Top 100 moments in Rebecca Black's "Friday" music video

the video is kind of all about how cool cars are to 13-year-olds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87QCmugOST4&feature=player_embedded#at=439

Lil Naynay's claim that "I started rapping before I could talk" makes my head explode

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? Who attends events like this?! Where do you get the money to indulge yourself to this extent?

I mean do these people really think that they matter to any degree? For real?

Watched this with gf last night, much cracking up over the REJECTION! REJECTION! REJECTION! girl in particular. Thought Lil Naynay was actually the best of the stable.

I think the reason I dislike this video so much is that Rebecca Black reminds me of the girl that was always really enthusiastic at the synagogue youth group events my dad made me go to.

just thinking about this this morning made me lol

42. Silly Bandz and a white BIEBER FEVER bracelet around her wrist in the living room scene

― administratieve blunder (unregistered), Monday, March 14, 2011 2:45 PM (20 minutes ago)

correction: the white bracelet says NEVER SAY NEVER

― administratieve blunder (unregistered), Monday, March 14, 2011 3:07 PM (Yesterday)

well fuck, her twitter pic revels that it actually says NEVER SHOUT NEVER, which is the name of a musician who is 1000 times more awful than herself.

http://i51.tinypic.com/2ngg3m9.jpg

yes this issue is very important to me.

Yeah I figured it was a NeverShoutNever bracelet; wd fit her demo and also no one wears bracelets that say NEVER SAY NEVER

her green bracelet says Justin Bieber, no lie:

http://i56.tinypic.com/29c313s.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/2qm2ih3.jpg

this is very shocking and fascinating because very few 13-year-old American girls are fans of Justin Bieber.

fuck i love that bob dylan version

like obviously it is a song that lends itself to the stripped-down one dude+acoustic guitar 'ironic' cover — but the dylan impression takes it to a whole nother level

Rebecca Black could be starting a garage band with other 13 year olds and playing in her friends' living rooms. Bet she'd have more fun.

o_0 o_0 o_0

it took me a while to even notice the rap part in the midst of all the craziness, but it's kinda...bizarre...like it's designed to SOUND like a rap, but it doesn't really rhyme...or even really make sense, it's like random words delivered in the cadences of a rap....it's like a sub-par Kool Keith verse done in a Radio Disney style...it's kinda hard to understand but i tried to transcribe it as best I could:

R&B - Rebecca Black
so chillin' in the front seat
in the back seat
I'm drivin', cruisin'
fast...lane...switchin' lanes
with a car by my side (WOO!)
passin' by is a school bus
in front of me
makes tick tock, tick tock
wanna scream
my time is Friday
it's a weekend
we gonna have fun
c'mon c'mon y'all!

ITUNES LINK

Queen of the music industry. ***** by iLike iTunes
Michael Jackson who? Beyonce who? Britney Spears who? Lady GaGa who? Rihanna who? Ke$ha who? Katy Perry who? Justin Bieber who?

brilliance in the purest form ***** by Crashnate
never in the history of music, except for maybe King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" has there been such cohesion between musicality and creativity in one song. This song is flawless, may it go down in history as the perfect jam for literally any occasion, be it a funeral or an 11 year old's birthday party. perfection.

This song is a masterpiece. ***** by Sandfishies
Duchamp did it with his "Fountain." Swift did it with Gulliver's travels. Rebecca Black and her team of song-writers are one in a long line of satirical genii taht have exposed to us the sheer obviousness of everyday farce.

So bad it's amazing doesn't even begin to cover it.

Genres: Pop, Music, Children's Music
Released: Mar 14, 2011

I'm drivin', cruisin'
fast...lane...switchin' lanes
with a car by my side (WOO!)

Like, I was p sure this is what he said but my hearing's kinda shot and I was convinced it couldn't actually be that awful. "Fast lane, switchin' lanes"?

i believe it's a sex thing. nothing wrong with that.

DYING at this being sent to US Top 40 Radio

http://addboard.mediabase.com/AddDetails.asp?sngcde=BLACF21

None of the stations have added it so far though... :/

Ew. Just.... ew.

Like these guys are grossing me out more and more.

This is like "Digital Love" for 2nd graders.

fuck i love that bob dylan version

― SBlendor in the grass (bernard snowy), Tuesday, March 15, 2011 12:32 PM Bookmark

Kind of think it sounds more like Pearls Before Swine or Bill Fay.

where American Idol (and Pop Idol, X Factor, et fucking cetera) made an industry performing what i once considered a very valuable service - namely, proving again and again to young Americans that being famous involves actual practice and skill rather than sheer cheek - this whole ARK thing is like the backlash, the anti- American Idol. we will create this little bubble of yes-men for you.

actual music writers feel free to expand that into an article for the Observer

idk i don't think that's the case really, unless they planned this to happen alla long, which...idk, how could they? seems like all of this itunes stuff is just an attempt to strike while the iron is hot briefly exists. what the ark actually do is just a manifestation of a thing that's long existed, this whole "pretend you're a pop star for a day!" competition prize thing.

i think reality tv & the internet have long proved to young people everywhere that being famous requires no practice or skill whatsoever

How far did Jedward get on X-Factor?

how much money can you make from a video with 4 million views btw?

$23.59

yeah lex that why i say i "once considered" because pretty quickly after the first couple of seasons of these shows the (often totally incompetent) runners-up became even bigger stars

i think reality tv & the internet have long proved to young people everywhere that being famous requires no practice or skill whatsoever

i should correct this - becoming famous doesn't necessarily require practice or skill, but once you're known for a certain thing you do or a certain persona or a certain look, maintaining that to stay famous probably requires as much practice and skill as anything else

i just feel like ARK is totally catering to all the people who are like man, american idol would be perfect if we could just get rid of all the snooty judges

ARK is catering to people with more money than they know what to do with

like these ARK videos are the stuff of Adorno's nightmares

nah that would be the russian hebeprhenic winning Stravinsky vs Schönberg

yeah lex that why i say i "once considered" because pretty quickly after the first couple of seasons of these shows the (often totally incompetent) runners-up became even bigger stars

like who though? you've got your one-off freakshows like jedward but i think most of the people getting famous through XF and AI are still the ones deemed competent. i'm not sure the ark has anything to do with that - it may be a factory but it's so amateur - their MO isn't "we'll make you a superstar" it's "we'll make you feel like a pop star for a day"

have you read his Cadillacs essay, nakh?

how much money can you make from a video with 4 million views btw?

― taco al pastorius (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, March 15, 2011 1:09 PM (7 minutes ago)

the thought did occur to me that this is all a scam to make millions of AdSense dollars from views

Surprised they don't have ads on the Youtube...

have you read his Cadillacs essay, nakh?

― sarahel, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 18:18 (1 minute ago)

no, do you know the title?

Why Rebecca Black's Much-Mocked Viral Hit 'Friday' Is Actually GoodThe teen unknown's surprise internet hit is an unintentional parody of modern pop

By Matthew Perpetua
MARCH 15, 2011 1:15 PM ET

Rebecca Black's "Friday," a song and music video produced by the Los Angeles company Ark Music Factory, has gone viral over the past few days, bubbling up from Tumblr and Twitter to become one of 2011's fastest-growing memes. The clip has already been parodied, covered and remixed many times over, and will likely inspire further variations as it spreads throughout internet communities and pop culture. The fascination with the video mainly comes down to its subpar production values, grating hooks and extraordinarily stupid lyrics. (This is a song that makes a point of explaining the sequence of days in the week.)

But there's something else going on here, something that makes "Friday" uniquely compelling. After all, there's no shortage of insipid failed pop music out there, and Ark Music Factory is responsible for many other music videos by young unknowns that are just as cringe-inducing, if not much worse. When you see this video, you immediately notice everything that it does "wrong," but it actually gets a lot of things about pop music right, if just by accident.

For one thing, Black's voice is totally bizarre. It's not just the processing on her vocals – she has a peculiar tonality that inadvertently highlights the absurdity of boilerplate pop lyrics that may not seem as ridiculous if, say, Katy Perry was singing instead. When she sings the "Friday, Friday" hook or the "fun fun fun fun" refrain, she sounds unlike anything else in pop music. Perhaps the closest comparison is Laraine Newman in Saturday Night Live's Coneheads sketches – pinched and stilted, like an alien attempting to pass an average American girl. Obviously, this isn't the most pleasant sound in the world, but Black comes out sounding like a distinct singer with an alluring sort of anti-charisma.

With a voice as strange as this, Black probably doesn't belong in the world's most generic modern pop song, but here she is. "Friday" is exactly what you expect from teen-oriented pop in 2011, from the sing-song melodies on down to a guest spot from an anonymous rapper who's only tangentially related to the rest of the song. If the video was intended to be a parody of teen pop convention, it would be on par with some of the best SNL Digital Shorts by Lonely Island.

And thus Black and Ark Music Factory have made a video that forces its audience to reckon with a particular formula for pop music. It's not as if any of this was ever actually cool, but suddenly it seems as if any legit pop singer goes anywhere near the vibe of "Friday," it will just seem like a joke.

"an alluring sort of anti-charisma", fuck me

rich kid karaoke is the new punk rock

Lo, his writing style is more amateur than Rebecca Black's performance.

xxp - i don't remember off the top of my head, but there's also an essay critiquing it called something very close to "Adorno Meets the Cadillacs" that is also worth reading. Both were on the syllabus for Popular Music Criticism class I took in college 15 years ago.

Tracer wasn't in this class, I think I was the only MCM person in it - everyone else was Ethnomusicology grad students iirc

yeah will read that, thanks

users.ipfw.edu/tankel/PDF/Gedron.pdf

I said the same shit as Perpetua way, way upthread in like one tenth of the words: Yeah, kinda struggling to find a meaningful, useful difference between these and, e.g., Ke$ha, who is equally as retarded and equally manufactured but doesn't have the excuse of age or ambitious stage parents. It's razor-thin line between "Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy" and "Hannah Montana is wearing my jeans."

il perpetua anorexico

"Friday" is exactly what you expect from teen-oriented pop in 2011, from the sing-song melodies on down to a guest spot from an anonymous rapper who's only tangentially related to the rest of the song. If the video was intended to be a parody of teen pop convention, it would be on par with some of the best SNL Digital Shorts by Lonely Island.

And thus Black and Ark Music Factory have made a video that forces its audience to reckon with a particular formula for pop music. It's not as if any of this was ever actually cool, but suddenly it seems as if any legit pop singer goes anywhere near the vibe of "Friday," it will just seem like a joke.