I remember the first time I heard the viral music video entitled "Friday" by a then-unknown girl named Rebecca Black. I was sitting down by a computer and my friend said to me: "You have to listen to this. ..." She put it up on YouTube without saying much else about it, so I assumed she was just going to show me another song to put on a spring playlist.
Once she hit play, I realized that no one could have prepared me for what was coming: "WE WE WE WE so excited ... FUN, FUN, FUN, FUN ... WEEKEND, WEEKEND!"
Ultimately, I was neither offended by it nor impressed by it. The piece was no different than any of the run-of-the-mill pop music sitting in the Top 40 or the Hot 100. Was it a little corny? Certainly. Was the singer's voice a bit strange? Absolutely. But in my mind "Friday" had some of the more standard elements of pop music:
1) Female singer performing lyrics
2) Male artist performing rap interlude mid-song
3) Heavy use of auto-tune
4) Lyrics that look silly when you transcribe them (such as those in "Best I Ever Had" by Drake. They're "the f****** best")
Refreshingly enough, some usual pop music elements that appear to be missing from "Friday" include scantily-clad booty shaking dancers, sexual undertones, and lyrics about engaging in sexual activity or staring at body parts (i.e. objectifying women).
I was fairly certain that "Friday" was not a joke or a parody, mainly because I, too, was once one of those L.A. kids who wanted to break into the business - my claim to fame was as a fist-shaking child extra in the music video for "Falling Away From Me" by Korn (my 7th grade skater friend was impressed). In Rebecca Black's instance, I thought she had just taken the search for fame a step further than most people do. That in mind, I figured "Friday" would be one of those videos I'd see once that would disappear into YouTube oblivion never to be seen or watched again, except by spammers in a far away country.
Boy, was I wrong.
A few hours after I was first shown "Friday," I went home and saw that other friends had posted it on Facebook. Soon enough, "Friday" and references to it were blowing up my mini-feed. The venom began to flow freely.
Article comments
1 - Steve
When the rapper comes in and starts rapping about sitting the back seat or whatever, I always end up on the floor laughing. And the terrible break with the order of the weekend days explained couldn't be worse.
2 - Austin
I agree with everything this blog mentions - sure, it's a dud of a song, and lyrics that would make any person giggle, but she's still a human-being, still a person in which has feelings. Those horrible things the commenter's said is just plain wrong - how would they like it if the WRITER'S, not them, wrote this song, and SHE'S getting told off, for what? For nothing. It's not fair to Rebecca, because she really does seem to care, and seems to be a really nice girl. I think the viciousness (as you said) of the comments is way too out of control. Besides, Rebecca's a teenager, and I have a teenage daughter at home, and I know that if people said those things to her, I would be so disgusted it's hard to say.
3 - C
To be honest, I can't see the qualitative difference between "Friday" and "I Gotta Feeling" by BEP.
4 - Jordan Richardson
Rebecca Black won me over with her appearances on Funny or Die. Since then, I play "Friday" every Thursday night to prepare for the awesome decisions I'll be making the next day.
5 - CJoe
I hear much worse on the radio than "Friday."
If you don't like the rap, download the song. The one I get from Amazon is sans rap. I didn't expect that but like it better without that silliness.