Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best Comments

Rebecca Black-“Friday”

“I was writing different songs all night and was like, 'Wow, I've been up a long time and it's Friday.' And I was like, wow, it is Friday!" -co-writer/co-producer Patrice Wilson.

“It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday”

Folks, it’s Friday. No it’s not, it’s Monday. Let me start over. It’s Friday in my soul. Rebecca Black showed the way for me and so many others. It started out with a mom paying a production company to record her daughter singing one of their pre-written songs.They made a video and uploaded it in February. It caught the attention of Mike Nelson, best known for taking the piss out of movies on Mystery Science Theater 3000. He took to Twitter to deem it the worst music video of all time and it was off to the races. So many parodies, so many think pieces about this silly song. I first heard about it from literal word of mouth on my college campus. I was there, man! I heard the jarring Autotune. I witnessed the goofy rap. I beheld the fun fun fun. We so excited, we so excited. As one reviewer helpfully pointed out, “She’s excited ‘cause it’s the weekend.”

Eventually good business sense prevailed and the song was put out for public consumption on iTunes. Had it come along a few years later, “Friday” could have come within reach of a Billboard #1. Instead, after enduring many slings and arrows, Friday” took up a mere 6-week residency on the Hot 100 with its zenith occurring during the first week of “ET.”s reign. Rebecca would come out with “Saturday” in 2013 and it actually peaked three notches higher at #55. I mean, Friday’s cool and all, but an entire day devoted to fun? If it didn’t exist, we would have to invent it.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0

"That little podcast or whatever" is perfectly savage though.

My doomsday scenario is bands start playing LN venues for this (seemingly great) benefit, independent venues either go under or get gobbled up by LN, and then once they’ve got a stranglehold on the majority of decent venues they drop the act and go back to taking merch cuts and/or end the stipend. Fingers crossed this won’t be the case.

"Good song" is just right. Even as a 14-year-old kid into top 40 and 10,000 Maniacs I sensed something big coming when "So Alive" hit #3. The Cure peaking at "#2 with "Lovesong" two months later was another harbinger.

Popping by to say that after reading Tom's book at Christmas, I dove into the archives of this column. As of today, I've read all 1001 columns. What a journey!

Looking forward to getting into the Alternative Number Ones next!

Bris is why we can't have nice things.

So, 1 week holiday in Stockholm. Found a nice metal store in the Gamla Stan area, and came out with these 19. Would have been 20, but the new Godflesh was sold out.

Having a great time! Happy weekend, Stereogummers!

Yeah, no surprises that dude's Team Complete Dick.

Maybe we should wait for the uncut version of the video before we come to any hasty conclusions...

Our baby son surprised us by bursting into the world yesterday at 34 weeks gestation. He is hearty and hale and mom is wonderful. I will definitely not be using this article's list of characters for name inspiration.

Shoutout to Ice Spice for handling this in a totally rational way so that I never have to hear about this story ever again.