Oppa Gangnam Style! Kpop pt.1

 

Story of my life!

If you have listened to the radio, looked on Youtube, downloaded a song off iTunes, or basically participated in social society, you have heard the phrase “Oppa Gangnam Style”. Now you may also be wondering …What exactly is Kpop? and Who is this guy?

First things first, as previously stated, Kpop is a genre of pop/rap/hip-hop style of music generating from South Korea. The genre involves various artists from solo artists, like Rain,to large boy and girl bands, like Super Junior and Girl’s Generation.  Another one of those solo artist happens to be PSY the genius man behind the #1 hit “Gangnam Style“. The first time I heard this song I fell in love as usual. Why, you may ask? Well it’s because… I LOVE KPOP.  I could seriously go on for hours about the countless reasons as to why I am truly amazed with this specific genre of music,however, let’s keep it short sweet and to the point.

The reason why this song is amazing (I mean besides the obvious lol) is this song is the first song performed in the Korean language to fully cross over in the US music scene. Granted there have been previous Korean artists  for the past decade that have tried to cross over like Rain, Shinwa (a 90’s boy band similar to N’SYNC and Backstreet Boys) and The WonderGirls (a girl group that toured with the Jonas Brothers on their 2009 tour), but most of these bands were only able to grasp a small following. In the past 2 years Kpop has grown to grab the attention of multiple US artist, record labels and even Billboard Music Charts, which introduced the Kpop Hot 100  in the fall of last year.

Due to these surges in the Kpop following, a plethora of Kpop artists from U-Kiss, SHINee, Brown Eyed Girls, 2NE1, and BIGBANG are beginning to tour the US more often spreading the joyous sounds of international music and hopefully cross over into the US Mainstream! **panting out of breath from so much excitement** And thankfully, due to my awesome stalking capabilities, myself and two other lovely ladies are going to witness this momentous occasion when BIGBANG makes their American Debut in their ALIVE Tour this coming November.

This is too much Kpop for one post to handle, so as usual…

To be continued…