Rebecca Black's Friday: Stupidest Song Ever Recorded?

Before I start my trashing on this song, please watch the MV below, in case you haven't heard of it, and sing along with the lyric. By this, you'll roughly know what is the ensuing content of this post:

(Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark)
Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah, yeah, yeah


7am, waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?

It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend


7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway
Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly
Fun, fun, think about fun
You know what it is
I got this, you got this
My friend is by my right
I got this, you got this
Now you know it

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?


It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday


Okay, done singing? Has it ever occurred to you that you have to stop and laugh for a moment on how silly was the song you sung along?  Are you thinking does the kid old enough to have a driving license? Are any of them is even above age 15? Where did they learn their dance moves? Above all, it pops a dull conundrum that we may have been through in our lives: what seat can we take? Anyway, have you click "dislike" in youtube?

This song is an instant YouTube hit when it was uploaded on March 11, 2011 and the view count jumped from 3000 to 33 million+ views as of now. I firmly believe that the soar in the viewing counts isn't because people are looking for a song that is soothe in the ears, but mainly because they're there to click on "dislike" button and voicing out how awful they felt over this song. Major causes of hating this song are:


1. The lyric is plain stupid, repetitive and un-poetic. You may think it's a joke video at first, but then I realized it was serious when it is currently positioned at 19 on iTune sales chart. Most of the buzz surrounds the content of the song,  it talks about the important issues in life. Like, busy mornings, which seat should I sit in, and what are we going  to do this weekend? Sorry, I was just being sarcastic. It's a silly song that blandly detailing a 13-year-old high school student's monotonous daily routine and her desire of "wanna have fun". Let's do some dissection on this song and extract out the stupidity:


The song begins with Rebecca (acronym - RB) waking up at 7am, trying to be fresh, going to eat cereal like any typical day, she must be feel very bored with it as indicated by "Seein’ everything, the time is goin’".  After finishing her breakfast, she marches down the street to wait for the bus. From here, we can interpret the lyric in two ways: she's either on hallucination or it does happen in reality. As the next scene jumps to a group of teens arriving in a Benz, so, we can presume RB is having a fantasy scenario at the bus stop or... there's really a bunch of rich spoil kids coming to fetch her. Then, the notorious chorus kicks in:


Kickin' in the front seat,

Sittin' in the back seat,

Gotta make my mind up -

Which seat can I take?

Refer to the MV, there's actually only one seat reserved for her. So what's the bother of choosing which seat to take? If interpreting metaphorically (take the school bus and go to school/go party with my friends), from the way of the dork waving at 0:37, obviously RB has already made up her mind by going to par-tay.


Then it's friday & partying, bla bla bla, second verse commences with:


7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway
Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly
Fun, fun, think about fun


We're not sure whether it is fast forward 45 minutes after 7am or 12 hours later, nevertheless, why RB would want the time fly since she's having some fun (Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly), then, who are the rest of the dudes & dudettes in the car?? (My friend is by my right, she acknowledges only one friend)

Par-tay-ing with friends and strangers

Her only friend in the car, Benni Cinkle

Why wishing the time flies when the time is fun?

Going through half of the song, we can still hear that she hasn't made up her mind of choosing which seat (recall: Kickin’ in the front seat, Sittin’ in the back seat, Gotta make my mind up, Which seat can I take?). Near the end of the song, we hear some nonsensical rap that goes:

R-B, Rebecca Black
So chillin’ in the front seat (In the front seat)
In the back seat (In the back seat)
I’m drivin’, cruisin’ (Yeah, yeah)
Fast lanes, switchin’ lanes
Wit’ a car up on my side (Woo!)
(C’mon) Passin’ by is a school bus in front of me
Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream
Check my time, it’s Friday, it’s a weekend
We gonna have fun, c’mon, c’mon, y’all


Apparently, we have a case of a pedophile stalking a 13-year-old girl and a case of dangerous driving that may cause casualties (I’m drivin’, cruisin’ Yeah, yeah, Fast lanes, switchin’ lanes). On the other hand, RB was seen, from pedophile's POV, she may suffer some sort of hyperactivity as she's seen chilling in front seat and the back seat in which case may be charged of not buckling up the seatbelt, a traffic offense in Malaysia.

Why a bus ‘makes tick-tock’ is therefore beyond analysis, why the rapper wants to scream is ambiguous (perhaps at the quality of his lyrics), and why the time is being conflated with the date is incomprehensible. The song returns to Rebecca herself and ends with repetitions that it’s Friday, there’s partying, there’s fun, and there’s many ‘yeahs’ and ‘woo-s’.

The thing about that song is that it's actually performed and written by 12-year-olds, of course it's insanely stupid. With "Friday", it's written and produced by professionals. That's what's so sad about the whole thing. Thanks RB for reminding me that every Friday, I always stuck in the horrible traffic jam . LOOK WHAT FUN I'VE BEEN MISSING ON.

In short, this stupid song boils down to this:

2. Autotune all the way. In short, autotune is a software that allow singers to sing without the need to be accurate. It's a Photoshop for singing. You don't need skill or talents to sing. The computer will take care everything. To my dismay, the whole track is being done by using autotune. RB could have just hum into a mic and everything's being taken care by the sound engineer. BUT, what is so wrong is that Friday sounded like "Fry-ee-day" or worse, "Fry-Egg". Clearly, the autotune requires some sort of an update. Still, she's lucky to have a shortcut to kick start her singing career. Very unfair to many of those talented (and untalented) still struggling to earn a piece of music market share.

By criticizing this piece of rubbish, I'm like being my own parent without knowing it. Maybe I'm getting too old.  But to me, this is a song where "baby baby" or "sorry sorry" can be swap by "fry-day fry-day". There's no creativity worth mentioning. This is a song popular for all wrong reasons. This is the quality of the contemporary songs for younger listeners who growing up with Justin Bieber. Alas.

Stupidometer: 8/10 (should get a full, but, due to its ability to generate comedic value and thus having a successful viral campaign, it does not deserve a 10. It even inspires me to have a new business plan: Create a studio --> Get a bunch of teenage girls, make songs and music videos, upload said music videos to YouTube no matter how bad they are --> People make fun of terrible video sending it "viral" --> Join in on mocking --> ??? --> Profit.)