If you haven’t heard of Rebecca Black yet then you’re probably in the minority. This girl has gone from being unknown to famous in the space of a week thanks to YouTube and her ‘hit single’ Friday. It’s horrible but that doesn’t seem to matter.
YouTube Fame and Glory
YouTube has made many people famous, and a few very famous and very successful. The most obvious, at least in the world of music, is one Justin Bieber, who is richer and more famous than any of us will ever be. And all that despite not being all that talented.
Then again, who said talent had anything to do with fame? Look at the careers (for want of a better word) of Paris Hilton and Katie Price, neither of which has ever really displayed a talent of any kind.
The latest YouTube singing sensation (although maybe not for the right reasons) is Rebecca Black, and her rise to notoriety demonstrates the combined power of online video and social networking sites.
Rebecca Black
Rebecca Black’s single Friday (embedded below) was the result of a vanity record label called Ark Music Factory which provides young singers with a song to sing and the chance to make a music video for the princely sum of $2,000.
At the time of writing the video for the single has been viewed more than 27 million times. On March 11, prior to the link starting to be shared via blog posts and social networking sites just 3,000 people had seen it.
As most right-thinking people have already noted this song has nothing to recommend it. The lyrics are shamelessly insipid, the singing it auto-tuned out of all recognition, and the video is about as cheap and nasty as you’d expect for a $2,000 all-in deal.
Not that any of that matters, however, as on the back of the publicity Rebecca Black has received Friday has become a huge hit on Apple iTunes.
Conclusions
I must say I have some sympathy for Rebecca Black over her treatment from some corners of the Web. They have a right to criticize, of course, and the song is absolutely dire, but it should be the Ark Music Factory that’s getting it with both barrels, rather than the naive 13-year-old who just wanted to record her own pop song and star in her own music video.
Having said that, I really hope the proposed album doesn’t happen, and that Rebecca Black disappears back to obscurity as soon as possible.
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