A (best-selling) book by Robert Heinlein, first published in 1984, about the exploits of a young (and, the cover-art would have it, scantily clad) courier-spy-superwoman, the genetically engineered miss Friday Jones. As the world around her descends in to political chaos, she accepts a mercenary mission to space - only to find that her new empoyers intend it to be a suicide mission.

The day in which Muslims gather together in the afternoon and attend the jummah in their local masjid.

"Look, I know you don't smoke weed. But I'm gonna get you high today. Because it's Friday. You ain't got no job, and you ain't got shit to do!"

Late '90s cult classic, starring Ice Cube as Craig, a recently fired shipping worker, and Chris Tucker as Smokey, his stoner friend. Hilarious hijinks ensue as Smokey insists on getting Craig to smoke some marijuana that he was supposed to sell for Worm, the local drug baron. Craig and Smokey end up on the run from Worm, as well as Deebo, the local bully, and have many misadventures. Can Craig survive without getting killed or squashed? Will he end up following his father's footsteps and becoming a dog catcher? Can a movie be considered excellent on the strength of its one-liners alone?

"Don't nobody go in the bathroom for about 35-45 minutes."

Just see it.

Friday is a song sung by Rebecca Black and produced by ARK Music Factory.   It was released on YouTube and became huge.  

 

It has been panned as one of the worst songs of all time.  But not everyone knows why.  Here are the top 10 reasons why, in my opinion, it is one of the worst songs I've ever heard.

 

1. Song is poorly written.  - It is way too repetitive, the lyrics are terrible.

2. Song is ultrapop.  It is meant to be very pop sounding, and it overdoes it.

3. Rebecca Black has a somewhat annoying nasaly voice.  She is reasonably on tune, but her voice is grating. 

4. Song is inconsistant.  It says she's trying to catch a school bus, when suddenly, her friends drive up in a convertible.  

5. Song makes her seem stupid.  It explains that yesterday was Thursday, today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards.  Now I personally can't recall a time when I didn't know the days of the week.  You don't even teach that to your kids.  It's that well known.  This makes it quite funny.

6. Song is very autotuned.  

7. Song features a rapper much older than the kids.

8. Song has prepubecent kids, which tends to annoy older audiences, who want more mature music.

9. Everyone in the video seems super rich.  Fancy cars and homes inherited from parents does not go down well.

10.  The perfect combination.  Every now and then, the stars allign to create the most perfectly sucky song ever heard.  Thanks to YouTube, it has become much easier.

This one goes to 11.

11. Song is extremely happy and cheerful.  In combination with the above reasons it makes it annoying.

 

My guess is that Rebecca Black will become a famous personality.  She seems like a nice girl. 

Much like with modern art, there is an easy thing to say about anyone who has gotten famous via the internet. "I could have done that!" And just as with modern art, there is just as quick of a rejoinder, "But you didn't!".

So far, the two songs by amateurs that have gained the most fame via the internet are The Bed Intruder Song, which is very hard to explain as a pop hit, and "Friday", which seems engineered to be a pop hit so much that it shouldn't be. While The Bed Intruder Song gained fame due to a mixture of its unlikely novelty and Antoine Dodson's flamboyant personality, "Friday", by Rebecca Black gained its fame seemingly through the annoyance and hatred that it engendered. I suspect, for several reasons, that nothing could have gained so much attention through being simply terrible.

Let me first deal with the question of whether the song is terrible. I must admit that it is bad in places. The music is fairly generic electronic pop, Black's voice is a bit screechy, and the lyrics do tend towards the mundane. The best defense I can make about whether the song is truly terrible is a good offense: If I were to listen to any given pop or rock station on the radio for an hour, I could pick up a song that is probably more annoying than "Friday". Paul McCartney and Prince, for all their failings, are both geniuses who revolutionized music and got rich doing so. Rebecca Black was a 13 year old girl making a vanity recording. Yet McCartney and Prince have arguably made music that makes "Friday" seem like a classic of elegant delivery and lyrical depth. So while the song has its flaws, it is not at all terrible for a vanity project released over the internet.

But is the song actually good? This might be a stronger claim, but I think that it is good. I think the song has attracted attention because it resonated with people, and the anger against it was people reacting against their own sentimentality in appreciating such a song. The song is about excitement and release from stress. And in its own juvenile way, I think it captures those emotions well. Young adolescence is a time when the smallest changes and experiences can transform your life, whether it is a few sentences with someone you are interested in, a chance to be with friends, or just the arrival of the weekend. Time runs different at a young age, and a week can be an entire epoch of our lives. And I think that Black manages to capture, in a simple way, how exciting life can be.

Which brings us to the hatred against the song. After a decade of irony and involution being the rules of acceptability in music, where scores of talented musicians have failed to author that rare gem, an anthem, how many people are going to admit that a junior high student with money to pay for a slickly produced pop hit has been unable to do what, say, Yo La Tengo has never been able to do: provide a song that immediately captured people's attention, and probably their emotions? The truth hurts. Not wanting to admit their big sentimental goopy emotions, people listen to Rebecca Black because they need a dose of heartfelt, simple cheer, and then pretend that they hate the song.

Which is not to say that Rebecca Black is a genius or the next big pop star, or that the song is great. But for all the attention that the song is garnered, I think it is somewhat unlikely that it is merely because people think it is terrible. Friday is a pop song that, despite its flaws, has managed to communicate something that people wanted to hear.

Fri"day (?), n. [AS. frigedaeg, fr. Frigu, the gooddes of marriage; friqu love + daeg day; cf. Icel. Frigg name of a goddess, the wife of Odin or Wodan, OHG. Friatag, Isel. Frjadagr. AS. frigu is prob. from the root of E. friend, free. See Free, and Day.]

The sixth day of the week, following Thursday and preceding Saturday.

 

© Webster 1913.

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