Gangnam Style gallops to over a million sales in the UK!

Gangnam Style has broken through the million copies sales barrier to become the UK’s 129th million selling single, and first million seller by an Asian music star!

Congratulations to Psy - Gangnam Style has now sold over a million copies in the UK!

According to Official Charts Company sales data, Gangnam Style has become not only the 129th track to sell over a million copies in the history of the UK’s Official Singles Chart, but also the first million seller by an Asian* music star.

“This is an amazing achievement by Psy,” comments Martin Talbot, managing director of the Official Charts Company. “It is further confirmation of Gangnam Style as a true phenomenon – it is the first UK million-seller by an Asian music star, and a sign that K-Pop has truly arrived in the UK!”

Chart Performance

Gangnam Style made its Official Singles Chart Top 40 debut on September 16, 2012 at Number 37. It climbed a massive 34 places to Number 3 the following week, before reaching Number 1 on September 30 (Psy is pictured above holding his Official Number 1 Award with BBC Radio 1 Official Chart Update host Scott Mills).

While Gangnam Style only remained at Number 1 for a week, it spent a further 17 weeks in the Top 10 and was the UK’s sixth biggest selling single of 2012. To date, Gangnam Style has spent 21 weeks on the Official Singles Chart Top 40.

In total, Gangnam Style has reached Number 1 in 27 countries , including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and, of course, the UK. In fact, it would have been quicker to list the countries where Gangnam Style wasn’t Number 1 - take a bow Brazil, Columbia, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden and Venezuela!

Not an overnight success

While many view Psy’s ascent to global superstardom an overnight success, the rapper (real name Park Jae-Sang) has been releasing music in his native South Korea for 12 years. His first album, Psy From The Psycho World!, was released in January, 2001, and four more albums, and one EP - PSY 6 (Six Rules), Part 1, from which Gangnam Style is taken - have followed.

A large percentage of Gangnam Style’s, and indeed Psy’s success outside his homeland, has been down to the accompanying music video and now iconic dance routine (which has been performed by everyone from Britney Spears to Madonna, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama).

Gangnam Style was uploaded to video streaming site YouTube on July 15, 2012. Five months later, on December 21, it became the first video in the site’s then seven year history to break a billion views (it was on a mere 186 million views when it first entered the Official Singles Chart Top 40, and 326 million views when it climbed to Number 1).  And it’s still going strong:  at the time of writing this news story, Gangnam Style is up to 1.2 billion YouTube views.

The new age of the super hit

While the 1990s were responsible for the highest number of million selling singles in Official Charts history (32), it won’t be too long before this decade eclipses that total.

In the last three years 15 singles have passed the million copies sales milestone, with last year being the biggest year on record for single sales in British history. 188.6 million singles were sold during 2012 - a 6% increase on 2011, which was the previous high.

Gangnam Style brings the total of tracks which made their Official Singles Chart debut in 2012 and have sold over a million copies to five (the others being Gotye FT Kimbra’s Somebody That I Used To Know, Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe, James Arthur’s Impossible and Fun.’s We Are Young).

The Million Sellers

You can see the full list of the UK’s 129 million selling singles below:

© 2013 the Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.

* There are a number of artists with Asian heritage, including Sir Cliff Richard and Engelbert Humperdinck who were born on the continent, to have million selling singles. However Psy is the first artist born, bred and currently still residing in Asia to reach this milestone.