I've just watched Rebecca Black's 'Friday'...

[The Korff]

...for the first time.

I don't really know how to feel or what to do. I'm actually experiencing a powerful combination of anger, confusion, hurt, bemusement... But a small part of me also thinks it might be one of the funniest things in the world, though I'm not really sure.

Help?

[Billum]

It is funny, brilliant, exhilarating, life-affirming, catchy, and artistic.

....if you're not over 14 and involved in trying to make decent music yourself. In which case it's really depressing that this is probably the most influential recording of the year so far, and there is only more of it to come.

[TheReson8or]

I did a PA job recently where 1 band covered it...acoustically!! and the whole crowd joined in. It was funny!...in a sort of slit my wrists kinda way.

[nathanscribe]

Just get thee down to the local libary/bookshop and grab a copy of Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds and reflect with a glass of fine wine that nothing much changes.

[The Korff]

It's not just the awful 'pop pastiche' production, or the nauseating video... It's not even the vapid, vacuous, trite, nonsensical lyrics! It's the fact that the mind-bogglingly dreadful lyrics don't even scan!

If you're going to write lyrics that mean nothing, that don't have to be good, that don't even have to make sense (grammatical or otherwise), that are basically strings of unrelated words... You'd think it'd be pretty easy to make them fit the melody?! The lines 'Partying, Partying, Partying, Partying / Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun' are bad enough, but the way 'Saturday comes after Friday / Sunday comes afterwards' just completely and utterly DOES NOT FIT the rhythm or melody is genuinely troubling! The way that last syllable '..wards' lands is SO DAMN WRONG!

How? Why?!

I'm finding it really hard to believe it's not satire. It has to be, surely!?

[Jack Ruston]

Fun fun fun fun fun

Get with the programme Chris.

J

[narcoman]

It is funny, brilliant, exhilarating, life-affirming, catchy, and artistic.

....if you're not over 14 and involved in trying to make decent music yourself. In which case it's really depressing that this is probably the most influential recording of the year so far, and there is only more of it to come.

You think? I rather suspect it's "dads trying to be hip" that bought this.....

[Guest]

Anyone else think it's quite nicely produced? Fair enough lyrically it's hilariously bad and her voice is too whiney but there's a half decent pop tune in there somewhere - I've heard worse stuff from established artists. She's got way too much grief for a song that was a 2K production paid for by her mum for a present

[bequick_x]

If you're going to write lyrics that mean nothing, that don't have to be good, that don't even have to make sense (grammatical or otherwise), that are basically strings of unrelated words... You'd think it'd be pretty easy to make them fit the melody?! The lines 'Partying, Partying, Partying, Partying / Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun' are bad enough, but the way 'Saturday comes after Friday / Sunday comes afterwards' just completely and utterly DOES NOT FIT the rhythm or melody is genuinely troubling! The way that last syllable '..wards' lands is SO DAMN WRONG!

Its quite funny that a lot of people consider the lyrics to be a load of crap but it was written by a creative genius.

[jellyjim]

Can't wait for the album.

[jellyjim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9quaQjlzcOs&feature=related

tehe

[muzines]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqstF4V4Nl4

We so excited...

[Howdy Doody Time]

If it don't move you like that it aint art, embrace it dude.

[narcoman]

Anyone else think it's quite nicely produced? Fair enough lyrically it's hilariously bad and her voice is too whiney but there's a half decent pop tune in there somewhere - I've heard worse stuff from established artists. She's got way too much grief for a song that was a 2K production paid for by her mum for a present

$20,000. And was a "parental career move".

Also - poorly produced toss. Sounds like any number of shite bedroom "pop" I get sent on a daily basis. DAWs have a lot to answer for. A song being as "bright" as a "famous record" DOES NOT MAKE it good.....

[The Korff]

If it don't move you like that it aint art, embrace it dude.

Yeah, I'm kind of coming round to that idea... It's not an easy process; it's a bit like grieving really. Anger, hurt, loss, denial, resignation... I haven't fully accepted it yet, but I'm sure that'll come.

It's... just... [sobs]

[steve355]

It happens every decade or so. It is not as bad as Whigfield's "Saturday night", nor remotely as popular.

Whigfield famously sold more records than Oasis that year (the year of "What's the Story Morning Glory")

The world - even teenagers - are pretty unanimous that "Friday" is a terrible record.

So I'd argue it is a step forwards.

[The Korff]

Nah, this is worse... Much worse. At least the syllables in 'Saturday Night' landed on appropriate beats! That's the thing that really gets me with 'Friday': quite plainly, artistic merit was not a concern for whoever wrote this. The lyrics were never meant to mean anything, there was no desire to express or evoke any emotion - so given that they could basically have just strung whatever words they liked together, why didn't they choose words that FIT??

[steve355]

Da da da dum da da de da da de da dum

Be my baby

No Whigfield is worse. Maybe better produced, but the song is worse.

[johnny h]

'Friday' is a brilliant song. Its catchy, and its lyrics are so bland and inane it sounds like a brilliant satire of lowbrow crap such as Justin Beiber. Its very funny and cuts deep into the vacuousness of mainstream pop.

The evidence suggests it wasn't written as a satire or a parody, but you can't ignore the enormous passion it has stirred up worldwide. How many 'real' pop satires and parodies are as funny as this? Or have achieved such popularity?

[Tomás Mulcahy]

It happens every decade or so. It is not as bad as Whigfield's "Saturday night", nor remotely as popular.

I beg to differ. That's a classic throwaway pop song. You can dance to it, and they had the sense of humour to use a crow as a metronome sound.

[jtcoops]

I still maintain it is an important song designed to bring attention to, mock and hopefully end the pile of tosh released week by week by the established "music industry". It's a point of which was totally missed by just about everyone.

Comedy Central had a lot to do with the track in terms of funding, it wasn't a birthday present - this track had a substantial budget for recording (whether you like the production or not, it isn't bedroom production).

The whole point of the song was to draw attention to the manufactured nonsense autotuned pop that has contributed to the decline of the music industry, funded and promoted by men in suits who know nothing about music but are always chasing the "last big thing", however small it is.

Yes, the lyrics are bad, but have you listened to I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas? What is the difference between that track which also names the days of the week, rhymes "up" with... "up", throws in Jewish phrases for the sake of it, and repeats the title line for just over a minute before the verse kicks in (all of which autotuned badly) and Rebecca Black's autotuned nonsense? The Black Eyed lot got number 2 in the states and number 1 in Blighty and went multi platinum. That to me is more criminal than this tongue in cheek release.

<gently climbs down from soapbox>

[Handlestash]

A song being as "bright" as a "famous record" DOES NOT MAKE it good.....

Wait... what?

[narcoman]

I still maintain it is an important song designed to bring attention to, mock and hopefully end the pile of tosh released week by week by the established "music industry". It's a point of which was totally missed by just about everyone.

No.

The point missed by most is that this IS A MUSIC INDUSTRY RELEASE. The company behind it does this for a living. It is far from an attack on the music industry =- it is the sad side of the free for all the the music industry demise leaves us with. Countless talentless shites.... Oh and the music industry isnt the charts....

Important song? That should be a ban-able offence....

[bluefunkybassman]

Another 'classic' from the same production company:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsiRwvGQn_M&feature=relmfu

HA HA HA AH AHAH AH A HA HA HA HA!!!!

[Handlestash]

If I ever have kids I really hope they turn out to be as cool as the kids in these videos. What great ambassadors for the good, clean, Christian, white, way of life.
One can only hope I suppose.