Wednesday 23 March 2011

REBECCA BLACK

"De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do, de da da da
They're meaningless and all that's true"
-Rebecca Black

"Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah"
-Sting

Rebecca Black is a 13 year old girl somewhere in America who, for whatever reason, made a pop song and a video. If it had only been witnessed by seven people - would it still signal the end of music as we know it? At the time of writing, close to five hundred thousand people have hit the 'dislike' button on her YouTube video. These aren't 13 year old girls disliking it, they're angry forty year old men who are pissed that nobody's listening to Metallica anymore.

I don't see how Rebecca Black is relevant to me. Her video is fun. I remember being fourteen - it was similar to the video. You talk shit, you see your friends, you look forward to the weekend. Great, I hope the kids enjoy the song. It wasn't made for me. I only saw it because of the media storm.


So 500,000 hit 'dislike.' That's a lot of hate. Couldn't we do something more productive? The comments are mostly people bitching about how awful the music industry is, how this is the worst thing ever. But how many of them are creating the alternatives? Like it or not, the talentless can get famous in five minutes, but for the talented it takes years. The forty year old singer/songwriter might have more talent than Rebecca Black, but none of his songs are as good as Bruce Springsteen's. That's not Rebecca Black's fault. The guy just needs to keep making music. Whether Rebecca Black exists or not; everything is still the same.

But Black actually has some talent. She performed it acoustic. I've heard worse. There's a bunch of young girls in the audience. They seem to dig it. Should we force them to listen to Bob Dylan records?

Good music, good films, good art, whatever --- they don't exist in a vacuum. You can't get the good stuff without the bad. We enjoy Tom Petty because he isn't Rebecca Black. But the Petty's don't exist without the Black's and the Britney's. If the mainstream loved what we love on a personal level, it wouldn't mean anything. When Springsteen sings about bustin' outta town, or when Aretha Franklin sings about freedom - they're powerful because they come from outside, they come from a place that hurts. That matters. The mainstream frames this perfectly, it's what makes it meaningful. That's why the greatest hits are never your favorites, they mean too much to too many.

But we don't need to be so angry every time a teenager sings about the weekend. She's just a kid.

What's the meanest thing you've read, that hurt you the most? -Interviewer.
I hope you cut yourself and I hope you get an eating disorder so you'll look pretty. And I hope you go cut and die. -Rebecca Black, 13.

Care to share?

9 comments:

  1. Agreed that people are unnecessarily cruel, especially for to a kid who just doesn't know any better. Still, not a fan of of the parameters that supposedly surround the company that produced the music video...just seems shady and they're unfortunately not producing anything good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Couldn't agree with you more Kid! Great post.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I saw this video for the first time here. And I have to admit, it pains me. I mean, it is physically repelling to my ears. And she's wearing too much makeup. And she's not just some American girl. So of course, people are going to have opinions. And she knows somebody, she's Hollywoody, she's got to have some cash to make this video. I also saw her trashed on Facebook. I didn't watch the video posting but there were some seriously hateful remarks.
    But she's having fun, she's not doing any harm, so who cares. You're right - so much negative energy out there. All that misguided energy. Such a shame. And I know this sounds hypocritical of me, as I voiced my opinion as to her vocal ability (on make-up), but that is only to illustrate that we can feel a certain way about something, but we don't have to dedicate reams of thread to caustic, hateful words.
    I have to say, though, I agree with Mermaid, what were her parents thinking?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Like I said on FB...every generation has its bubblegum pop. How is she hurting the world enough to deserve such cruel words? Save 'em for Khaddafi, not this poor kid.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been pretty shocked at all the haters out there. Sure, it isn't the best - although I've heard acoustic covers that make it much better - but it's still someone trying something. She's just a teen singing a song someone else wrote, with a voice someone else auto-tuned.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My thoughts exactly. She may be a spoiled rich kid, and the song lyrics may be awful, but so what? She's THIRTEEN.

    If people really want her to go away so badly, talking about her and putting her down is certainly not the way to do it. Her name has been trending on Twitter for like a week straight now, so it's obvious that the haters are feeding her fame and popularity.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rebecca Black FTW

    The internet seems to have a trend towards verbally berating and systematically threatening kids who do stuff on the internet.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This song is terrible but I can't stand how people trash each other on the internet. Anonymity is the coward's disguise and people seem to forget that there's a REAL person on the other side of their insults!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Shouldn't there be a rule that it's not OK to rip on teenagers publicly? Even early to mid-20's could be excused because they generally don't know better. Since when have we been given the crap-on-anyone permission slip?

    ReplyDelete