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

best part is 0:45-0:50. love the awkwardness

Bad idea, Ark.

They just removed the original video from youtube and closed that account.

I assume they're upgrading or something, but that was a piece of internet history!

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 7:24 PM (44 minutes ago)

removed what video? I don't get it.

Well it's back now. hm

An hour ago, it said the video had been deleted by the user (trizzy66) and the user's account was inactive.

shady dealings, it sounds like.

did anyone mention that "Friday" debuted at #72 on the real Billboard Hot 100 this week? last week it placed on Billboard's digital chart, but it didn't seem real back then, it seemed like a dream.

also sometime tonight it beat "Chocolate Rain"s view count. a part of me wants to cheer her on, but another part of me feels so bad for Tay Zonday. in the modern era, I bet he would've ripped that shit up on the pop charts.

Well it's back now. hm

An hour ago, it said the video had been deleted by the user (trizzy66) and the user's account was inactive.

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, March 30, 2011 12:14 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think youtube is just having issues atm. My subscriptions page is down, most videos say that "safety mode" is hiding the comments etc.

Meantime:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2011/03/patrice-wilson-of-ark-music-friday-is-on-his-mind.html

Raised in Africa by a minister mother and a chemical engineer father, Wilson sang in his mother's church as a child and helped out with youth programs at the local Christian school. Later, he says, he attended medical school in Europe and trained in track and field events for the 2000 Olympics. But he dropped it all in pursuit of his music, an endeavor that would lead him to tour as a backup singer with Eastern European pop star Ibrahim Maiga, to study the business side of entertainment at Whitman College in Walla Walla, and, finally, to come to Hollywood.

“If you're going to try to make a dream in music happen, Los Angeles is where you need to be,” he says. “If your music is heard in America, it will be heard everywhere.”

did anyone mention that "Friday" debuted at #72 on the real Billboard Hot 100 this week? last week it placed on Billboard's digital chart, but it didn't seem real back then, it seemed like a dream.

yup. i thought it would be a one-week wonder chart-wise, but actually the song is likely to go even higher on the hot 100 this week. the song made another rapid ascent up the itunes sales charts this past friday and actually peaked higher than it had the previous week. i'm not sure whether the surge in sales had more to do with the recent tv promotion (jay leno and such) or simply the fact that it was friday, lol

It's at #62 on the UK chart at the moment.

Wake me when Gang Fight cracks the charts

Only played it twice so far, but I'm finding "Friday" pretty catchy in an annoying sort of way. I'll definitely give it a third listen, at least, and maybe more depending how my opinion evolves.

(And yeah, I like "Gang Fight" better too.)

Forward into the future!

http://popdust.com/2011/03/30/rebecca-black-new-single-album/

"I call them negative Nancies."
^will totally cosign this as a replacement for "haters"
Nancies Gonna Neg

New song LOL is in a similar vein, with the chorus, "BFF you make me LOL", meaning best friend forever you make me laugh out loud.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/3492349/Bullies-hurt-me-and-I-cried-Im-only-13-But-now-Im-working-on-an-album-to-prove-them-wrong.html

that url is a masterpiece.

OMG @ THAT URL

URL you make me LOL

so the track sold 50k in america this past week

http://www.billboard.com/news/chris-brown-nets-first-no-1-album-on-billboard-1005100762.story

For those wondering if Rebecca Black's "Friday" moment in the sun has passed -- it hasn't. The tune rises 57-38 on Digital Songs with 50,000 sold (up 35%).

"I call them negative Nancies."
^will totally cosign this as a replacement for "haters"
Nancies Gonna Neg

http://media.photobucket.com/image/nancy%20comic/MannBear/Nancy.jpg

ZS get on this stat

New song LOL is in a similar vein, with the chorus, "BFF you make me LOL", meaning best friend forever you make me laugh out loud.

it's no "IM me" by brittney cleary!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ke0w8n

oh oh I think I'm having a nostalgia attack. that fucking song!

brb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psF0xsdfJso

or better yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr5QTUYiL3M

Hey, is this song getting radio play?

i don't think ark music factory has enough money for payola

according to a Billboard article linked upthread "Friday" got virtually no radio spins (12, to be exact) the first week it sold a ton of downloads, don't know if that changed at all in the past week: Top 100 moments in Rebecca Black's "Friday" music video

I bet it's getting play at least on morning-zoo shows, for lols.

I think those 12 spins are referring to the entire song getting played without annoying radio dudes laughing over it.

Her next song is called "LOL."

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

New song LOL is in a similar vein, with the chorus, "BFF you make me LOL", meaning best friend forever you make me laugh out loud.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

I know that was posted already!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7H12V97ZOI

They will be doing the song an injustice to invest more than $2000 into the next video.

Friday's much-mocked lyrics include the teenage dilemma of where to sit in a convertible car with your friends on the drive to school.

No, that's what the video is about.. The lyrics are about the schoolbus.

You know, for a long time I thought BFF was some sort of acronym for "Friend with Benefits"

You can imagine what I thought Paris Hilton's eventual prize on offer was for that TV show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsPrE4NCnA4

Forgive me for waving my nerd flag but DOCTOR THADDEUS VENTURE recites Friday!!!!!!!

:D

Neil Young is next

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/379370/march-30-2011/stephen-practices-rebecca-black-s--friday-

I just saw "Gang Fight" for the first time, lol

http://chamberlain.tumblr.com/post/4261579724/chambaland-friday-up-dmx-vs-rebecca-black

Friday's much-mocked lyrics include the teenage dilemma of where to sit in a convertible car with your friends on the drive to school.

No, that's what the video is about.. The lyrics are about the schoolbus.

― billstevejim, Thursday, March 31, 2011 2:05 AM (Yesterday)

Is there a distinct front seat and back seat on a bus?

on the short bus

fyi I feel terrible about that joke

But she says "gotta catch my bus I see my friends" not "gotta catch the convertible car I see my friends"

This is important.

It's HER bus. For all we know it's a minivan

DRAMA
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-rebecca-black-fighting-ark-music-factory-over-friday-20110401

It didn't take long for everyone involved in the Rebecca Black story to start squabbling. Black – whose song "Friday" hit Number 38 on Billboard's digital singles chart this week – and her mother, Georgina Marquez Kelly, are accusing Ark Music Factory, which produced "Friday," of copyright infringement and unlawful exploitation of publicity rights.

A March 29 letter from Black and Marquez Kelly's lawyer Brian Schall to Ark Music Factory obtained by Rolling Stone alleges that Ark has failed to provide Black with the master recordings of her song and video; has been exploiting her likeness and her song on YouTube, iTunes, Amazon and Ark's website; created an unauthorized "Friday" ringtone; and has been advertising Black as an exclusive Ark recording artist on its website.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ark Music Factory founder Patrice Wilson denied most of the allegations in the letter. "I have met with Rebecca Black's mom and everything is fine," he said. "She will get the masters and the song. They can have it all."

Marquez Kelly paid Ark $4,000 (not $2,000, as has been widely reported) to produce the song, and according to Schall's letter, the agreement that she signed with Ark in November stipulates that Black has 100 percent ownership and control of "Friday," including the master recording and the music video.

Black shot the video for "Friday" in January, and the Ark team finished it a few weeks later. It was uploaded to YouTube on February 10th, but it only had around 4,000 views until it was posted on comedian Daniel Tosh's Tosh.O Comedy Central blog on March 11th, and comedian Michael J. Nelson tweeted about it. Overnight, it had gotten over 200,000 views, and by March 15th, it had over five million views on YouTube. And after her Good Morning America appearance on March 18th, she had evolved from a meme to a celebrity.

"She's not our exclusive artist," said Wilson. "Once an artist meets with us and once they blow up, they have a choice to retain us or move on if they can. Rebecca is now signed with someone else." Wilson added that he will remove Black from the Ark Music Factory website.

But Ark's lawyer, Barry Rothman, cast doubt on the validity of the November agreement. "The agreement was not court-approved," Rothman said. "They say they own the composition. Nothing could be further from the truth. If they go forward and license it or attempt to copyright it in their name, that would be copyright infringement and we'd act accordingly under the circumstances."

He added: "We're not prepared to engage them in producing documents just because they want them, without a court order or litigation. We'd like to see Rebecca Black's career go forward and we're trying to accomplish that in the context of working through the legalities."

Wilson's Ark Music Factory partner Clarence Jey contended that Ark did act as a record label for Black, and distributed and promoted her with her mother's consent – until it became clear that Black was going to make actual money.

"Now they are turning it around and saying they were exploited, but clearly that is not the case when they were thanking me for forwarding them all the interviews with Rebecca and all the positive comments from YouTube," said Jey. "I was calling Australia on my cell phone pretending to be Rebecca's agent and setting up radio interviews for Rebecca while Georgina was right next to me. If she thought I was exploiting this, she could have said it."

"Georgina's trying to get the rights to things she doesn't have the rights to," said Ark Creative Director Barry Wayne.

Neither Marquez Kelly nor Schall returned calls for comment.

Black is the first real success to come out of the Los Angeles-based Ark, whose website was registered in August 2010 by Wilson. Ark's biggest successes other than Black are the singer Alana Lee Hamilton's "Butterflies," which has close to six million YouTube views, and Kaya Rosenthal's "Can't Get You Out of My Mind," which has 1.7 million YouTube views.

"Suddenly, everyone is seeing big dollars and everyone is getting greedy and it sucks," said Jey, who claims that his team wrote the music and lyrics to "Friday." "My team just needs to be looked after to some extent. They need to be compensated for something." He argued that Black should own the master recording for her vocals, but that Ark should have copyright for the song and composition. "We gave Rebecca 10 percent of the publishing, but she didn't even write a lyric. Good Morning America came over, I paid $400 for the make up artist and no one even thanked me for that."

And now it seems as though Ark's success may be its undoing. Wilson recently hired his own lawyer, and Jey alleges that Wilson won't give him access to the website. "Yesterday we were supposed to have a meeting at my attorney's place. I didn't hear from him all day. He sent me a text message late at night saying, 'Sorry, brother, I've had a busy day.' In the meantime he's going around saying I'm not with Ark."

now that's the American way

But she says "gotta catch my bus I see my friends" not "gotta catch the convertible car I see my friends"

This is important.

― billstevejim, Friday, April 1, 2011 2:22 PM (36 minutes ago)

I figured she meant to catch the bus, but her friends intercepted her, and now she has a front seat back seat decision to make.