Psy Booked for Dick Clark's New Year's Eve Show

Psy will take to the stage in New York’s Times Square for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show despite the controversy over his 2004 anti-American rap performance.

Joining Psy for the East Coast side of the New Year’s Show will be Schoolboy Records stable-mate Carly Rae Jepsen. Justin Bieber — another stable-mate of producer Scooter Braun’s label — will be the star of the show’s West Coast lineup.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the New Year’s show hosted by the iconic pop music host Dick Clark, 82. Ryan Seacrest has been his co-host since 2005 when Clark suffered a stroke that impaired his speech. The show is scheduled to begin airing on ABC at 10 p.m. EST on December 31.

Psy, 34, continues a very hectic schedule of performances despite the controversy that flared up last week on word that he was one of a trio of K-Pop performers who had sang an anti-American rap song titled “Dear America”.

The song had been authored by the S. Korean rock band N.E.X.T. and had been performed on stage by Psy and two other rappers at a time when Korean anti-US and anti-war sentiment had been peaking in the wake of the brutal killing by al Qaida of a S. Korean aid workers in Iraq and the running down of two S. Korean schoolgirls on a country road by a US armored personnel carrier during training exercises.

The rap lyrics suggested that the “daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers” of American soldiers should also be killed “slowly and painfully,” presumably in retaliation for the deaths of Iraqi and Korean civilians.

Last Friday Psy had issued an apology for having participated in the performance, saying, “I understand the sacrifices American servicemen and women have made to protect freedom and democracy in my country and around the world… I’ve learned there are limits to what language is appropriate… I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by those words.”

The controversy caused American MMA fighter John (Prince) Albert to apologize after using “Gangnam Style” as his walkout music at a recent UFC event in Seattle, saying he hadn’t known of the controversy over the anti-American rap lyrics.

Another news item that clouded Psy’s feelgood image was a 46-year-old British man’s death of a heart attack that Saturday after dancing to “Gangnam Style” on stage at an office Christmas party at the Whitehall Country Club in Darwen, Lancashire.

Two days later, on Sunday, Psy performed at the Christmas in Washington charity show (for broadcast on December 21 at 8 p.m. EST on TNT) after which he was among the performers greeted by President Obama and the First Family.

This Sunday Psy rocked Toronto’s Rogers Center with another performance of “Gangnam Style” during the halftime show of the NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and the Seattle Seahawks. The audience responded with gusto to his call for them to “Make some noise!” and “Let me see you dance!”

The recent controversy hasn’t appeared to dampen the global enthusiasm for “Gangnam Style”. As of Sunday evening PST, the song’s original YouTube video, posted in mid-July, has garnered 968 million views, far outstripping any other video ever posted.

Psy is expected to release a new single with half-English, half-Korean lyrics early next year, followed by an album scheduled for March.