Retro dominates music charts

Psy from "Napal Baji" music video / Screen capture from YouTube

Retrospective songs are dominating online music charts, with original sound tracks from popular TV hit “Reply 1988” and numbers by K-pop star Psy sweeping the top spots.

According to Korea’s popular online music websites like Melon, Soribada and Monkey 3, OSTs for the TV series, including rock band Hyukoh’s

“Girl,” soloist Lee Juck’s

“Don’t Worry” and male duo band December’s

“All I Can Give you is Love,” are among the top five on the charts as of Sunday morning.

Psy’s

“Daddy” and

“Napal Baji,” two titles from his latest album “7 Cider,” also joined the top ranks.

Many of the songs smack of retrospective styles of Korean pop culture.

Hyeri, second from left, in the poster of "Reply 1988"

“Girl” is Oh Hyuk’s rendition of the original version by Lee Moon-se in 1985. And, with “Reply 1988” being praised for its portrayal of the grassroots sentiment widely shared by middle-class Koreans in the late 1980s, “Girl,” “Don’t Worry” and “All I Can Give you is Love” have successfully attracted ears of the viewers.

The drama -- the third in tvN’s “Reply” TV series, following “Reply 1997” in 2012 and “Reply 1994” the following year -- is considered the best so far because of its flawless depiction of familial affection between the leading character (Hyeri from girl band Girls’ Day) and her family.

“Napal Baji” -- “bell-bottomed trousers” in Korean -- delivers Korea’s fashion trend from the 1970s, when hipsters wore such trousers and enjoyed hitting the dance floors at discotheques.

The songs on “7 Cider” -- released on Dec. 1 -- are attracting plenty of attention, with a media report even forecasting that December will be “the month of Psy.”