Exhibit A. A... pop star?
Personally, I hate the song and the video. I hate how it was produced. I hate its history and the company's mission.
But I don't hate a 13 year-old girl.
Here's the backstory for anyone who hasn't checked wikipedia. Ark Music Factory is a Los Angeles vanity record label ("vanity record label" meaning a record company that produces content at the "artist's" expense rather than the other way around). Ark centers it's work around on the "recruitment/discovery of new young singers" according to the wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_Music_Factory) though the website itself gives no information other than offers of following them on every popular social networking site that currently exists and neon tweets for Rebecca Black and their other clients. The basic idea is the company has prewritten songs an "artist" can choose from then they produce a professionalish music video. What's not mentioned on the site is the cost, only contact info and more 90's myspace graphics. You know they have to be charging the clients. They're a vanity record label, it's the definition of any vanity company to charge the client.
Now here's where things get really shady. Yesterday I checked the wikipedia page on Rebecca Black and found quotes from her mother and a reference to $2000 paid for her video. And now it's gone along with the "about" section of the Ark website. I have no evidence but what it looks like is, with all the backlash against Rebecca Black and the company itself, they are working to wipe clean any trace of payment for the video and other videos they've produced. Otherwise, it'd give credence to the current permeating idea that Rebecca Black and the rest of the child clients are NOT artists, are NOT musicians and should NOT be allowed to skip over the hard work and years of training other singers go through to get to the same point.
And that idea is right. Kids with rich parents (especially kids with no stage presence and the talent of your little sister singing into a hairbrush) shouldn't be allowed to have money thrown into the pot and a career pop out. It's an insult to art and an insult to the rest of us who have to take out licks playing for free in cafe's where the only attendants are their friends they had to remind daily to show up (half of who didn't come anyway).
But the other poptarts in the genre throwing their two cents in really have no leg to stand on and Rebecca Black doesn't deserve to be treated like the Yoko of pop music.
Take for example this tidbit from Ms. Miley Cyrus.
"It should be harder to be an artist," Cyrus, 18, told Australia's Daily Telegraph of the 13-year-old Internet sensation. "You shouldn't just be able to put a song on YouTube and go on tour." (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42342379/ns/today-entertainment/)
Really Miley? But they should be able to have their daddy pull some strings to get them a network tv show with DISNEY? A show whose main character just happens to lead a double life as a pop-star? Is that how PJ Harvey got her start?
And I can think of another youtube star Miley doesn't seem to have any problem with.
Does this lesbiImean little boy look familiar. Yeah that's Justin Bieber seen with Miley Cyrus supposedly after dinner where they discussed a "side-project". (http://www.usmagazine.com/healthylifestyle/news/miley-cyrus-and-justin-bieber-go-on-dinner-date-2010115)
I wonder if the side-project was Miley teaching him the ins and outs of being a true artist?
So much of the backlash is completely hypocritical. If you break down the issues it comes down to:
"She bought her way in"
Well, that is infuriating. Being lower middle-class myself, of course it pisses me off personally but, for God's sake, she's thirteen! Her parents gave her an option and she went for it. Who wouldn't and how many pop stars haven't done it (I've already given you one, you can probably make a two page list in ten minutes)?
"She's a product"
Allow me to introduce you to American Idol and the Disney corporation. Ever seen the "dance breaks" between Disney shows? Terrifying.
HERE'S ONE!
"The song's TERRIBLE"
Sample lyrics from pop artists who don't have comment sections entirely of death threats and virtual spits in the face.
Kei$ha "Tik Tok": Don't stop/ make it pop/ DJ blow my speakers up/ tonight I'mma fight/ til we see the sunlight/
Britney Spears "Womanizer": Lollipop must mistake me you're the sucker/ to think I would be a victim not another/ say it play it how you want it/ but no way I'm never gonna fall for you never you baby
Justin Bieber "Baby": you know you love me I know you care/ just shout whenever and I'll be there/ you are my love you are my heart/ and we will never ever be apart
Miley Cyrus "Party in the USA": my tummy's turnin' and I'm feelin' kinda homesick/ too much pressure and I'm nervous/ that's when the DJ dropped my favorite tune
Sorry guys, it's all terrible. It all either reads like shitty middle-school poetry or lazy anthems to how hard white girls party at da club.
Look, pop music has NEVER been high art. As much respect as people have for Madonna, I don't know a single person who can say honestly and with a straight face that her music really changed their perspective on life. Pop music is meant to be fun, even the super duper sad pants songs. And that's what this kid did, she had fun.
And of course... here's her fucking video.
Psych! I love that dog.
