Gangnam Style/Transcript

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The following is a transcript of "Gangnam Style", the 94th episode of comedy web series A Dose of Buckley.
==Transcript==
So, a lot of people have been asking me my thoughts on "Gangnam Style". Let me start by saying I still don't take requests. Anytime I talk about something a bunch of people have asked me to talk about, it's coincidental. I was either gonna talk about it, or I wasn't, but then I found an angle that I wanted to take on it.
The latter is the case with Gangnam Style, a song by South Korean rapper/K-pop artist, Psy. Let's have a listen, shall we?
Psy - Gangnam Style plays; Korean lyrics appear.
"오빤 강남스타일
강남스타일
낮에는 따사로운 인간적인 여자
커피 한잔의 여유를 아는 품격 있는 여자
밤이 오면 심장이 뜨거워지는 여자
그런 반전 있는 여자"
You following this so far?
No? Me either. People have been hoping I'd do a Musical Autopsy of this song ever since it made it big. Why?! Every Musical Autopsy I've done is a lyrical disection - aside from a few times when I've made jokes about production elements or where the music came from, but I have no idea what this guy's singing about!
At first, I didn't understand the popularity of this over here. You can't sing along to it; you have really no idea what he's singing about unless you look up the translation, and even with that, you can't sing along because the English isn't gonna fit with the music, and any translations I've seen so far were pretty literal and grammatically a nightmare! Plus, Americans hate reading, so subtitles are out.
So, why is this popular in North America, and more importantly, why is it this particular song that's so popular, when other Korean or K-pop songs in general have at best a small cult following here? And no one here even knew who Psy was until now, despite the fact that he's put out six albums in over ten years! Well, I'll tell you why: because there's a dance associated with it!
Gangnam Style music video plays, showing Psy dancing on screen.
"오빤 강남스타일 강남스타일
오빤 강남스타일 강남스타일 오빤 강남스타일
Eh, sexy lady - 오빤 강남스타일..."
...Ah, now it's all coming together! I asked a friend of mine at work, "I don't get it. The song isn't even in English; there's some stupid dance that goes along with it, and everyone wants to hear it?? Why?!" And his response was basically two words:
Los del Río - Macarena music video plays at chorus.
"Dale a tu cuerpo alegria, Macarena
Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegria cosa buena
Dale a tu cuerpo alegria, Macarena
Hey Macarena!
(Ay!)"
Yep, the Macarena. This little ditty from Los del Río was huge in the mid-'90s, which sorta ushered in this Latin craze that eventually brought you Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, J-Lo, and that fuckin' talking Taco Bell dog. North America loves to be obsessed with the stereotypes of other cultures!In the '80s, there was the Australia craze. The Crocodile Dundee movie was successful, and suddenly every store was selling Aussie-themed merchandise, and there were a couple other short-lived celebrities - but it was over as quickly as it started. At different times, we become obsessed with British shit, from the British Invasion of the '60s to the mocking of British stereotypes by Mike Myers in the Austin Powers movies of the late '90s, and a few things in between.
And lately, people have become obsessed with Asian things! Oh, sure, nerds have been with Japanese anime, video games, and movies for a while, and there was a short kung fu movie craze in the '70s when we finally saw Bruce Lee for the first time, but now it's not just for geeks. People are fuckin' insane over sushi, something us round-eyes were disgusted by less than ten years ago, and every dude wants to date an Asian chick! For the record, call me a hipster if you want, but I've wanted to date an Asian girl since, like, 1989.
Anyway, that is why Gangnam style is so popular! It came out at the right time, when North Americans are lovin' everything that's Asian, even if they have no fucking clue what country it came from, and it has a stupid dance involved. And if history repeats itself, as it usually does, we'll maybe see one or two more K-pop acts reach some level of viral success on this continent - and then, that'll be that. Best case scenario is that North Americans will have added one more thing on their list of things they think they know about Korea, which currently includes the fact that one half is good, and one half isn't; it's where MASH took place, and that the national sport might as well be Starcraft.