‘Gentleman’ Psy gallops past ‘Gangnam Style,’ easily

The “Gentleman” music video, released at 9 p.m. on Saturday set a new world record after reaching 100 million views after only four 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.

Within 24 hours after the release, the record of Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” which attracted eight- million views on YouTube was easily broken by Psy’s “Gentleman” with 18 million views. Now lots of people are wondering how far the popularity of the new song “Gentleman” will lead to and if it will go beyond “Gangnam Style.”

Conservative music critics who downgraded Psy overlooked the global music trend of 2010s. It is the beginning of the 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 three core components of modern music videos are described as “humor, turnaround, and fun” and “Gangnam Style” was a perfect fit. In addition to the three 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, 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. Park Jae-sang (Psy’s Korean name) 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 U.S. university after studying for a short time and has a good understanding of PR and marketing. He is an extraordinary singer who knows how to attract popularity with his hilarious gestures. Although he acts modest by saying the “Gangnam Style” craze was pure luck, his success is largely based on his unique words and actions.

Today, 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 U.K. singles chart, based on its performance on YouTube. The question is how long it could maintain its No. 1 status, rather than whether it could become the number one.

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.