In August, PSY’s “Gangnam Style” became a viral sensation, and it is now a chart success. We’ve put together a gallery of the 15 moments that made the K-pop star a smash in the United States in honor of the song’s ascension to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week. See how PSY rose from a South Korean rapper to a worldwide superstar by clicking through the gallery.
One-hit wonders are well-known, but have you ever wondered what happened to the Rick Astleys of the world? While bands like The Baha Men (“Who Let the Dogs Out? “), Dexys Midnight Runners (“Come On Eileen”), Vanilla Ice (“Ice, Ice Baby”), and Soft Cell (“Tainted Love”) have slipped into obscurity, how many of you have looked for Psy, the “Gangnam Style” guy?
Psy is still a big deal in South Korea as one of the country’s top K-pop sensations, even if he isn’t as prominent in the worldwide market as he once was. Park Jae-sang rose to international prominence in the 2010s, and while you might think he’s disappeared from the music scene, you’d be wrong.
PSY and BTS have both had tremendous international success, and PSY recently celebrated BTS’s “Dynamite” reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 by sharing his joy on his Instagram story.
PSY has been around for more than a decade, but in 2006, he took a break from music to marry and serve in the military for two years. In 2010, he began his comeback in South Korea, launching the new PSY with a video for “Right Now,” which incorporates English lyrics that read, “2010, PSY is coming back once more.” PSY catapulted to stardom in the United States two years later, after picking up where he left off with K-pop fans.
