This time last week, while people were updating their weekend playlists, few would have strayed past The Cure for a Friday feel-good song. This week, however, seems set to be dominated by a harmless song that has gone viral.
‘Friday‘ comes courtesy of Rebecca Black, a 13-year-old aspiring singer from Anaheim Hills, California.
Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson of ARK Music Factory wrote and produced the track. The company is famed for writing and producing a number of songs for younger artists and charge up to US$2,000 to record their songs and produce the videos. They have had limited success to date, but this looks set to change this week after hitting on an internet goldmine.
The song ‘Friday’ and its accompanying video was first put on YouTube in early February and had top views of only 3,000 until last Friday (11 March). Since then, online views have skyrocketed to more than 16m in six days, inspiring hundreds of internet memes along the way and today Black was the No 1 trending topic on Twitter worldwide.
The song has come under harsh criticism globally, with The Independent in the UK calling it “the worst song ever” and the majority of feedback on Twitter being negative towards the video and the simplistic lyrics of the song. Internet search giant Yahoo has even asked, “Is YouTube sensation Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ the worst song ever?” The negative feedback has not gone unnoticed, and Black, in her first interview since the song has been released, told The Daily Beast, “At times, it feels like I’m being cyber bullied.”
The song is now No 54 on the iTunes chart, ahead of seasoned tracks like ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon and ‘What’s my Name’ by Rihanna.
Adam Renardson
