“Friday” by Rebecca Black Has Always Been a Hyperpop Song
Picture it: You’re 17 years old again. You’re gathering with friends at some subpar local diner. You’re laughing and bonding while making fun of some poor girl who accidentally went viral by singing on what you call a “terrible song”. You’re happy.
You’re an asshole, but you’re happy.
I’ve wanted to talk about Rebecca Black since I first started doing this show. The only reason I haven’t is because I’m holding out hope that she’ll hear about this podcast and desperately ask me to be a guest (daydreaming has become a full-time hobby of mine). So no, that episode isn’t coming anytime soon, but we do need to talk about her.
This afternoon, Black - who is still releasing music and is a solid Instagram follow - released a remix to her song, “Friday”, a track that became an internet sensation 10 years ago today due to it’s inane lyrics, nasally vocals, and absurd music video. The remix features Dorian Electra, a queer avant-pop artist, as well as hip-hop icon, Big Freedia and 3OH!3, the electronic duo behind “Don’t Trust Me”.
The remix takes an already maximalist pop song and turns it up to 11, pitching up the vocals, adding stuttering 808’s, and layering synths that are somehow even more intrusive than the original, although this time much more purposefully.
The remix is, by all accounts, a clear success. All the elements and guest features come together to make something incredibly engaging, even though it may mostly be just a tongue-in-cheek nod to Black’s original claim to infamy. However, the thing that I love the most about this remix is that it underlines the fact that “Friday” always has been and always will be an amazing song.
If you listen closely, the elements that make this remix successful can also be found in the original song. “Friday” is cartoonishly exuberant, grating yet hauntingly catchy, frantically smashing together pop, electronica, and hip-hop and…
Oh my god… It’s hyperpop. “Friday” by Rebecca Black is hyperpop.
Hyperpop has become a popular buzzword in music over the past few years, with artists like Charlie XCX and 100 Gecs using underground sub-genres of electronica to make ecstatic pop music. The remix to “Friday” - and, perhaps by extension, the original “Friday” - is a perfect distillation of what hyperpop is and how it came to be. It’s only fitting that 30H!3 is on this remix considering the fact that, around the same time that “Friday” became a sensation, 3OH!3 was walking so that 100 Gecs could run.
Is it going too far to say that the original “Friday” is a predecessor to hyperpop? Maybe. However, if we find joy in a chaotic song that celebrates something as juvenile as ringtones, certainly we can admit that there might have been something to a song that celebrates the arrival of the weekend the way only a naive teenager can.
In the last year, Rebecca Black has opened up about the struggles she faced after “Friday” became an accidental meme. She was punished and bullied for being a 13-year-old girl who just wanted to make a song; a song that 100’s of millions of people all over the world decided was worth listening to. It’s a great example of how toxic hatred can be when it’s used to consume popular music. I know first hand how hard it is to give credit to the music you’ve been taught to hate, but refusing to do so can make being on the receiving end a real-life nightmare.
One thing that I hope people take away from The Skip Button is that there is no such thing as a “guilty pleasure”. There are songs we like and songs we don’t like. 10 years after “Friday” was originally released, Rebecca Black’s new video seems to be an act of vengeance, a means of hoisting us up by the lapels and saying “admit it, you’ve always liked this song”.
It’s payback to all the people who would have rather ruined a young girl’s life than admit that to her in the first place.
