I Gotta Feeling That Friday Isn't As Bad As We Thought

     This post is in no way timely or pertinent, but it crossed my mind while driving tonight.


     I first heard about the song Friday, by Rebecca Black, through my brother's facebook post, on March 18 of this year:

Garrett Gilchrist

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday. Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’). We-we-we so excited. We so excited. We gonna have a ball today

Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards

 ·  · Share · March 18 at 9:25am · 

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  Jordan Egbert likes this.
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    Grant Gilchrist is that will.i.am? if it is and I can tell just by those lyrics alone that is sad
    

    March 18 at 1:34pm · 
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    Garrett Gilchrist no. far from it
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0
    

    March 18 at 5:20pm · 
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    Grant Gilchrist it's not THAT far from it. will.i.am only uses a couple more phrases and has much higher production values. I could totally see him singing that song and it being a fair hit.
    

    March 19 at 11:19am · 

     Garrett loves to just quote random lyrics from songs that either pertain to his life at the moment or are expressing his innermost desires in ways that he himself cannot. I am going to defend my final comment to him, that Friday is really no worse than any recent Black Eyed Peas song, or most of anything on the radio in fact.
     People hate on the song Friday for a few key reasons: it's repetitive, it's boring and dumb, it clearly explains the order of the days of the week, and it's highly produced (meaning we're not convinced Rebecca Black is actually singing it), and there's always that "which seat should I take" dilemma. Beyond the song, the music video has her creepily staring at the camera the whole time, a random rapper who must hate his career, and essentially nothing happening.







     Compare that with the Black Eyed Peas song/video I Gotta Feeling. The Black Eyed Peas have been spitting out catch-phrases-converted-into-songs for years now, and I Gotta Feeling is actually one of their more catchy/enjoyable songs in a long time, but guess what? It's repetitive (they say "let's do it" maybe 7 thousand times), it's boring and dumb, it clearly explains the order of the days of the week (4 minutes into the song, they actually count out the days!!!), it's extremely highly produced, and there's that "which seat should I take" dilemma.







     Really, Rebecca Black just doesn't have the life experiences to make as compelling a song. She talks about taking the bus (waiting under a clearly labeled "bus stop" sign), or driving with her friends, hanging out, and then driving some more. That's a great party for a 12 year old!! Will.I.Am knows that adult parties are better - with filled bottles and nearly-naked-women, but the two videos are fundamentally the same: Let's show some people having age-appropriate fun!! (Did you know that Will.I.Am and apl.de.ap (another B.E.P. rapper) started making music together in eighth grade?! I'm sure their original stuff was better than Friday, but I doubt it was better by much. It just wasn't there for the whole world to see)

     Part of the hate for Rebecca Black comes from the feeling that her desperate-housewife-suburban mother pretty much made all of this happened (whether or not it's true, it has to be a factor at some level, right?) It's like, what mother on earth would put that video up for the world to see (not knowing, of course, that it would become such a sensation, but probably hoping at some level that it would). Yeah that's all legit hate, keep spewing it.

     So, when I was teaching at South Eugene Highschool and every period some group of students would mock this song, I would try to convince them that Friday isn't as bad as most of the stuff on the radio. They never believed me. They are probably right, I mean did you hear the first 30 seconds of the song, where Rebecca Black sounds like she's trying to sing along with a tuning violin? But the radio plays a lot of Nickelback, Katy Perry, Black Eyed Peas and Britney Spears. This wasn't a huge step down.