A respect for "Gungnam Style" bu PSY

I like “Gungnam Style” by PSY. Not for the ridiculous music video. Not for the irony that song itself is supposedly a joke commenting on a part of society, or the fact that that song blew up in the US when other artist have tried with more serious endeavors. No, I like and respect it because it played on the radio. That may seem simple and a bit stupid but there is a meaning beneath the surface.

Let me first preference that with some background information so you know where this point of view is coming from. I grew up abroad; it is simpler for me to say I am a military brat even though that is not completely accurate. I’ve been in international schools since middle school. Starting at the Anglo-American School of Moscow, then the American Cooperative School in La Paz, a year back in the states at Wakefield High School in Arlington, and I graduated in Guangzhou China at American International School of Guangzhou.

As such I grew up around radio stations of extremely varying taste. The constant however was the sound of American or similar music. Popular international radio stations would play music that one would expect for an American station to play. In other words: what was popular in the US was popular everywhere else.

A side note to that is…well sometimes I’d hear a song and think it’s a new release from the states only to Google it at home and find that it was a release from twenty to thirty years ago that just doesn’t get any airtime in the states. So I guess the infectious culture is good in some ways.

“Gungnam Style” got played on my radio at work twice (that I’ve heard) and my friends have heard if a few times as well on different radio stations. Its not the first time someone not from the US has got play time on the radio, I mean I hear an Adele song at least five times a day (there are some who still don’t know Adele is English). However, I feel (and I am possibly horribly wrong) that most music that gets played on the radio in the US ether follows or is altered to follow a certain criteria at times.

“Gungnam Style” (to my knowledge) has not been altered for US radio. An example of music changed for the audience (though to reach more people than anything else) would be that of TaTu who had two versions of their songs “Not Gonna’ Get Us” and “All The Things She Said”, one English and one in their native Russian. There is only one version of “Gungnam Stlye” (not counting house remixes, because there is probably a house or techno remix for every song).

I guess the short of it all is, while English speaking music for a while now has permeated the radio waves world-wide, and one the main sources of it (The US) has only in limited seemingly superficial amounts let the same amount of influence in that wasn’t English or Canadian. So the fact that “Gungnam Style” seemed to make it onto the radio and not carry with it an alteration to make it more accessible for the US. Then again, this could all be a matter of how the Internet is changing things and I’m just super amazed about it all.

Side Note: I may indeed just be ignorant.

My Top 5 most played songs:

1. "Panic Switch" by Silversun Pickups
2. "Too Close" by Alex Clare
3. "The Lighthouse's Tale" by Nickle Creek
4. "Hats Off To The Bull" by Chevelle
5. "Do It Anyway" by Ben Folds Five

What I'm Thinking:
I wonder how much actual work I'll get done when visiting my family versus how much I think I'll get done.