Rebecca Black Just Killed Pop Music

Mar. 14, 2011

By Josh Liburdi info

Josh Liburdi lives, works and goes to school in southeast Michigan. He is a synthesizer lover, horseradish ...

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In case you haven’t seen this video from up-and-coming pop artist Rebecca Black, take a moment to watch. This is the end of pop music as we currently know it. Remember when the boy band craze hit its apex around 2000, suddenly no one gave a shit, and it turned into self-parody? Well, here’s the beginning of the end of this era of pop music. This song exposes the inane and overused hallmarks of current pop so effectively that I don’t know if I should laugh or celebrate.

Thanks to Rebecca and her production team, we’ve turned a corner and there is no going back. It took me two full viewings before I figured out that this wasn’t a joke. (Parts that stumped me: when the rapper suddenly appears, when she says “gotta have my bowl”). Now when I hear the latest electro-pop song on the radio, all I’m gonna think is “we we we so excited.” I just hope that at some point in the not too distant future, someone at Ark Music Factory looks back at this and says, “wow, we really fucked up. I mean, I am so sorry.”

We might still have a couple more years of auto-tune and crotch shots, but after this, none of it matters. Goodbye Katy, Ke$ha, Miley–I’ll miss your boobs, slutcore moves and so-bad-it’s-good music (“Party in the USA” was a total banger).

Editor’s Note: The mystery behind Rebecca Black was recently uncovered. She is a real person and the video is not a joke. BlackBook, in a post from this morning, uncovered a story on Black originally posted on City Sound Inertia. Ark Music Factory, the people behind the video, is a LA-based company ran by Patrice Wilson and Clarence Jay. They cater to wealthy parents with adolescent daughters (aged 13 to 17) who want to be pop stars. In their casting calls, they seek out young talent with no original material and produce auto-tuned music along with an accompanying video. Many of their videos (see City Sound Inertia for examples) are as laughably bad as Black’s, but not nearly as popular. TC mark

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  • http://twitter.com/and_susan Susie Anderson

    gurl needs to check herself

    • JayFingers

      Who gon' check her, boo?

  • Justin

    picture me lollin'

  • Garynuman

    are you real?

  • http://hbgwhem.tumblr.com/ HBGWHEM

    you are overreacting super big-time. i think frued once said, “sometimes a piece of shit meme is just a piece of shit meme, bro.”

  • lando

    it's interesting that she initially has to take the bus, but her friends surprise her with a ride

    • PERFECTCIRCLES

      I used to do that to my friends all the time on Fridays.

  • http://twitter.com/craftybast Aaron Laibson

    Anyone looking for more than a knee-jerk reaction post should check out the article on bohemian.com discussing the origins of the video and the people behind it: http://www.bohemian.com/cityso…

    • FUN FUN YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS

      Right… referring to this as the work of an “up-and-coming pop artist” just shows a lack of real journalistic interest in what's actually going on here. The story's a lot more interesting than this.

  • Lalala

    It'sKingsleyBitch did a video on this. I swear, I thought it was a spoof. This shows how shit music is nowadays..

  • Aforabsinthe

    She's sort of like Ke$ha if Ke$ha had really trite lyrics, was sort of chunky, had a horrible voice, and didn't dress like a slut.

    Basically all the autotune of slutwave and none of the fun…

  • PERFECTCIRCLES

    I don't know if anyone saw this, but at the beginning when they are showing the days of the week, most of the days have a subtitle with a famous reference. Thursday is to Thursday's Child, the David Bowie song off of his 1999 LP …hours. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

    • http://zuungols.myminicity.com/tra cinnarose

      I don't think they were referencing Bowie, maybe they were thinking of the nursery rhyme? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…
      I think they're too shallow to even think of the Bowie song.

  • Alex Allison

    wut

  • SusanDerkins

    This is not ok

  • erin pea

    omg, her voice (if it is her original voice, which i doubt) is SOOOO bad. would rather listen to aaron carter on repeat for 24 hours straight than ever watch this video again.

  • http://twitter.com/godworm Nicholas Cox

    AUTO-TUNE WILL BE FOREVER

  • Angie

    I think you're all envious. She's pretty and the song is fantastic. She's ready to be the Next American Superstar.
    Haters gonna hate.

  • http://twitter.com/mattzeus matthew

    bleak

  • Tommmmmm

    a tiny step above child pageants.

  • David

    The real core of the problem here is the “auto-tune.” It's so rarely used effectively, I wish the whole lame trend would just go away. What's more, this just glorifies the party culture so prevalent in our country to even younger kids. These girls deserve whatever comes to them.

    • Jenna

      the core of the problem is the autotune and the party culture? that's like one of those solid sugar decorations on the entire shitty cake.

  • Roger Klitz

    The core problem is David fucking Rodriguez

  • fdsjkl

    My favorite part is when she points gives a lesson on the order of the days of the week.
    I wonder if her target demographic just does not know that Friday comes after Thursday.

    • SisterRay

      And then Saturday and Sunday come afterwards…really now? That's some stellar pop music writing right there.

  • meghan

    The best part is 3:49

  • SisterRay

    I really think the blame should rest more with the person in charge of the auto-tune. You couldn't NOT make her sound nasal and shrill with the repetition of “Friday” over and over? Have they ever even heard music before? By re-writing some of the lyrics and auto-tuning her to actually sound decent (isn't that the point?), this song could've been…not good, but slightly more redeemable. This is just laughably bad.

  • nic

    this was a bob dylan song fr the basement tapes

  • coreyyyy

    This is, like, the modern day equivalent to Robin Sparkles from How I Met Your Mother.

  • Joi8ichi

    The age of Twilight has made itself known in the uncreative, lackadaisical attempts at being good at something. People should stick with what they know, and this generation knows Team Edward or Team Jacob

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