You never forget the first time...

In Malaysia for work, I found myself wandering the streets of Melaka one saturday night. 
Walking alongside some parkland, I could hear the distant throb of a bassline. Sure I had discovered a badly advertised music festival, I proceeded through the park as the music grew louder and louder and I still couldn't see through the trees and dense shrubbery what was going on. 

Eventually arriving at a clearing, I found the source of the sound. In a small car park were parked three beat-up old Proton hatchbacks one of which had the engine running and the hatch wide open, revealing that the boot and entire area of the back of the car had been replaced with giant speakers and blue LEDs. A gathering of local revellers had appeared and was looking on with a sense of gravity and respect at this awe inspiring phenomenon. 

At this distance the music was so loud I could feel the fillings in my teeth coming loose and my brain rattling inside my head, while I inhaled a cloud of carbon monoxide, a necessary evil as the engine had to be run hard to power the thing. The song was one I'd never heard before, a strange dance track in a mysterious foreign language - I'd heard many over there so never thought twice at the time - they played it over and over again to demonstrate the might of their system. 

But from this Proton hatchback a beast had emerged. It was a song which would very soon waft over to the Western Hemisphere following me home. A song I didn't know at the time, was called Gangnam Style.