A Defense of "Gangnam Style"

Korea has produced two great cultural achievements in the last 500 years. One of these is known and respected throughout the world, by scholars and laypersons alike, for its brilliance, artistry, beauty, and significance as a mode of communication. It is widely admired, imitated, and investigated for adaptation, and the history of its creation and propagation will be the object of scholarly inquiry for generations to come. It has done more for the spreading of Korean culture than its originator could have dreamed, and that originator has become a cultural hero to his nation.

The other is the Korean alphabet.

Yes, "Gangnam Style". Love it or hate it, you know it. It's the K-pop sensation topping the charts around the world, and because of it, artist PSY gets to meet with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who thereupon declared he was no longer the world's most famous Korean. The horse dance is silly, the video is goofy, and the lyrics are unintelligible to 99% of the people that love it, who have no idea what Gangnam is or what its "style" entails.

Yet it is undeniably infectious, and I confess I find it immensely gratifying that for all the awful crap music Korea produces, with the literally interchangeable faces of the various artists performers (thanks, cheap and widely available plastic surgery!) that appear from the ether of studio promotion and shortly thereafter disappear back into it never to be heard from again, it is one of K-pop's legitimate musical talents that has taken the world by storm. Not only that, but he has done so by means of what is, for a pop song, a rather sophisticated takedown of the very popular culture of which it is undeniably a part.

That's right, I went there.

Now I know what you're thinking: Did he fire six shots, or only five? You're also thinking I'm reading too much into a goofy pop song. "Oh, Carl Eusebius!" you toss off between sips of the 300-year-old Chardonnay that was featured as "Wine of the Week" in the most recent issue of Pretentious Twat Monthly, "PSY is the fat funny guy, and fat funny guys don't do satire. He's riding an invisible horse, for Christ's sake!" Well first, you're wrong. PSY looks like the fat funny guy, but he's more like a Korean stab at what Queen would be doing if God hadn't revealed He hates us all by killing Freddy Mercury. This is an educated man, here, and one smart enough to realize that going to some fruity music school is a waste of time if you want to be a pop musician. See, Korea is one of those weird non-American countries where people respect education and admire those who obtain it, rather than a degenerate cesspool of subhuman cretins that disavow "book larnin'" because if they learned something, they might discover they actually need other people and ought to care about somebody other than themselves and their hick inbred family-cum-marriage partners. The Imperial education system apparently operates on one simple principle: Choose a few winners and give them every available privilege so they can become brilliant scientists who invent ever more accurate and destructive weaponry, and abandon the rest to become Republicans.

Second, so what if PSY were just the fat funny guy? Sod you, being funny is hard. Have some respect.

Anyway, PSY is on record as saying the song pokes fun at poseurs. All I'm doing is breaking it down for ya.

For those of you who don't know--which is, I assume, all of you--Gangnam refers, broadly, to the part of Seoul south of the Han River that bisects the city. More specifically, it's the name of the city's southeastern quarter. It's been called Korea's version of Beverly Hills, but that's not really accurate. It's more like Korea's version of Las Vegas, without the gambling. "Now wait a minute, Carl Eusebius!" you deign to inform me from the dizzying heights of your Ivory Tower of Internet Intelligentsia, "If you take away the gambling, what would be left of Vegas? All the glitz and glamor and horrible architecture are just there to get people into the casinos!" Well, my postmodern hipster friend, that's the point: Gangnam is all the glitz and glamor and horrible architecture of Vegas for the sake of itself. There's no ulterior motive. It's pure pop culture style, gaudy for gaudiness's sake, devoid of any purpose other than to embody the emptiness of fashion. Like if Lady Gaga were a city district instead of a 3rd-generation Xerox of Madonna who recycles Ace of Bass melodic lines in pursuit of crass David Bowie-at-his-Ziggy-Stardust-worst glam.

So how exactly is the song satirical? For that, we'll need to look at the lyrics. Now, I know nobody cares about the lyrics of songs anymore. That the "lyrics" of "My Humps" didn't immediately cause a worldwide hatred of Fergie so intense and powerful that she immediately burst into flames due the concentrated rage of a billion souls is proof that lyrics don't matter. All pop music needs now is a repetitive bop-a-chicka beat so white people without a modicum of rhythm in their pale, fleshy bodies can gyrate about awkwardly in the anonymous safety of a darkened club with an outrageous cover charge and 2000% liquor mark-ups. We're talking about a society in which Cartman's "And girl you know that you're the only girl for me / Girl / Girl, you're the girl of my, fantasies / You're my girl / You're my girl / My / Girl" could very well be a transcription of any given Justin Bieber song if it hadn't come out years before Bieber was Disney-manufactured and been intended to mock pop lyrics in the first place.

There's an official unofficial version of the lyrics to "Gangnam Style" floating around, and it's not altogether bad, but it reads rather literally, as if somebody who knows a little Korean looked up the words in the dictionary and wrote down the first Imperial Standard word that appeared there. I, in my semi-divine wisdom, shall translate the lyrics more as they would be understood by their intended audience. This is important, because some of the subtlety of the satire is lost in the lyrics' literal rendering.


Here is the Korean version:
오빤 강남스타일
강남스타일

낮에는 따사로운 인간적인 여자
커피 한잔의 여유를 아는 품격 있는 여자
밤이 오면 심장이 뜨거워지는 여자
그런 반전 있는 여자

나는 사나이
낮에는 너만큼 따사로운 그런 사나이
커피 식기도 전에 원샷 때리는 사나이
밤이 오면 심장이 터져버리는 사나이
그런 사나이

아름다워 사랑스러워
그래 너 hey 그래 바로 너 hey
아름다워 사랑스러워
그래 너 hey 그래 바로 너 hey
지금부터 갈 데까지 가볼까
오빤 강남스타일
강남스타일
오빤 강남스타일
강남스타일
오빤 강남스타일
http://michelia94.wordpress.com
에 Sexy Lady
오빤 강남스타일
에 Sexy Lady
에에에에에에

정숙해 보이지만 놀 땐 노는 여자
이때다 싶으면 묶었던 머리 푸는 여자
가렸지만 웬만한 노출보다 야한 여자
그런 감각적인 여자
나는 사나이

점잖아 보이지만 놀 땐 노는 사나이
때가 되면 완전 미쳐버리는 사나이
근육보다 사상이 울퉁불퉁한 사나이
그런 사나이

아름다워 사랑스러워
그래 너 hey 그래 바로 너 hey
아름다워 사랑스러워
그래 너 hey 그래 바로 너 hey
지금부터 갈 데까지 가볼까
오빤 강남스타일
강남스타일
오빤 강남스타일
강남스타일
오빤 강남스타일
에 Sexy Lady
오빤 강남스타일
에 Sexy Lady
에에에에에에
http://michelia94.wordpress.com
뛰는 놈 그 위에 나는 놈
baby baby
나는 뭘 좀 아는 놈
뛰는 놈 그 위에 나는 놈
baby baby
나는 뭘 좀 아는 놈
You know what I’m saying?
오빤 강남스타일
에 Sexy Lady
오빤 강남스타일
에 Sexy Lady
오빤 강남스타일

Here is my translation:
Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Gangnam style

A girl who's warm and personable by day
A girl with grace who can relax over coffee
A girl who gets hotter at night
That kind of girl with a wild streak

I'm a guy
A guy who's as warm as you by day
A guy who one-shots his coffee while it's still hot
A guy whose heart races at night
That kind of guy

Beautiful, lovely
That's you
Beautiful, lovely
That's you
Are we gonna see this through 'til the end?

Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Gangnam style
Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Gangnam style

Hey, sexy lady!
Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Hey, sexy lady!
Hey!

A girl who looks innocent but gets down when it's time to get down
A girl who's ready to let her hair down
A girl who decorates herself rather than going bare
That kind of sensual girl

I'm a guy
A guy who looks sweet but gets down when it's time to get down
A guy who's ready to get totally wild
A guy with bigger ideas than muscles
That kind of guy

Beautiful, lovely
That's you
Beautiful, lovely
That's you
Are we gonna see this through 'til the end?

Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Gangnam style
Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Gangnam style

Hey, sexy lady!
Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Hey, sexy lady!
Hey!

Above the running bloke is the flying bloke
Baby, baby, I'm the bloke who knows
Above the running bloke is the flying bloke
Baby, baby, I'm the bloke who knows
You know what I'm saying?

Hey!
Hey, sexy lady!
Big Brother's got Gangnam style
Hey, sexy lady!
Hey!
Big Brother's got Gangnam style


Now let's dig into these lyrics. I'm assuming you've seen the "Gangnam Style" video, since the video's satirical elements are intertwined with those of the lyrics. And if you haven't, go watch the video. I mean, what's the matter with you? It's only the most viewed video on YouTube, which means it can't possibly be stupid and uninteresting. The first thing you have to realize is that PSY is playing a character in this song and video. I will refer to this character as "the singer" to avoid confusing the man with the role he plays. PSY sets up a caricature that is then ridiculed. This common form of mockery is apparently unknown to the music "critics" who deride the song as misogynist, I imagine because the concept of subtlety is so lost on them they're still trying to figure out who Keyzer Soze is. And let me take this opportunity to point out that pop music critics have got to be the most useless of all professional critics. I don't know what it takes for a pop hit to get bad reviews from these people,  but as shown by the positive reception of "Tik Tok", even being the most horrible sonic abomination ever to blight the planet isn't enough to earn the scorn of music critics.

So the video starts with the singer appearing to be on a beach, which is revealed to be a children's playground. This will be echoed near the end of the video, when the singer, dressed in his snazziest outfit and looking intense, is revealed to be sitting on the toilet with his pants down, showing us that what we see in a music video is merely what the camera wants us to see, which can be a great distortion of reality. Then the singer and two dancers are blasted in the face with fake snow, during which they continue to perform as if nothing unusual is happening. They look ridiculous, just as the singer looks ridiculous riding an invisible horse. The point is, no matter where you are or how snazzily you're dressed, you look stupid doing stupid things. PSY gets across what Moby was going for in his "Southside" video, only better and less pretentious (i.e., not done by Moby).

As for the lyrics, I'll start with the very first word, oppa (big brother). As a word used by a younger woman to address an older man, and one that can connote a patronizing romantic relationship between the two, it immediately establishes a patriarchal relationship to be mocked. The singer then goes through a series of matching descriptions, essentially the pretention of respectability by day and the shedding of that mask by night, when no one can call them on it. The singer of course wants his girl to be demure and unapproachable during the day (so he doesn't have the stigma of being attached to a disreputable woman) while becoming his wild girl at night, a typical male fantasy. The singer has parallel passages for himself, but they are divorced from sexuality. For example, the word I translate as "innocent" refers specifically to a woman's sexual purity, while the parallel passage for the singer ("sweet") has no sexual meaning. When I initially heard the "ideas bigger than muscles" line, I thought it was a criticism of physical appearance, which didn't jibe with the rest of the lyrics. Once I figured out the entire song was satirical, though, it made perfect sense together with the parallel passage for the man: The girl is expected to look good (better do that make-up, honey!), while the guy--who has "big ideas"--isn't expected to do the same. Forget about staying in shape, I've got ideas, man.

"Gangnam Style" mocks style over substance, the double standards applied to men and women, and all manner of falseness and pretention. Plus, it's got a damn funny goofy horse dance. Is there any wonder it's the biggest song in the world?