Pop Shots
The Rebecca Black Out
By: Adam Bernard
Last updated March 23rd , 2011

Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is taking a look at the Black out that happened on the internet last week. No, I'm not talking about a power failure, I'm talking about the complete takeover Rebecca Black had with what many consider to be one of the worst songs in the history of music, "Friday."

This Rebecca Black Out started innocently enough, with a cheesy music video for a song with horrifically bad lyrics and such an egregious use of Auto-Tune that Black sounded more like the guy from the anti-smoking ads who's sad he can't swim anymore because he has a hole in his neck than anything you might associate with music. 

As soon as a few high profile blogs picked it up the video became an internet meme and now stands at over 30 million views. Black suddenly found herself on Good Morning America attempting to defend herself from critics.

Those same critics are flabbergasted and offended at the way Black has rocketed up the iTunes chart. They shouldn't be. America has always loved the kitsch, sometimes even more than the great. It's why VH1 can have dozens of hours of programming dedicated to one hit wonders and not only will we watch all of those programs, but we'll know all the words to all the songs, while a significantly smaller percentage of the country can sing along to album cuts from legendary acts.

Everyone wanted a piece of Black. So much so that the number of covers and mashups of "Friday" is still growing by the minute (the number of people who've attempted to cover it with a ukulele is slightly frightening).

As your fearless pop culture guru I went through as many of these covers and mashups as I possibly could (you know, before the men with the white jackets that make you hug yourself showed up) to bring you the best of the best... or is this the best of the worst... or the best of a bad situation? Whatever it is, here is the best of what the internet has done with "Friday." 

Matt Mullholland's dark cover of the song is stripped down, hilarious and puts "Friday" in a much different light.




It was inevitable that someone would create a mashup of "Friday" with the classic stoner comedy of the same name. Thankfully, they did a great job with it.



This rendition of the song imagines what it would have sounded like if Bob Dylan had sang it in his heyday.



Pop punk band So Long Arletta adds some extra fun and flavor to "Friday" with their hilarious ad-libs during the song. The exultation of "oh my God it's my friends!" when they arrive the bus stop is followed by something even funnier that makes this cover really great.



My buddy Ben Gott put together an acoustic cover of the song, not expecting anyone but his friends to get a kick out of it. It has since racked up over 15K views and quite a few confused commenters who didn't understand his saying "this song is like every Beatles song ever made in one song" was totally tongue in cheek.



Finally, this 33 second mashup with the classic film Groundhog Day shows us exactly what Bill Murray thinks of "Friday," and sums up our feelings on it best.


And with that, my time is up for the week, but I'll be back next week with more shots on all things pop.

[Tags] POP

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