A scene from South Korean rapper PSY's "Gangnam Style" music video
USA TODAY
PSY must be psyched!
The Korean pop star has made YouTube history. On Friday, Gangnam Style became the first video to hit 1 billion views.
"PSY's
success is a great testament to the universal appeal of catchy music--
and er, great equine dance moves," YouTube said in a statement. " In the
past, music distribution was mostly regional. It was more difficult to
learn about great artists from around the world. But with a global
platform at their fingertips, people are now discovering and sharing
amazing music from all over the planet, by artists like Brazilian Michel
Teló and Belgian-Australian Gotye."
See the rest of YouTube's most popular videos for 2012 here.
But the news hasn't been all positive for PSY. Earlier this month, he was forced
to apologize for anti-American remarks at a 2004 concert protesting the
U.S. military presence in South Korea during the early stages of the
Iraq war.
"While I'm grateful for the freedom to express one's
self, I've learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and
I'm deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted," he wrote in
the statement. "I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by
those words."