It’s the number of YouTube hits for a song called “Gangnam Style.”
Well, the computer has just red squiggled Gangnam, and for once I’m comforted. Someone, or something, is as unhip as I.
Well, if 969,133,413 people have watched, shouldn’t I? Am I missing something? Doesn’t a blogger have a responsibility to his international audience to keep himself up to date with modern culture?
I go roughly from Gregorian chant to Part / Lauridsen—is that enough? Shouldn’t I check out the latest trends in pop culture?
Well, I happened on the whole thing through CNN—a gentleman in England dropped dead of a coronary while dancing to the song. So I became curious—was there something particularly lethal about it?
The first indication that something was seriously bizarre was Wikipedia’s article. Guess, Gentle Reader, how many citations the article had!
Oh—and keep in mind that the song was released on 15 July 2012. That means it’s been around only five months.
I fear for you if you guessed too high. There are, in fact, 341 citations backing up what is one of the longest articles I’ve read—OK, skimmed—on Wikipedia.
This is the story that you—presumably—know and I didn’t. The song is by a South Korean performer named PSY. Gangnam is an exclusive area of Seoul.
Well, I took 4 minutes out of an otherwise productive life to watch it. And here, stripped of the hypnotic beat, the flashing lights (anybody prone to migraines should think twice about watching this), the blatant and annoying sexuality is the essence of the piece.
Yup—nothing. Zilch. Nada. It’s the musical equivalent of bubblegum, and it lasts about as long.
And what’s wrong with bubblegum?
Absolutely nothing.
I chew it, occasionally, and find it mildly pleasant. I don’t, however, expect it to be in any way nourishing. I wouldn’t replace with food as my steady diet.
Now, dear Reader, guess how many citations there are for the greatest song-cycle in the canon of Western Music (love that pomposity—wanted to use the word “canon” for years….)—Winterreise?
39.
So? Why should it matter? In fifty years time, no one will remember PSY, and no one will much care.
But I worry about kids that assume this is the only music there is. Or indeed, that it’s music. It worries me that people—adults, scholars, writers—encourage this belief. It bugs me that people assume that all music has equal value. Or worse, that there’s something condescending about a person who says, yeah—there’s a difference.
My other worry?
That kids’ view of the world is being shaped by this video. Nothing about it has any semblance of sense. It’s random, ridiculous, hypnotic and erotic.
It’s as far away from a narrative as it can get.
At age fourteen, with adolescence and a world looming ahead of me, would I have wanted a message like this?
