Two records were broken over the weekend by two viral videos posted on YouTube. Both music videos, however, differ in style since one is a novelty song with a confusing but addictive tune and the other is K-pop.
Soompi reported that DJ Kosaka Daimoau’s “PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen)” – which has almost 70 million hits on YouTube and dubbed “the second Gangnam Style” – ranked on MelOn’s music chart because of its popularity in Korea. It entered South Korea’s music chart as a digital single on Oct. 7, which means it was streamed enough number of times to rank.
Besides the video being popular globally, and not unexpectedly in South Korea, two K-pop groups had made a cover version of PPAP. These are TWICE and EXO, while “SNL Korea 8” broadcast recently a parody of PAP which features the Japanese comedian in showy leotard costume singing about an apple pen and pineapple pen.
So far, no one could explain why the fruity, but silly, 51-second song about inserting a pen forcefully into a fruit and then combining the product, a pen-fruit, has gone viral since it is nonsensical.
But if “PPAP” beats reasonable explanation, the newly released music video “What U Need” by Lay of Korean boy band EXO becoming viral in two days is not surprising since K-Pop has a lot of followers in many countries beyond South Korea. The 4-minute, 41-second music video has also broken records by hitting the 1 million mark since it was released on Friday, Oct. 7, at 12 noon, by SMTown reported Allkpop.
So far, as of Sunday night, the music video has almost 2.1 million views on YouTube. The solo song is Lay’s gift to his fans since its launch day was also his birthday. The song would form part of a solo album that the Chinese singer, actor, dancer and composer, Zhang Ziying in real life, that Lay would release in late 2016.
He performed “What U Need” live on Sunday for the first time at the 2016 Asia Song Festival in Busan, South Korea, iTech reported.