Interwebs stunned by musical atrocity
I'd really like to thank the Beeb this afternoon for flagging up Rebecca Black's Friday, which has become a bit of a hit down at iTunes despite provoking the desire to tear your ears off with pliers. "Fun, loving, 13 year old" Rebecca has proved that you can sell just about anything if you get a net buzz going, even if that buzz …
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Oh come on...
It isn't that bad when you turn down the volume as low as it will go. It's a cute girl imitating a goldfish. I bet you, if Beethoven had been around at the time, it would have cheered him up no end, and convinced him that his ironic condition could be a source of joy as well as sadness. And she got the days of the week in their proper order too, producing a work of chronological excellence. After all, even the Mamas and the Papas didn't dare go beyond monday, the Bangles famously put "Sunday" *behind* "Monday", to universal ridicule. All you haters simply don't understand the deeper meaning of this piece. The passing of time. The reflection upon the fragility of existence. Philistines!
title
Been done already. The Merseybeats "Friday on my Mind" also managed to correctly order the days of the (working) week.
Merseybeats?
No - the Easybeats, surely.
Australia's greatest contribution to pop music.
Re: Merseybeats?
Correct, although a quick shufti at the lyrics indicates the band left out Saturday and Sunday completely, thereby creating the musical five day week.
a title is required
I found that I lost interest after my load was spent. Well, it's almost Friday.
Really that bad?
Is it really that bad when compared to the rubbish that fills the British music charts week after week. How many 'guest' rap fillers are dropped into songs to fill them these days, how many endless self-named 'stars' do we have chanting their way through a 'song' consisting of not more than a clap machine, a snare and a bit of auto-tune?
When the British music industry votes the likes of Tiny Talent as best song when half of it is cut because of foul content can we really be that hard on this?
re: Really that bad?
too true... but...
has anyone made as far as the inspired "bridge" :-
yesterday was thursday (thursday)
today it is friday (friday)
we we we so excited
we so excited
we going to have a ball today
tomorrow is saturday
sunday comes afterwards
i dont want this weekend to end
even the regular chart trash can't match that for lyrical excellence...
There's only 3 sorts of music
1) The stuff you like
2) The stuff you don't
3) The stuff you haven't heard yet.
On the back of other's comments, I have decided that this particular track should stay as a 3 for me. I shall desist from clicking on any links, watching TV, listening to the radio, going out...
You missed one
Namely 4) The stuff that should never be heard. Namely this woman's "singing", and mine.
Marlee Matlin sings better - and She's deaf!
No
There is no 4.
4 relies on your opinion, not mine.
In order for me to have an opinion on it, I would have to listen to it, so it could be a 1 or a 2.
But I am not going to listen to it.
Therefore it is a 3.
Correction
Sorry Beer Monster, but there are only 2 types of music. Good and Bad. This is the later.
You have an excellent point, Mr Monster...
...but really, this does deserve a category all its own. Maybe:
4. Music you have been warned to keep a category 3.
(Walks away quietly, while people figure that out...)
Come on. It's really not monotone
I found most of a single scale in the 'song', at least seven notes, although most of the song stays on the three notes of a major chord.
I think many of the readers here ought to listen to the 'singles' chart nowadays, because they will be appalled by what is counted as music by the people who actually buy it in volume. I must admit, however, that I was intrigued yesterday to hear two versions of Adele's Someone like you (the normal version and the Brits version - both head and shoulders better than much of the rest) on the chart at the same time.
Autotune, whether it is required or not, is added to the vocal in it's most intrusive, buzzy manner for effect on so many songs now. I hesitate to say this, but JLS who obviously can sing a bit (no autotune allowed on X-factor live performances after all) have it on most of their songs now.
I do wonder what a 13 year old girl will be doing while "gettin it down" and which makes "we so excited" (sic) while "partying" which is legal! Sex and drugs and alcohol should all be out.
Anyway, I have to decide whether to listen to Planet Rock or Radio 3 on my way home to flush this meaningless and annoying fluff from my mental musical cache.
It's an effect.
Much sneering about autotune with the implication that she can't keep a tune. Well, she probably can't, but that heavily vocoded sound is a legitimate studio effect. Even if you don't like it.
Yes...
Thank Cher for the Vocoder... Well actually thank Kraftwerk, I believe they were the first to use a vocoder in released music (Autobhan, IIRC).
It's not autotune though, as far as I can tell.
But No...
That's definitely auto-tune (or pitch correction). Apart from the superhuman levels of hitting the right note exactly, the timbre quality still sounds like a human voice (although there's probably some post-pitch correction filtering in there).
Even the best vocoders out there couldn't get that right.
Still... AUUUUUU TOOOOOO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.....
(Ooh. Think I'll listen to that now. Classic.)
Looking at the signs
We've had flood and cyclones in Australia, Earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan (not to mention the nuclear disaster) and rioting and wars in the Middle east. And now this....
Mr Horsemen..... I think you've missed your queue.
For $2,000, you can have a go, too
No, at making your own song. This has been churned out as a vanity project by some outfit that specialises in, well, churning out songs featuring the children of the people prepared to pay them money. It's a sign of the perverseness of the universe that this song has become a 'hit' despite having nothing to recommend it.
(I'm told there is an acoustic version available for all us haters who think it's all been autotuned to excess and that Rebecca Black can't sing. Hoorah.)
Paris, because money doesn't buy talent.
Just heard the acoustic version...
..and unbelievably she sounded EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE VIDEO!!!
No vocodation, no autotuning required - that noise you hear is in fact her singing.
Re: Just heard the acoustic version...
Er, I think that may perhaps not be an authentic acoustic version.
Re: Re: Just heard the acoustic version
Really? Apart from a little tweaking where she says 'friends' I couldn't tell the difference
http://tinyurl.com/46jeu4v
nothing wrong with this...
and my musical tastes are very catholic, but I know cr@p when I hear it and this, believe it or not, is NOT cr@p...
Signed, a normally curmudgeonly 54 year old ex-punk...
Meh
It's actually about the same level of crapness as half the charts are at the moment, so it'll probably do well.
Any 'singer' who requires *that* much processing on their voice to even keep a monotone going is pretty much a lost cause, though.
I don't listen to pop music radio...
... but when I go to the jobcentre/agency this week I probably will. They like that sort of thing. Until I had a while of listening to pop radio *solely because I was there*, I hadn't even become aware of the autotune fad. This looks to be twenty time worse :(
'Worst' is a big word.
Whilst the song certainly deserves consideration for the ‘Worst song ever’ – I would like to point out that there are other contenders. Have your readers, for example, contemplated this one ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGESxjqHf7E
Best regards, Eiron Foyer.
Which leads me nicely into...
Where's me Jumper?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxmZZBJQAKM
(I do like this one... :)
"It's alright to say things can only get better, but you haven't lost your brand new sweater..."
Fortunately
I had sufficient warning and avoided this completely, but seeing as these days I avoid all commercially promoted air vibrating that wasn't difficult..
If I want to hear music I go to a venue dedicated to the process, or alternatively fetch some very high quality Creative Commons compositions from the 'net.
EPIC MULLET GUY Covers Rebecca Blacks Friday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw8IEd3LDzg
For the love of sanity, Why?
But there's always someone to do it better.
Matt Mulholland, via BoingBoing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxleH60hDJY
The song is neither here nor there
The fact that she looks like a robot doll with dead eyes is infinitely more disturbing.
Has it suddenly become possible to autotune people now?
Why oh why did I click Play?
I may never forgive El Reg for posting this video, or myself for clicking on it.
Calling this track "derivative" would be like calling the music it copies "derivative." In fact, trying to describe the lameness of this track is as pointless as the track itself.
Oh man, that one stung.
Friday Analysis
Someone noticed a rather interesting angle on the song that hadn't initially occurred to me.
Screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/y8U3i.jpg
Hmm...
I find adults queuing up to slag off young teenagers one of the more distasteful aspects of the Internet and it's been vastly increased by You Tube.
She's 13, she wrote a song, five or ten years ago maybe a few friends would hear it at school, maybe she'd get to perform it once in a talent show. Now, she writes a tune, it gets picked up from you tube and 'goes viral' with lots of oh-so-smart people who probably couldn't do as well themselves laughing at how bad it is. GROW UP!
If the global slagging-off doesn't crush her spirit, she may be actually turn out to be quite good. Everyone has to start somewhere and it's pretty much unheard of for someone to start off being excellent. Have any of you played a musical instrument or been in a band? Did you start good? No, thought not.
Did I start off good?
No, but I made very sure I was at least capable before I inflicted my own form of audio misery on the planet.
"If the global slagging-off doesn't crush her spirit..."
... I'd be more than happy to finish the job.
Sorry, but it's just not very good from an objective standpoint. There *are* objective metrics one can use to discuss someone's skills in a craft, and the craft of musical performance is no exception.
In this case, the singer's skills are difficult to analyse due to the heavy processing—a technique popular in current popular music, so this shouldn't really count against it. (Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. This decision, at least, is subjective.)
The video is nothing to write home about. Editing and directing choices play a large part in how she is portrayed, so the most one can say about the singer's performance is that far worse examples of the genre exist. However, it is clear that this video was produced by a team, not by a typical amateur individual. There's motion graphics, match-cuts and so on. This is, technically at least, competent. This is hardly a big surprise given how far desktop video has come, but the resulting video is monotonous and derivative stylistically. Whoever directed this tired cliché is certainly no Ridley Scott or Edgar Wright.
The lyrics are truly awful. Their subject matter, as others have pointed out, is also downright disturbing: she's singing the kinds of lyrics one would expect to hear from some of the more promiscuous rappers twice her age. It certainly isn't the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from a 13-year-old girl. Her judgement seems rather lacking. (As does that of her parent(s) or guardian(s).)
On the other hand, I've heard worse music.
From a commercial perspective, it's much better to have a star who can sing tolerably well and is willing to give up having anything resembling a social life in order to go on endless tours, interviews, photo shoots and the like, than to have someone who has an awesome voice, but who gets travel-sick at the mere sight of a road, let alone a tour bus and hates going more than 50 yards from his home studio. This is just business. The music labels invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing alone, all at their own risk. There are no guarantees that their future star will earn that investment back, let alone make a profit. And the one thing they do know is marketing.
Where's that queue then?
plenty of kids out there that need a reality check, and their parents too. I can't believe that her parents hired a company, Ark Music Factory, to produce the song. That company needs a good slagging off too.
I think you're right, yes it;s great she's putting in some time but...
Many moons ago you would learn to play or sing, get some mates together, then play a few gigs, see if it worked out. If it started happening you'd get serious start organising yourselves, get around to more clubs start bugging record companies and finally get a load of fans. Finally after a year or two you might get some attention, back on the circuit, bigger clubs more hard graft. After 3-4 years you might be playing 1,000+ places and selling loads of records. If your record company is OK they will keep fronting cash up, even see you through that tragic second album that is always pants. One day you will have earned the fame and fortune, swimming pool full of drugs or blue M&Ms!
These days, you write a crap song, sing it in a crap way, over process it. Appear on YouTube/X-Factor and have a career in 2 months flat! After 6 months your career is fucked and you're dreams are dead in the water 'cos something better comes along that's cuter and nicer that you, as you are now considered a has-been!
OK?
Real music is made by real mucisians who graft, playing shitty dives to 10 people on Friday night for maybe enough to cover the petrol to get there. You work and work to build up a following and a reputation, spending 9 months of the year stuck in a transit all the time learning how much you want to be a professional mucisian and how badly you want your dream. I support rock and metal bands, by going to those shitty clubs and buying CD's and shirts from the band's girlfriends at the door of the gig, making sure they know they are being supported by people who genuinely care about them making music they want to hear.
I do have to share
My son 10 years old enjoys differing music from AC/DC to a little classical. Over the weekend whilst watching TV beiber came on. With as much seriousness he could muster he turned to me and said quote unquote
“Dad turn it over this silly bitch can’t sing!”
It was one of the proudest moments ever, It also took me about 5 minutes to pick myself off the floor and chastise him for his use of bad language
Honestly I have no fuckin’ idea where he picks up that sort of language
Well said!
There is hope for some of the new generation, with people who care about real music teaching kids that there is something more than being spoon-fed chart drivel or one-hit wonders from YouTube! Well done sir!
I went to a club the other day and there was a prog death-metal band on, combined age of all 5 of them must have been about the same age as my old 70 year olf dad! On keyboards was this young girl who looked all of 14 or 15 years old, she looked absolutely terrified to be up there while a bunch of metal heads stared at her and her band, but she was still up there and still playing with her mates, with passion for the music she obviously loves. She was not looking for an easy way to make it, writing crap and getting an instant career, these kids were grafting in dingy dives as the bottom end of the support band list, as it should be done by real mucisians.
So there is hope!
oral ministrations
There must be a way to shut her up.
Getting coat and walking self to chokey now.
Re: Mostor Astrakan
Mercifully, Beethoven was deaf, and now dead. The lucky bastard!
what's all fuss?
I can't tell the difference between that and all the other sh1t I hear on the radio.
Managed 30 seconds before hitting the mute
Sounds like most of the crap that is punted at the lowest common denominator. Worst song ever? Probably not.
Re: Managed 30 seconds before hitting the mute
Ah but you don't realise the songwriting craft that goes into the stuff that offends your ears. Just as The Sun is written and put together by very clever people, so the kind of pop you find incredibly dumb is made by very musical people. Honest. This is a cut below.
But it is essentially the musical equivalent of a Moonpig card, so in some ways it's unfair to compare it to 'proper' pop made by real pros. The poor kid certainly isn't a pro, and as such I think she did OK, mind-bogglingly awful as the song is. Apparently she can sing pretty well - they just autotuned her to hell.
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