Rebecca Black: Awful Is The New Great

I bet many of you are not new to the name Rebecca Black, as it has been the headliner of many entertainment news recently. The 13-year old California born singer released her debut single on March 14, 2011called ‘Friday’. The single was released on YouTube and went to more than 50,000 views in just the first three days. By the end of its first week, the music video had more than a million clicks.

The above stats might seem so attractive and persuasive to anyone who has not seen or heard the song yet, but it is the lyrics and vocals of the song that give a whole new meaning to ‘song popularity’. If I was to describe the song in one word, that word would be ‘awful’. The lyrics don’t give the song any meaning, and the vocals are just too amateur. Lines like, “Yesterday was Thursday, today it is Friday… tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards” (Oldenburg, 2011) makes one to wonder if the song was made for 3-year olds; did people really need to be informed that Thursday comes before Friday and that Sunday comes after Saturday?

The song gained momentum when it was posted on Tosh.0’s blog under the title ‘Song-writing Isn’t For Everyone’. Many would wonder why would any record label take a risk to produce such a bad song, much less make a video of it. But the resulting popularity of the song is proof enough that ‘awful’ can match ‘greatness’ in fame. Today, the video has over 85 million views on YouTube (with 1.7 million dislikes and 216k likes); the single has sold over 2 million copies (Perpetua, 2011); and it has entered in big music charts like Billboard Hot 100 and New Zealand Singles Chart. Its awfulness is what made it popular; makes one to wonder if awful is the new great. But I’ve got to agree, there is something really catchy about the song.

Here is a video of the song...

References

Oldenburg, A. (2011, March 16). Who is Rebecca Black and why do we care about her? Retrieved April 5, 2011 from http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2011/03/who-is-rebecca-black-and-why-do-we-care-about-her-/1

Perpetua, M. (2011, March 18). What you need to know about teen viral phenom Rebecca Black. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/what-you-need-to-know-about-teen-viral- phenom-rebecca-black-20110318