If you've been under a rock for the past week -- or away from youtube -- a teenage girl posted a video to youtube, a vanity project of sorts, a song called "Friday." The lyrics are as basic as one could imagine (lots of "partyin' and fun, fun, fun) and it's autotuned to bits. In that respect, it's not all that different from the simplistic pap pumped out by corporate music makers. Except it's not. It's oddly surreal in its awfulness, and it's gone viral. I refuse to link to it here, but as you can guess, not all of the attention has been positive. The idea behind making a "vanity" record, which I'm assuming this is, reminds me of the song poems of the mid -20th century. Here's an example (and a sort explanation of the history behind the song-poem phenomenon):
The business of recording song poems was promoted through small display ads in popular magazines, comic books, tabloids, men's adventure journals and similar publications with a headline reading (essentially) Send in Your Poems - Songwriters Make Thousands of Dollars - Free Evaluation. The term lyrics was avoided because it was assumed potential customers would not understand what the term meant. Those who sent their poetry to one of the production companies usually received notice by mail that their work was worthy of recording by professional musicians, along with a proposal to do so in exchange for a fee. The early 20th century versions of this business involved setting the words to music and printing up sheet music from inexpensively engraved plates (wikipedia).As for the "brains" behind "Friday" and the public's reaction to it, Jezebel's Dodai says:
It's unclear whether Ark Music Factory is, as one reader emailed us, "creepy guys preying on rich kids' improbable dreams," or an indie label trying to break into a niche market — or both. But the popularity of Rebecca Black's video says more about the American public than it does about Ark Music. From Britney to Miley to Toddlers And Tiaras, we love to snicker at girls attempting to entertain. We delight in belittling and sneering at these young women. Oh, the media — and pop culture in general — teaches these kids that putting on a show is the best way to get everyone to love you.I've been that girl, and only by the grace of god did youtube not exist when I was thirteen. I have a shoebox full of tapes my cousin and I made with our "fake" band. They're horrible in a Shaggs sort-of way. The difference was we had only minor delusions of fame, but no one would hear those songs but us. It was done strictly for the joy of playing rock star for an afternoon, which is what I hope Rebecca had in mind, if a little less organically. I don't want to read the youtube comments, and I'm a big believer in "publishing at your own risk." But I don't think some kid's rock star fantasy is worthy of mockery, no matter how embarrassingly bad. That she doesn't seem to be embarrassed by it makes me feel a little worse.
Addendum: "Friday" just broke into the iTunes Top Ten. Color me not all that shocked, really.
