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Why I Love Rebecca Black’s “Friday”
I first learned of 13-year-old Rebecca Black via a Facebook post that appeared on my news feed about two weeks ago, and my initial reaction to the now ubiquitous “Friday” was a mixture of disbelief and amusement—I couldn’t help but chuckle at the atrocious song as I thought about how something so bad could accrue so many views in such a short period of time. Still, I thought of it as something of a novelty—just an internet meme that, like so any others, would sputter and stall once its fuel was burned up. As it turns out, “Friday” had a lot more gas in the tank than anyone expected.
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Album Review: Avril Lavigne – Goodbye Lullaby
On “What The Hell”—the bouncy lead single from Avril Lavigne’s fourth studio album Goodbye Lullabye—the 26-year-old Canadian famous for her skaterpunk-meets-pop style struts with a defiant swagger as she scorches an old flame. “All I really want is to mess around,” she sings. “And I don’t really care about if you love me or hate me.”
Later, on “Smile,” she proclaims that she’s “a crazy bitch” who “does what [she] wants when [she] feels like it,” and who wants to “lose control.” But the gusto of those songs can’t hide the obvious emotional turmoil at the core of the bulk of the songs on Goodbye Lullaby, an album which showcases a thoroughly dejected young woman who seems—with only a couple of exceptions—to have lost all faith in love.
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Katy Perry – “E.T.” (“Futuristic Lover”)
There’s no shocking girl-on-girl action, no cotton candy-laced teenage dreams and no flashing of peacocks in the California sunshine. “E.T.” is raw sexual energy set to a dark, thumping, rave-inspired beat. And although Perry’s voice has never sounded bigger or richer, that energy alone is not enough to save what is otherwise a thoroughly second-rate song that’s plagued by an ill-conceived concept. In “E.T.,” Perry sings that she’s ready for abduction, as well as the relatively innocuous lines, “Infect me with your lovin’/Fill me with your poison.” But as the song pounds along to a beat ripped from Russian duo t.A.T.u.’s 2002 hit “All The Things She Said,” the constant string of outer space metaphors quickly grows tiresome.
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Avril Lavigne – “What The Hell”
Avril Lavigne hasn’t had a Top 10 single anywhere in the world since 2007’s “Hot,” and her latest single, titled “What The Hell,” isn’t likely to change that. Co-written by mega producer and songwriter Max Martin, this warmed-over slice of pop is peppy, but it sounds dated and it lacks the bite that made the best of the singer’s earlier work compelling.
And it takes a lot more to compete in today’s pop landscape than simple peppiness. When Lavigne emerged in 2002, she was something of a pop counterculture figure. She wasn’t just a singer, but a symbol for people—primarily girls and young women—who were beginning to reject the gloss of overexposed female icons like Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Lavigne’s skater-punk style made her seem earthy in contrast, and her self-penned songs—full of attitude and spunk—sounded like nothing else on the radio at that time.
She wasn’t just alternative, she was an alternative.
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