advertisement
Music News

Oppa! Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ Video Hits 5 Billion Views on YouTube

In December 2012, "Gangnam Style" became the first video ever to hit 1 billion views on YouTube.

Psy, "Gangnam Style"

Psy, "Gangnam Style"

Courtesy Photo

Time to party like it’s 2012: Psy‘s culture-shifting “Gangnam Style” music video has officially topped 5 billion views on YouTube, 11 years after its initial release.

The K-pop hit made a massive splash in the summer of 2012, thanks in large part to a music video that saw Psy and a string of quirky co-stars doing the song’s signature galloping and lassoing dance moves. The song went No. 1 around the world, including on Billboard‘s Hot Rap Songs chart, and it peaked at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. It also finished at No. 1 on Billboard‘s year-end World Digital Song Sales chart in both 2012 and 2013 and was chosen as one of the Billboard staff’s Songs That Defined the Decade in 2019.


advertisement

In December 2012, “Gangnam Style” became the first video ever to hit 1 billion views on YouTube, just over 150 days after its debut. The video’s billion-views status remained untouched for more than a year until Justin Bieber’s breakout hit “Baby” — which hit the platform in February 2010 — reached 1 billion views by 2014. Today, “Gangnam Style” stands as the streaming platform’s 11th most popular video, with Pinkfong’s “Baby Shark Dance” coming in at No. 1 and creeping toward 14 billion views. It’s also the fifth most-viewed music video, following Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” (feat. Daddy Yankee), Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” (feat. Charlie Puth) and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” (feat. Bruno Mars).

In a 2017 interview with Billboard celebrating the fifth anniversary of “Gangnam Style,” Psy admitted he was still trying to crack the code of why the song went internationally viral.

“I still don’t know why it was so special,” he said at the time. “If I knew why, I could make it again and again. After five years later, I still have to talk about ‘Gangnam Style.’ If I did it intentionally, it wouldn’t work as strongly. Right now, these days, when I make music or music videos, I try my best to focus and to become [like] me from before ‘Gangnam Style.’ Not to do something intentionally. Doing it with intention takes a lot of effort for things to be natural, so that’s what I’ve felt for the last five years.”

advertisement

In the spring of 2022, Psy scored a new Hot 100 hit when “That That,” produced by and featuring BTS’ Suga, peaked at No. 80 on the chart.

Revisit the “Gangnam Style” video below:

This article was first published by BIllboard U.S.

advertisement
Nessa Barrett at Toronto's History on Feb. 13, 2025
Yasseen Ashri

Nessa Barrett at Toronto's History on Feb. 13, 2025

Concerts

Nessa Barrett Reveals Her Favourite Canadian Artist

The viral alt-pop rising star met Billboard Canada backstage at her Toronto concert at History to talk about what she does when she comes to Canada, as well as her favourite slang terms and some surprising things we didn't know about her.

Nessa Barrett came to Toronto to play a packed History last night (Feb. 13), and she had the whole venue screaming her name.

The rising alt-pop artist has gone viral many times over on TikTok and other social media (she has over 6 million Instagram followers and over 2 billion global streams, still early in her career), and has had major co-signs from Lana Del Rey, who has brought her on stage and posted her song "Love Looks Pretty On You" on Instagram.

keep readingShow less
advertisement