Internet song “Friday” goes viral

You’re 13 years old. You decide to try your hand at a music video. You post it to YouTube and the next thing you know, it has been viewed 16 million times. Sounds great; another overnight sensation. Unfortunately, the critics and the public seem to be unanimous in calling this first time foray into the music field just about the most inane artistry ever. “Bad is the new good.” The name “Rebecca Black” is now famous. Or is that infamous?

Billboard Magazine – Mar 14/2011

Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ a Viral Sensation for All the Wrong Reasons by Kevin Rutherford

Black’s video for “Friday” is one of those rare occurrences where even the most seasoned critics of Internet culture don’t know where to begin. From the singing straight out of Auto-Tuned hell to lyrics such as “Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes afterwards / I don’t want this weekend to end” and a hilariously bad rap about passing school buses, “Friday” is something that simply must be seen and heard to be fully appreciated.

Business 2 Business – Mar 16 /2011

Rebecca Black and the Art of Being Bad by Ricky Ribeiro

It’s official: Bad is the new good. While music tastes and styles have always been subjective, there’s no disputing that the buzz that built overnight around “Friday,” fledgling teen “singer” Rebecca Black’s ode to the weekend, is a sign that there’s no need to be good at what you do to draw attention. If you do it badly enough, that’ll do the trick.

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Were it not for Comedy Central’s “Tosh 2.0″ blog picking up on Rebecca’s mediocrity with the aptly titled blog post: “Songwriting Isn’t For Everyone” on March 11, most of us would’ve never come across her or her “talents.” That pivotal post set the wheels in motion, spurring Rebecca’s name to the top of Twitter’s trending topics for days.

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Of course, the fact that Rebecca’s video has gone viral doesn’t mean she’s destined for a Grammy anytime soon. This kind of “fame” is often short-lived as Rebecca is nothing more than a meme and a canvas for people’s sarcastic barbs and biting commentaries. We’ll all move on to the next awful thing in no time. But with over 9 million views on YouTube, countless covers and parodies and a write-up on RollingStone.com that calls her widely panned song “actually good,” Rebecca Black is winning Charlie Sheen-style.

Tosh.O Blog – Mar 11/2011

Songwriting Isn’t For Everyone – Posted by: Mike Pomranz

[Also has the YouTube video]

Rebecca Black: “Are you sure these are the lyrics you want me to sing?”

Producer: “What are you talking about?”

Rebecca Black: “This part where I just kinda slowly explain the ordering of the days of the week?”

Producer: “That’s the hook, baby!  We breakin’ it down for the kids!  They gonna know those days!!”

Rolling Stone Magazine – Mar 15/2011

Why Rebecca Black’s Much-Mocked Viral Hit ‘Friday’ Is Actually Good

The teen unknown’s surprise internet hit is an unintentional parody of modern pop

By Matthew Perpetua

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.

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For one thing, Black’s voice is totally bizarre… pinched and stilted… 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.

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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.

Time Magazine – Mar 13/2011

Rebecca Black’s Bizarrely Bad Video for ‘Friday’: Is This For Real?

by By: Megan Gibson

This weekend the internet was mainly transfixed on the disaster in Japan, and rightly so. On a lighter note, there were those who were obsessed with South by Southwest. But amid all the real news, you might just have heard about the Internet’s other weekend obsession: Rebecca Black and her hilariously dreadful video for “Friday”.

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…once you listen to the lyrics, you start to realize what a train wreck we’re really dealing with.

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It’s not apparent if “Friday” was intended to be a parody of a pop song or not (we doubt it, though we really hope it was), but it would definitely be in Rebecca and Ark Music Factory’s best interest to make like it was all along.

Okay, so just what is all the hubbub all about? Here’s the YouTube video with the lyrics printed below. Judge for yourself if this is good or bad. And don’t forget, she is only 13. Then again, the producer, ARK Music Factory are supposed to be professionals. They wrote the song, both the nusic and the lyrics. They made the video.

Rebecca Black – Friday (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

(Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark)

Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah

Yeah, yeah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah, yeah, yeah

[Rebecca Black – Verse 1]

7am, waking up in the morning

Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs

Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal

Seein’ everything, the time is goin’

Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’

Gotta get down to the bus stop

Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

Kickin’ in the front seat

Sittin’ in the back seat

Gotta make my mind up

Which seat can I take?

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend

[Rebecca Black – Verse 2]

7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway

Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly

Fun, fun, think about fun

You know what it is

I got this, you got this

My friend is by my right

I got this, you got this

Now you know it

Kickin’ in the front seat

Sittin’ in the back seat

Gotta make my mind up

Which seat can I take?

[Chorus]

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend

[Bridge]

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday

Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)

We-we-we so excited

We so excited

We gonna have a ball today

Tomorrow is Saturday

And Sunday comes after…wards

I don’t want this weekend to end

[Rap Verse]

R-B, Rebecca Black

So chillin’ in the front seat (In the front seat)

In the back seat (In the back seat)

I’m drivin’, cruisin’ (Yeah, yeah)

Fast lanes, switchin’ lanes

Wit’ a car up on my side (Woo!)

(C’mon) Passin’ by is a school bus in front of me

Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream

Check my time, it’s Friday, it’s a weekend

We gonna have fun, c’mon, c’mon, y’all

[Chorus]

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend

Final Word

The number of articles referencing this story goes on and on. Salon quoted others as saying, “This is literally the worst thing I have ever heard.” and “Is this the worse music video ever?” and they point out this video is merely the tip of the iceberg. Apparently there are more of these ARK Music Factory videos floating around on YouTube so if Rebecaa Black isn’t enough, you can still get your fill.

In my blog My 15 Minutes, I wrote about Andy Warhol’s saying that we will all be famous for 15 minutes:

I sincerely hope that when my turn comes to step up to the plate, it will be for something of which I will later be proud and not something of which I will be ashamed. Ha! Pride or shame; heads or tails; it’s just 15 minutes. I’m going to try and do my best when the moment comes but I have my fingers crossed that the moment will not consist of somebody with a camera inadvertently opening the bathroom door and catching me with my pants down.

Gee, me with my pants down. Yup, just my luck that video goes viral.

References

Wikipedia: Friday (Rebecca Black song)

“Friday” is a song written by Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson, performed by Rebecca Black, a 13-year-old singer from Anaheim Hills, California. It was released as a single on iTunes on March 14, 2011. “Friday” was produced by the ARK Music Factory, a company owned by Jey and Wilson.

Starting on Friday, March 11, 2011, the viewcount for the music video jumped from around 3,000 views to over 16 million on YouTube in a week and became a viral hit. The sudden increase in the viewcount was attributed to a Tosh.0 blog post titled “Songwriting Isn’t for Everyone”, posted on March 11. Since the growth in popularity of the song and video, there have been numerous parody videos and remixes. Forbes stated that the notoriety of the song is another sign of the power of social media — specifically Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, in this instance — in the ability to create “overnight sensations”.

Wikipedia: ARK Music Factory

Ark Music Factory is a company based in Hollywood which seeks to find young singers for promotion. Ark then writes music with (or for) these acts and records them, often producing music videos for them. According to the company’s MySpace page, they categorize themselves as an indie record label. They state that their main objectives are to bring aspiring acts to the musical fore: “We at ARK make it possible for an emerging artist to be discovered, defined and delivered, to advance in their chosen career and be successful.” Ark is predominantly based in the US, although they claim that artists they have supported have had success in different regions across the globe.

official web site: ARK Music Factory

Twitter: Rebecca Fan Club

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