If you're looking for someone to blame for the sugar sweet syncopations of K-Pop or the oddly sounding raps of G-Dragon, look no further than Psy. You remember Psy, right? The "Gangnam Style" guy, you know, the one who did that funny dance. YouTube recently noted in its Trends blog that after Psy blew up into a worldwide monster, K-Pop as a whole thrived. An entire industry that was largely regionalized became a global love affair
"Prior to 'Gangnam Style,' a typical K-pop track would receive the lion's share of its views from Asia. Just a year after Gangnam, however, global views of K-pop videos jumped to ~30 million views a day, with more than 95% of their views coming from outside their country of origin," noted YouTube.
To compare, YouTube said that Big Bang's "Fantastic Baby" music video, which was released in 2012 before "Gangnam Style" was released, received ½ of its first month's views from Asia. After Psy's mega hit opened the market, Big Bang and other bands like 2NE1 became crossover favorites and dynamos unto themselves.
In an article from 2013, Billboard reported that since "Gangnam Style," YouTube views of Korean artists have tripled, jumping to 7 billion views globally in 2012 versus 2.2 billion in 2011. Additionally, in 2013, 91% of the people who watched K-Pop videos on YouTube came outside the genre's home country. This is what YouTube views at the time looked like.
1. Psy, "Gentleman" - 480.9 million views,
2. Girls' Generation, "I Got a Boy" - 63.6 million
3. HyunA, "Ice Cream" - 47.5 million
4. G-Dragon, "Crayon" - 25.8 million
5. G-Dragon, "One of a Kind" - 21.1 million
6. G-Dragon, "That XX" - 18.9 million
7. Girls' Generation, "Oh!" - 18.6 million
8. BEAST, "Beautiful Night" - 18.5 million
9. Girls' Generation, "Flower Power" - 17.9 million
10. KARA, "Pandora" - 16.8 million
