Psy - Is Japan Immune To The Power Of Psy's 'Gangnam Style'?

Is Japan Immune To The Power Of Psy's 'Gangnam Style'?

The global popularity of South Korean rapper Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ appeared to know no bounds. Until recently, that is, when Japan ‘snubbed’ the song. That’s right, folks, the people of Japan, between them, only bought enough copies of ‘Gangnam Style’ for it to “just scrape” the top 30 songs on the Japanese iTunes chart, according to The Telegraph. To many, that would still be a pretty respectable result. The people of South Korea are not happy with the result, however and are blaming political tensions between the countries.

Japan have responded by accusing South Korean citizens of boosting the singer’s online YouTube views by using automated viewing programmes. Crikey. Who knew that a silly dance tune like ‘Gangnam Style’ could create such cultural and political conflict!? Possibly in an effort to smooth over such contentious issues, Psy took some time to do a little bit of a dance with the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday (October 23, 2012). Ban Ki-moon joked that he felt a little outdone by Psy, who could well have ousted him as the most famous Korean in the world, thanks to the viral success of ‘Gangnam Style.’

‘Gangnam Style’ has currently been viewed over 530 million times on YouTube, has already served its time at the top of the UK charts and is currently at number two in the US.