Gettin’ Down on Friday

Last Friday, while waiting for a review session to begin, a freshman was kind enough to play Rebecca Black’s “Friday” on the projection screen for all of Science Center Hall B to enjoy.

One of my friends spent the greater part of the video complaining about the injustice of having such an insipid song gain notoriety while the music of many genuinely talented artists remains in obscurity. Ten minutes later, she subconsciously broke into a cheerful round of “Partyin’, partyin’, yeah!” Despite its myriad flaws, the song clearly has a parasitic ability to nestle inside the depths of one’s mind and replay itself into oblivion. With sufficient listening, it may even become pleasant for the hard-core pop music lover. So where did “Friday” go wrong?

It seems that Rebecca Black’s lack of charisma in her music video spelled its ultimate downfall. Today’s popular music landscape consists of songs such as “That Should be Me” by Justin Bieber and Rascal Flatts—a 17-year-old superstar and a middle-aged country trio commiserating about a lost love—and ones such as “No Sleep” by Wiz Khalifa that exhort partying in lieu of rest with an ironically lullaby-like melody. What makes these whimsical songs lovable, while Rebecca Black’s ode to the weekend is laughable? In a word, confidence.

Consider another teenage songstress, Selena Gomez, who is dominating music video sales on iTunes with her song “Who Says,” an inspiring but less-than-novel anthem with lyrics that include “Who says you’re not star potential/Who says you’re not presidential.” Gomez, a Disney titan, is comfortable in front of the camera and exudes an organic earnestness that will cause her target tween demographic to sing along rather than roll its eyes. Similarly, in the music video for her Billboard chart-topping “Born this Way,” when Lady Gaga gives birth to herself—in space, no less—she sells it as only Gaga can. As conveyed in their music videos, these artists clearly believe that their songs are likeable—or, in the worst case scenario, they are sufficiently trained in acting to pretend that they believe in their music.

Black, on the other hand, wears the same forced, uncomfortable smile on her face throughout the “Friday” video, whether she’s waking up, watching her underage friends pull over their car at a bus stop, dancing next to a tree, or just kickin’ in the back seat. When our heroine wails, “Which seat should I take?” she doesn’t look at all conflicted or, at the very least, exultant that her biggest problem is the trivial conflict at hand. There are glimpses of what appears to be real expression—Black looks relieved when she sees her friends, and seems to loosen up slightly in the final scene of the video—but they are diminished by the teen’s timid dance moves and mechanical eye contact with the camera. Whether Black was nervous or whether she genuinely hated the song, her performance suggests that she is feeling “Friday” even less than the audience.

The hilarity of the song itself lies in the way that Black’s singing conveys emotional investment in lyrics such as “Yesterday was Thursday/Today it is Friday.” She sings these lines with the out-of-place sweetness of a seventh grader daydreaming about her gym class crush. Whether by virtue of AutoTune or Black’s relatively higher confidence in the recording studio, her inflections make her halfhearted video performance appear even more awkward.

Because Black is neither a polished Disney triple threat nor a veteran performer, she has every right to be uncomfortable on stage. This amateurism could easily be forgiven—and empathized with—in a home video meant only for Grandma, but not in the context of the level of exposure that Black presumably desired. Perhaps the blame ultimately lies with Ark Music Factory, the production company that armed Black with a semi-sleek video without training the aspiring singer in proper performance technique.

Many have interpreted “Friday” an inadvertent parody of pop music. It does fulfill the most basic requirement of a parody: The artist is clearly aware that her music video is a farce. In the end, if Black had demonstrated that she was sincerely having all that “fun, fun, fun, fun” she claimed to experience, there is a chance that her video would have garnered a little less sarcasm.

Tarina Quraishi ’14, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Hollis Hall.