The song “Gangnam Style” was written and recorded as the title single of the sixth studio album PSY 6 (Six Rules), Part 1 by Korean singer PSY, who is best known for his quick-witted sense of humor and comical dance moves. The song was released on July 15th, 2012, along with the music video which made its online debut via PSY’s official YouTube channel on the same day.The song talks about "the perfect girlfriend who knows when to be refined and when to get wild."
Upon its release, the song took off on virtually all Korean billboard charts, portal search sites and online music stores, but it began garnering international attention after the music video went viral on YouTube during the third week of July 2012. The video continued gained viral momentum at an average rate of more than 9 million views per day in the span of two months, surpassing Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” to reach the number one position on the YouTube Top 100 Music Videos chart during the last week of August. By mid-September, PSY’s “Gangnam Style” overtook LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” as the most liked video on the site with more than 1.6 million likes.
The mass appeal of the music video has been attributed to its signature dance move known as “the horse-riding dance,” which combines the stylistic elements of shuffle dancing and hand movements resembling the posture of a horseback rider.
During its onset, speculations arose in the Korean internet communities that the dance may have been pioneered a year earlier by a Korean pop group Girls’ Day in their 2011 debut single Tilting Head. However, PSY later revealed in interviews that he came up with the dance during a talent contest at a post-concert event in August 2011.
People who are actually from Gangnam never proclaim that they are—it's only the posers and wannabes that put on these airs and say that they are "Gangnam Style" — so this song is actually poking fun at those kinds of people who are trying so hard to be something that they're not. -PSY
