SEOUL – South Korean rapper Psy, whose latest videoGentleman tracked global megahit Gangnam Style by going viral on the Internet, has been knocked from the top of the music charts in his native country by a 63-year-old easy listening pop singer.
Gangnam Style, which holds the YouTube record for most views with more than 1.5 billion, catapulted the sunglassed Korean with the garish jackets to world stardom and made him one of the best-known faces to grace the growing K-pop music scene.
But Cho Yong-pil (pic), who has been a fixture of Korean pop music since 1975 with his electronic music and ballads, took over the top spot in Korea with Bounce, according to both the daily and weekly charts on Naver, Korea’s top Internet portal.
Fans lined up to buy Hello, Cho’s first album in a decade, when it went on sale earlier this week, and packed a stadium concert on Tuesday with people screaming his nickname of “Oppa” – a word used by Korean women for older men that Psy took to the world with the refrain “Oppa Gangnam Style”.
Cho’s songs took the top 10 places on the daily charts, pushingGentleman to no. 13, and Psy had to settle for second place on the weekly charts.
But Gentleman surged to fifth place on the Billboard Hot 100 this week and has racked up over 220 million views on YouTube after smashing the record for first-day views for songs.
Psy told reporters he had nothing but respect for the veteran crooner, noting that Cho had praised him at a Tuesday news conference.
“I couldn’t be happier, although getting on the Billboard chart also makes me really grateful,” Psy told reporters on Thursday prior to leaving for the United States.
