn't expect it to become a worldwide phenomenon. He had a song in the some World Cup. I don't even know where it took place, but yeah, he was featured on some World Cup album or whatever. So he was. Like, maybe like a FIFA or something. Yeah, he was already pretty big before this, but yeah, this one exploded and we kind of mentioned that it broke YouTube. This is the first video to hit 1 billion views. Also the first 2 billion views. And it actually broke YouTube's counter system. YouTube had to go in and like quickly do some coding changes to handle all these higher numbers. Because this song had just rapidly started racking up those views. And it's still, I think today it's like the third most watched music video on YouTube. Despacito, I think, might be the top one.
Yeah. So I mean, continuing the views means it has staying power. What do you think? Like what do you think that video did that made it such a rewatch? Well, the level of absurdity, I think in everything he's doing, you know, he replicates what we saw in all the small things. The blink 182 music video that we recently discussed, even to the fact that he's like, you know, it looks like he's, you know, in a luxurious let's get what he's actually trying to replicate there. But once we zoom out, we see he's on the toilet. You know, it's the same thing that you saw in like my iTunes video. I think the song is super catchy. It's got that fun dance that everybody loves to watch or dance along to, and the video is so fast paced and has so much going on. He has just that level of like absurdity that he's having fun with everything. It it's it's a fun watch all around.
Yeah, yeah. And I think the colors are really nice. Like it's a very bright video, even if it's like a cloudy day in some of the scenes. And you're right, the level of energy I think really helps too, because there's a lot going on. But he stays at that high energy throughout the whole shoot, the whole video, and you get those, I think, and some of the things I like, they're like the absurd scenes where in like he's walking and like the debris is blowing by him and the girls, and then there's, it's supposed to be snow, I guess, but it's like foam, and he's leaning into it, and you can even see, like, the phones falling in their mouth, and they're trying not to laugh and they're trying to, like, cover their face because they're like, what's going on here? But he just he keeps going with it. It's really cool. And yeah, I guess hopping into these scenes that we don't know about, I don't know how many old people tour busses that have disco balls, but he's on this bus. He's standing on the chairs, he's singing full Force and everything like that. While this is just happening.
Yeah, there's like that, like a it's like a satire of materialism, I guess. You know, he's parodying these people trying to look rich and cool and important. And the joke is that, like, he acts like he's living a luxurious lifestyle, but he's in these absurd places doing it. You know, he looks like he's on a beach, but he's actually on an empty playground. He's acting like he's on like a prestigious limo with, you know, everything. But he's actually on a city bus. So. Yeah, it's it's an Instagram live before Instagram. Right. Really? Right. Well, I guess Instagram was around, but it wasn't as big as it is now. Right. People weren't making. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that influencer lifestyle. Yeah. And you mentioned a good scene. I do like you like the beginning scene hooks you because you see him in sunglasses and then you. Right. It zooms out to a kid's playground and he's sitting there like tanning and whatnot, or not even tanning because he's wearing a full suit. That first few seconds really hooks you because you're like, okay, what is this? And but before you even process what's going on, you know, cuts to the next scene and it cuts to the next scene and it cuts to he's riding Invisible Horse or doing the horse dance, and he's in a stable. These people are walking backwards. Does he like approaching them? And everything's there's so much to happen that you really are just trying to catch up the whole time.
And yeah, he's laughing at himself just as much as he's laughing at society. Right. So we once again, like blink 182, we get that self-deprecating humor that makes it feel not mean spirited, but rather light and playful. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, this was planned to be big in Korea, and the main people are all Korean stars. First of all, there's that little kid who's on like, Korea's Got Talent that they found and they're like, oh, let's see if he wants to do this breakdancing or, you know, Michael Jackson style dancing in the video. And then the guy who looks like a minion who's like, in this all yellow suit, he's apparently a famous Korean, I think comedian or someone like, that's very you, Jae Suk, as the name of the guy. And so I was talking about this during a rolling Stone article that's breaking down the video, and he's like, yeah, we just like kind of improv. And I didn't want to take up too much of his time. So we only did like a few shots and a few scenes, but they were like 30 moves. They were doing that. We're like, well, we can't use this in the video, but they just kind of filmed a lot of it. And then the guy who's doing like, the crotch dance is no Hong chul. And so I said, he's like a good friend of of him. And he came by actually, just to cheer him up and support the music video and then was like, well, why don't you come in and do your famous crotch dance and I'll stand under you in this elevator? And that's what they did. And so, again, you know, a lot of happenstance that really helped. And then you mentioned, you know, and a is that me saying her name. Right.
Hyuna actually, you know, I don't know if I've ever actually heard anybody say her name out loud. So I might be saying it completely wrong. Okay. Yeah. And she was from this girl group called Four Minute and even he was like about like when they were filming, she was like, well, what is this? This is so silly. What, what what am I supposed to be doing? And then once she realized, like, how much of a joke this was supposed to be because she's not used to kind of doing these silly things. She really leaned into it. And they, like, all had a good time. So the creation was they're created for definitely a Korean hit, but these factors just really like leaned into it. Yeah. Hyuna or however you say her name, I apologize to any Korean listeners. She was gigantic at this moment. Previously with the group for a minute, but she'd kind of gone off and done her own thing. Absolutely. One of the most successful female solo artists, like having gone solo from a group ever in K-pop history. We've gone to a few more now with, like, some of the Blackpink members and everything, but yeah, Yuna gigantic. She later released a spinoff of this song called Opa is Just My Style with sigh. Also in the video, did you happen to come across that? No, I have that.
So I really like her, you know? She's great. A lot of her songs are really fun. That one is rough. It's the voice she's doing. I guess she's trying to impersonate a girl who is really into the Gangnam guy, but oh, that voice that she's doing, it's it's a rough. Get to know. I will say there an SNL skit with Sy in it. Actually, he kind of makes like a cameo appearance where they're playing Gangnam Style over and over again, and, if you can find it. So I will say I couldn't find it on YouTube. I think probably there's like copyrights on the song, but you can find videos of people posting that on other sites. But really cool set up where Kenan and this other guy's, like, works at Lit Hat store and like, he's having kind of a bad day and like, I know it'll help. And he presses this button and so he comes out and they just play a little portion of that song and you're like, yeah, know what? That did boost my mood. And it's kind of kind of. They repeat that joke a few times to great effect until Axel Sy comes out and he's like singing. So it was a fun, fun little video. And I think the cool thing about that too, is with this made, this song is, you know, this video is such a hit and I don't know Korean. I don't know what the words are saying half the time, but the beat, the music, even this, what? Gangnam style open Gangnam Style. You could sing along to that, even if you don't know what's going on. And it still has a fun, like. Listen.
Yeah, absolutely. It's great without the language barrier. It's super seethes the language barrier. Lots of exaggerated body movements. The surprise reveals like the, like, sauna scene and the elevator shot. You don't need to understand what he's even talking about. You know, it's just such a fun video, a catchy beat, the silly dance that yeah, you don't need to be able to speak the language to appreciate the song. I think that's something that makes it great. I do want to hop back to that. The sauna scene, or more specifically, the scene at the end. They shot it at the sauna. But when he's in the pool and it looks like he's struggling to swim, that was the thing they just came up with. And actually the person in the background is a staff member at that sauna. And they just like, well, who wants to like come and be a part of this background of the scene and some guy volunteered, and now he's in that famous video that's been seen billions of times. Yeah. There you go, instant star power. I got a little game for you. Oh, okay.
You know, you mentioned how you from Four minute, a very famous K-pop band. So I've come up with the list of K-pop groups. I want you to tell me if they're real or not. I'm gonna start off easy for you.
BLACKPINK. According to your shirt. They are real. Yes.
BLUE GUSHERS. Fake. That is fake. Yes.
T-ARA. Yeah, I think I've seen you with that shirt as well. So I'm going to say real. They are real.
ORANGE CARAMEL. I want to say real. They are real. Yeah.
RE:VERB. And it's r e colon V e RB all capitalized. Okay I'm going to say no on this one. That is correct. That is correct. Yeah.
I'VE - I apostrophe v e all capitalized. I want to say yes real. They are real. Wow. You're killing this one. Yeah.
PuMPx3 - Pump pump pump. And it's spelled with a p a lowercase u uppercase m uppercase p, and then x three. It's got to be real. That's fake haha I gotcha. No no. Yeah. They throw in such weird like numbers and apostrophe or a yeah, weird things all over the place.
AFTER SCHOOL. I'm going to say real. Yeah, it is a real one. Yeah. Wow. Okay.
NxTRO. All capitalized. I'm going to say fake. They are fake.
BIG BANG. I gotta say real. Yeah. Wow. You're doing so much better this than I thought.
VI-VARA. VI dash VARA. I want to say real. They're a fake one.
TKE9O. And that's, all uppercase letters. Well, since our previous person was in for a minute, I'm going to try to say real. Another fake one.
SISTAR - like sister with an A instead of an E. That seems pretty real. They are real.
CRAYON POP - Like you're drawing with a crayon, let's say. Yeah, let's say fake. They're real. Yeah. They were these little bicycle helmets that are all different colors.
π(day) - Pi day, and it's the Pi symbol. And then in parentheses, day. Fake. Fake. Yep. And the last one.
HELLO VENUS. That's got to be real. Yeah. That's real. Wow. You did really good at that. I'm surprised.
Yeah, well, I feel like half of it is wardrobe you own, so that helps. And the other half is. I feel like they choose, like two English words for marketing and like, what's two English word they can put together that makes it an easy to like market brand. Seems to be the model. Yeah. Well, so there's different generations of K-pop and each generation seem to do something different. So like now the trend is like I. Apostrophe V is one of the more recent ones that I listed. There's a lot of throwing weird numbers in the middle of a word, or just not even worse, just letters match together. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what their marketing strategy is. I, I wonder if it means something in Korean, but I don't know.
Yeah, well, you have to ask once you go to your BABYMETAL concert. They're Japanese. Blackpink. Once you go to your Blackpink concert, great. Well, then you covered the trivia section. Actually, I was going to have a trivia game, but I'm going to have one trivia question for you. And this is just a single question. We're going to switch it up. So sorry, is our singer here in this video. And the Greek letter psi is also pronounced the same way, spelled differently. What is the size symbol used for in mathematics? Oh my gosh. Wow. That is that is tough. I'm going to say oh gosh, I can't even think of what might be. Is it rotational speed? I don't know, I'm just I'm. But I have something up there. Yeah. No, no I don't know either. There's a couple of things it means, but the main thing I've seen online or read is it's the reciprocal Fibonacci constant. Cy is the sum of reciprocals of the Fibonacci numbers. So. Oh, there was that. Some mathematician must use it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't blame you. Yeah. Again like good video.
It's funny because I was reading a lot about Cy too. And you know, he started off at a rapper and his first rap album came out and he got fined by the South Korean, I guess, entertainment industry or whoever, because it was like inappropriate content. And it was like a little too extreme for them. It's funny to see now, you know, however many years later, like a decade or 15 years later when he came out with Gangnam Style. Now he's an ambassador to the UN for South Korea and things like that. Yeah, they're very strict. Like they they lock things down and they enforce things pretty harshly in the Korean music scene. I don't love it, but I understand why they do it. Another thing I'll point out, he's kind of an NPO baby. His I guess his father is their CEO of like a large semiconductor company in Korea and the Korean economic industry, I guess is run by a bunch of big families, right? Samsung, Hyundai. You know, there's these like these huge conglomerates that really like run a lot of the industries. And so I'm sure that I helped them a little bit. But like that's a kind of an interesting thing too, to see who he was and what he could have been, kind of. So he went to college in the United States to study economics, because he was going to be inheriting the company, and he decided to drop all that and pursue a music career.
Yeah, he was in Boston College. Is that where he went? Austin University? Yeah, I saw he he later transferred over to Berklee College of Music. So he was like, I'm going to do my own thing. But then he ended up barely going to class at Berklee. And, and didn't graduate. Which, you know, it's nice if you're a really rich person, you can do that. Yes. Yes. Awesome. Well, everyone, thank you for listening to this episode of One Shot feel free to like and subscribe to our videos and we'll talk to you soon. We'll see you next time. So bad, so bad. Yeah, you should have said sayonara.
