Live and loving it

Hong Kong was visited by giants of pop and indie music, and the city was finally blessed with a world-class festival, but the local music landscape in 2012 was ruled by a chubby thirty-something Korean man doing a ridiculous horse dance.

This year it seemed there was no escaping Gangnam Style, the annoyingly infectious dance track performed by South Korean singer/rapper Psy. During a recent visit to Central's Beijing Club, for example, it was played no less than four times. And it wasn't just Hong Kong that went Gangnam Style crazy: the accompanying music video this month became the most-watched clip on YouTube, notching up more than a billion views.

Hong Kong's Gangnam Style mania hit fever pitch in November when Psy arrived in the city to perform at the Mnet Asian Music Awards, alongside other huge South Korean stars such as Super Junior and Big Bang. This much-hyped awards ceremony was the high point of a huge year for K-pop in Hong Kong, coming after shows such as the KBS Music Bank in June, and concerts by bands T-ara and 2AM in September, SHINee in October, and just before Big Bang's Alive Tour this month.

However, while much of the city was prancing in imitation of Gangnam Style's horse dance, promoters of music that isn't designed to be a disposable commodity were hiding under tables with their hands over their ears, plotting a steady stream of concerts that offered sound alternatives for followers of more forward-thinking music.

Promoters such as Untitled Asia, Songs for Children and Your Mum (made up of the same people who organised the hugely successful Clockenflap Music and Arts Festival at West Kowloon at the start of the month), more than catered to the city's growing appetite for independent and alternative music. And while their shows obviously weren't on the same scale as Lady Gaga's four-night run at AsiaWorld-Arena in May, when it comes to music, size obviously isn't everything.

April Lam of Untitled Entertainment, which during the year brought respected acts such as The Horrors, The Vaccines and The Wedding Present to Hong Kong, says that attendance figures have been steadily on the rise since Untitled came together at the start of 2010.