It has recently become quite difficult to approach the end of the school week without words like “We we so excited” and “gotta get down on Friday” running through your head and popping up on your Facebook news feed. Rebecca Black has blown up the internet, with people on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook mercilessly ridiculing her video “Friday” and countless YouTube parodies (like this one).
How did Rebecca Black go from an unknown 13-year-old dreamer to a YouTube sensation? I was sincerely worried about the future of the music industry until I found out that Black was not “discovered” for her “talent” and given a record deal and a music video. No, Rebecca’s mother paid $4,000 to Ark Music Factory (based out of California) to make the video. Ark makes money off the parents of adolescent girls (the main Ark market) who want to be the next Ke$ha by offering them a song and a video. You can find other Ark videos on YouTube of other girls who had the same dream as Rebecca (“Butterflies” and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”). But none of them have had anywhere near the success of “Friday,” which currently has around 77 million views.
So what separates “Friday” from the other cheesy, terribly-written songs? I guess it’s just that bad. After comedian and host of Tosh.O, Daniel Tosh posted the video on his blog on March 11, it was only a matter of time before the entire world knew of the atrocity that was “Friday.” Good Morning America’s coverage of the video included a heading that read “Worst Video in the World?” And that doesn’t even come close to the nasty online comments: “Worst song I’ve ever heard in my entire life, even deaf people are complaining.” I can’t say I disagree. I was so horrified by the song I watched the video 3 times in a row (which I don’t recommend- it was stuck in my head for a week). It’s the train wreck syndrome: it’s horrible to watch, but you can’t stop watching.
The worst part has to be the lyrics of “Friday”. I can safely say that the mention of cereal never belongs in song lyrics (“gotta have cereal, gotta have my bowl”). Neither does the decision of whether to sit in the front or back seat of the car, and definitely not a list of the days of the week: “Yesterday was Thursday, today it is Friday”, etc. Of course, Rebecca Black didn’t write the song, but she did choose it because she thought she could “relate” to it more than the other songs, which were about love. A fair point, but I still don’t think, even as a 13-year old, I would choose a song that included the lyrics “we we so excited.” Then there’s the video, which is a cheaply-made montage of Rebecca and her friends awkwardly dancing in a car and doing whatever the 8th-grade version of partying is. Her voice, which sounds overly-autotuned and whiny, does nothing to help the situation.
Rebecca Black tried to salvage her image by and recording an acoustic version of the song (in front of some teens who looked like they were paid to love every second of it), which you can see here. But instead of demonstrating her singing ability, this performance just proved to me that over-auto-tuning is not the problem with “Friday,” it’s just Rebecca Black’s obnoxious, 13-year old voice.
Now, Rebecca Black and her mother are arguing that they were never provided with the master recordings of the video and song, and charging Ark with exploiting Black and the song “Friday” via YouTube, iTunes, the Ark website, and a ringtone. Ark denies this, saying that they should have copyright for the song and composition (which I’m not sure is something they should want). Regardless, Rebecca Black has proven that anyone with $4,000 can become an insta-celebrity. However, she has also shown that instant fame is rarely permanent and not always positive. Maybe Rebecca Black is the exception to the rule “all publicity is good publicity.”