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Psy's 'Gangnam Style' Tops One Billion YouTube Views

K-pop hit is first video to reach that milestone

Psy performing in Miami on December 8, 2012.
Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Jingle Ball 2012
December 21, 2012 11:55 AM ET

Psy's "Gangnam Style" has already become YouTube's most watched video, but this morning the smash hit hit one billion views, making it the first video on the Internet to reach the marker, according to Billboard. The K-Pop smash hit has tallied up 6.5 million views a day, far surpassing the 813 million views Justin Bieber's "Baby" has accumulated. Bieber's clip gets about 300,000 views per day, meaning it won't reach a billion until late 2014.

50 Best Songs of 2012: Psy, 'Gangnam Style'

With a reported rate of $2 per 1,000 views on YouTube, "Gangnam Style" has generated $2,000,000 from the site alone. Psy has also pulled in nearly $4 million in digital downloads, with more than 3 million singles sold for $1.29 a pop, and $50,000 from streaming services.

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Song Stories

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry | 1984

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.

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