21
votes
Rebecca Black - Friday (10yr Anniversity Remix) (2021)
Link information
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- Title
- Rebecca Black - Friday (Remix) ft Dorian Electra, Big Freedia & 3OH!3 [Official Video]
- Authors
- rebecca
- Duration
- 3:02
- Published
- Feb 10 2021
This song and video felt like the product of an AI that has subsisted entirely on a diet of internet inputs for years being told to construct a hit single from what it has learned.
EDIT: I realize this can read like a criticism but I say it with love!
/r/SubredditSimulator writes a pop song. ;)
I just listened to another one of her singles (Girlfriend), and wow! That one is going on my regular rotation, and I’m going to have to listen to her other stuff now.
Yeah, not my cup of tea but I had no idea she made music today. Hats off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEy5x-vTH4g
Today marks the 10yr anniversary of Rebecca Black's viral youtube video Friday. Released when she was 13, the song and video were put together by a video production company as a birthday gift to Black. The song's catchy tune, vapid meaningless lyrics, and heavy use of autotune drew vast internet criticism, with many reviewers calling it "the worst song ever." Despite that its popularity continued to rise, eventually culminating 167 million views and the title of Youtube's #1 video of 2011.
Today's release is a psychedelic nightmare of pounding beats and oversaturated visuals, punctuated by chipmunk-like autotuned screeching. If nothing else, it's worth watching for the sheer spectacle of the thing.
That doesn't really match their Wikipedia description. Do you have a source?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjov-gt6YCw
OK, so Friday and their songs before it weren't intentionally bad, but after Friday's "success" the company tried to recreate it by creating intentionally bad songs.
Yeah, mix that in with what @tindall mentions of their original business model being kinda sketchy (at least, I think it is sketchy. A more neutral term would be unorthodox, at least from my reading, but I am not at all knowledgeable about the music industry so I am going off of what I have read in articles about this specific situation) and it paints a pretty bad picture of them as a whole and really sucks for the girls who got harassed because of it.
Edit: Clarification: the unorthodox part being that the artists (or in this case, their parents) are paying the label.
I honestly think the original is unfairly criticized. She was 13, for crying out loud! The song captures a 13-year-old’s zeitgeist pretty well, and it has a sort of down-to-earth charm to it.
At the time, I kinda sided on giving her/them a bit of a pass as well... which makes the unabashed thotdom of this update seem rather odd.
On another note, is this what happy hardcore is? I recall seeing the term for the first time more than 20 years ago in a convo music chat room on Napster or something, and when I asked what it was, all I got were incredulous "You've never heard of happy hardcore?!!1??!?1!" responses, and no one actually explained. I might as well have come from another planet and not just another social circle, the way they freaked out.
I'm not 100% sure tbh. I tagged it that with hesitation, wasn't really sure if it was appropriate. @tindall mentioned "hyperpop" above, and looking that up wiki says "Hyperpop is a microgenre[4] characterized by an absurd and maximalist take on popular music" which sounds about right. I'll let someone else define happy hardcore, but I'm gonna retag this as hyperpop.
cc: @culturedleftfoot
She’s right! This song would be considered hyperpop.
This would be considered happy hardcore. Fair warning: I am far from an expert on the genre, as my exposure to it pretty much exclusively comes from the DDR custom stepfile community, which is where I first heard this track. As such, my understanding of the genre is very heavily pop-influenced, so there’s likely more to it than I can speak to.
Nevertheless, the linked track has some of the hallmarks of happy hardcore, including a repetitive thumping, the hyperfast piano chords, kinetic synths, and and overall cheery but still intense vibe.
I immediately thought of a video of some ridiculously advanced DDR player when it started playing, lol.
The new remix is this super cringe, nightcore-esque mess of a song, but I think it makes it more genuine then the empty pop of the original one. Sort of how r/prequelmemes has made a game of recognizing that the Star Wars prequels are poorly made, but love them all the more for it, because if they embrace the flaws, they have a community.
Edit: Listen to Girlfriend, she certainly has range.
r/popheads has a thread on this song if anyone here wants more takes on this song.
Rebecca continuing on despite all of the hate she received for Friday and then doing this is inspiring.