The recent global hit by Psy and his kitsch song, “Gangnam Style,” led us to ponder various issues. Many people talk about Psy’s hit in relation to the K-pop syndrome, the success of the Korean cultural industry, and Psy’s personal achievement as an entertainer. His is indeed a great achievement, since he is the first Asian singer to be listed in Billboard’s top ranking on multiple charts simultaneously. Many Koreans seem quite happy with his success, since he can be viewed as a symbol of Korean prosperity in the modern period. Some have already analyzed the phenomenon’s socio-cultural values and industrial effect. The Korean press competitively reports his activities in mainstream U.S. media and sometimes calls up Korean nationalistic sentiments; even Psy himself sometimes utilizes patriotic marketing. An American ethnomusicologist and music professor, Andrew Weintraub, who recently visited Korea told me that Psy’s image and his frequent appearances in mainstream American media has actually influenced Americans’ perception of Korea and Koreans positively. For example, the association has become about being fun, exciting, young, humorous, and prosperous (not only in economic terms, but also socio-culturally), compared to their earlier negative images of poverty, war, political and social unrest, unbalanced economically-oriented, traditional, or even terrorism (sometimes, people have a hard time distinguishing between South and North Korea).

Maybe we should think about several other issues involved with Psy’s global success in terms of music. Here, I don’t want to talk about Psy’s musical style not being Korean, or that his success should not be seen from a nationalistic angle (which many people already have noted). Here, “music” indicates several different layers of meaning, including musical style, musical behavior and attitude toward the music, musical thinking, music consumption, musical flavor, context, and the global music industry. It can also be further extended into other issues, like the history of modern Korea, modernity and post-modernity, the nature of popular culture, technology and the new media, nationalism and trans-nationalism, the relations between global and local, and the relationship between ‘the West and the Rest’ as center and periphery.

The current soundscape of Korea is the result of fast modernization through the influence of Japan and Westernization through the influence of America. Traditional music only exists in the heritage industry and the realms of nation, propaganda, and ethnic (Korean) identity; other “musics” like classical, pop, jazz, and musicals are the result of widespread Westernization. It was ironic that the musical languages of the resistance movement against American imperialism during the 1980s was mostly American folk, folk rock, standard pop, hymns, and military song styles. In this sense, until recently, Korea was on the periphery in terms of the production of music, and had a position of consumption. Korea’s soundscape or musical behavior, attitude, flavor, favorite musical styles, ideas about music, and consumption were not very different from America’s.

With the global success of K-pop, Korea is now becoming the new place for production of popular music, even though its musical style is still based on J-pop and American pop. Thus, popular music has become the symbol of ‘Koreanness’ in overcoming its colonial inferiority complex. The Asianization or globalization of K-pop consumption can even be seen as an important site to confront or subvert the old hegemony of the West and the relationship of center and periphery. The musical production of the periphery and its consumption of other peripheries mark a new relationship and indicate a new direction. This is one of the faces of cultural globalization.

Indeed Psy’s music is the local hybrid product of Western popular culture and, at the same time, the representation of Korean cultural nationalism. It is also produced under the special historical, cultural, social, and musical circumstances of Korea. The success of this funny, kitsch, not-sexy, not-young male singer from the periphery brings with it a lot of stories for Koreans, along with the modern history of Korea, especially in the consumption of music. Indeed, it showcases the present cultural landscape of Korean music, fraught with issues of arbitration, symbiosis, and conflicts between local and global.

hskim10@kookmin.ac.kr