Will PSY Take Lead for World Cup Cheering? Planning Exclusive Concert before Korean Team’s Match with Russia
[스포츠조선 = 이정혁 기자] Whether world-star PSY will stand on the cheering stage for the World Cup is drawing a big attention
PSY has recently been drawing a worldwide attention with his new song “HANGOVER” featured by world-famous hip-hop musician Snoop Dogg. Since everyone knows PSY has busy schedules for overseas promotion for the new song, whether he will stand on the stage of cheering the Korean team for good performance at the Brazil World Cup is drawing all the more attention.
PSY has recently announced the release of title track “DADDY” in this summer and has no plan for performance of “HANGOVER” both in and out of the country. As every song PSY releases draws a big attention from the entire world, he has no specific plan yet, except for preparations for the new song.
However, cheering concert for the World Cup is a very special stage that even PSY cannot just ignore. When PSY was having a time for self-restraint and self-reflection in 2002, he took part in street cheering for the 2002 Korean-Japan World Cup games, and accidentally, PSY talked in a live-broadcast interview. After the interview, PSY received a series of requests for cheering performance and he could stand on the stage again naturally. At that time, PSY’s “Champion” enjoyed a great popularity as cheering song for all the Korean people.
In 2006, PSY released another cheering song “We Are The One” that created harmony between rock rhythm and the sound of Korean traditional musical instruments such as kkwanggwari, taepyeongso, and gayageum, for the 2006 German World Cup. Back then, the song made all Koreans unite. “We Are The One” was released for free and the number of downloads of the song reached as high as 5 million, making PSY a national cheerleader.
The special connection between World Cup and PSY continued to the 2010 South African World Cup. PSY released cheering song titled “Korea Once Again” with singer Kim Jang Hoon and held four one-touch concerts for opening and first-round games, on Floating Island located in Banpo District of the Han River, to give energy to the Korean team. Notably, PSY established a good precedent by donating all his performance fee for the concert to Hong Myung Bo Foundation.
Now, we are having the World Cup again in four year and during the past four years, PSY has become a world-star with “Gangnam Style” and “Gentleman”. He played a role of uniting the Korean people and giving the energy to the Korean team during the past two World Cup games. Therefore, if he stands on the stage of cheering for World Cup once again, even bigger energy in line with PSY’s growing status on the global stage, will be delivered all the way to Brazil.
It is known that there already are negotiations under the table, to cast PSY for the cheering concert. According to a music insider, “As far as I know, a negotiation is now going on, to have PSY’s exclusive performance before the street cheering for the Korea-Russia match at 7am on the 18. Plus, cheering concerts for the match against Algeria and Belgium are also working hard to cast PSY. Since PSY cares about World Cup much, it is known that PSY is positive about the cheering performance”.
PSY’s label has also acknowledged that there have been several offers for the cheering performance for the World Cup. However, because PSY is busy going back and forth between Korea and the United States for preparation for the new album, he has not confirmed his performance for cheering yet.
Meanwhile, within three days from the release of “HANGOVER”’s music video, the number of its views on YouTube reached 41.62 million, enjoying a continuing popularity.
2014. 6. 13.
