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

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.

iow i think everyone is just making up excuses for enjoying a silly catchy novelty song

her voice isn't that distinct.

someone should arrange this for big band and do a sinatra impression over it

waiting for power metal cover, personally.

I'm late to the party on this whole thing, but is Ark Music Factory like the 2011 version of those 'Song Poem' records? You know, "we'll set your lyrics to music, just send us money?"

a peculiar tonality

I don't hate on this dude like everybody tends to but I really, really, really, really wish music writers would think twice, or three times, even, before using a word like "tonality" - it's fine to not actually have studied musical terminology (I guess, and even if it isn't fine, the horse has left the barn) but using it like you knew what it meant is a bummer

xp essentially

I'm late to the party on this whole thing, but is Ark Music Factory like the 2011 version of those 'Song Poem' records? You know, "we'll set your lyrics to music, just send us money?"

― Partyin', partyin', fun fun fun fun (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, March 15, 2011 1:40 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

my old housemates had a business doing this for a while

man aero how many horses are even left in yr barn???

gbx, great screen name. I'll research new one stat...

her voice is just funny because it's monotone and slightly worried, like she is nervous about screwing up and this nervousness/the song's general ridiculousness is getting in the way of her connecting to it at all; she is singing the same way you dance when you're hauled on stage during dinner at Uncle Billy's Restaurant in scenic Hilo, Hawaii to learn and dance the Hukilau while everyone laughs and takes pictures of you, which is basically exactly what is happening, except it's happening with an incongruous budget and on youtube

ke$ha is awesome and not remotely like this at all but we don't need to go into that

I know I flog the hell outta that phrase

you might say I'm flogging a

well you get the general idea

I feel kinda bad for her tbh, imagine if that fake pop song you recorded in your bedroom when you were 12 was all of a sudden being parodied by 5 million ppl and perpetua was calling you non-charismatic

didn't someone do a record/project releasing these Song Poems years after the fact?

perpetua was calling you non-charismatic

pretty sure even a 13-year-old can get the irony here

I feel kinda bad for her tbh, imagine if that fake pop song you recorded in your bedroom when you were 12 was all of a sudden being parodied by 5 million ppl and perpetua was calling you non-charismatic

hueg lol

gbx, great screen name. I'll research new one stat...

― Partyin', partyin', fun fun fun fun (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, March 15, 2011 1:44 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark

haha, no worries, entirely possible i poached it?? the whole song is potential display names imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOqn-I5u1MY

xp to sarahel

i just really want to know if the other kids in that video were her real friends or not.

i think i was emotionally scarred by "You Can't Do That On Television" where one of the girls on the show is told that all the other kids were paid by her parents to be her friends, and she doesn't have any real friends. Most of this was due to people in grade school telling me I kinda looked like that girl.

"the world's most generic modern pop song"

I HAVE A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH THIS

actual modern pop songs really don't use this narrating-everything-as-you-go lyrical style? as anyone who actually listens to pop music would know? jesus, perpetua.

ke$ha is awesome and not remotely like this at all but we don't need to go into that

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 18:44 (1 minute ago)

that shit is the worst, like beyond the guetta principle in terms of 2k10s aesthetic vileness

awkward tween singing silly naive song about the end of the school week having meme fame accidentally foisted upon her vs relentlessly ugly frat hedonist retard anthems

you're not supposed to say that!!!