How Rebecca Black reinvented herself as a camp pop icon
As 'Friday' singer Rebecca Black is announced as the support act on Katy Perry's upcoming Lifetimes Tour, we look at the surprising career trajectory of the much-derided child star.
How far will a fading pop star go to stay relevant? In the case of Katy Perry, whose latest album ‘143’ was a dumpster fire of faux-feminist messaging that we described as an “unmitigated disaster”, her last grasp at relevancy is to hire Rebecca Black to support her on the album’s adjoining North American tour.
Perry announced that she will be accompanied by Black on the Lifetimes Tour, a 33-date circuit of US and Canadian venues starting on 7 May at Houston’s Toyota Center and finishing on 23 August at Miami’s Kaseya Center.
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The extensive tour is in support of Perry’s disastrously disavowed seventh album ‘143’, seemingly named after the 143 million record sales she’s made worldwide. Having teamed up with accused-rapist Dr Luke, the album’s wafer-thin feminist themes and clunky choruses fell on deaf ears, were critically panned and commercially flopped.
Still, the flubbing hasn’t stopped the Perry train from rolling on and bringing Black on board for the tour. The duo were seen on stage at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles this weekend where they performed Perry’s hit ‘Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)’ before Perry proposed Black joined her on tour.
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Posting the moment online, the pair officially announced Black’s involvement. And while Perry might be grasping at straws for relevancy, this is just the latest move in Black’s unusual route to legitimate pop stardom.
For anyone unaware, Black was the girl who rocketed to internet infamy when her single ‘Friday’ went viral for being “one of the worst songs ever made” in 2011.
‘Friday’ was, of course, terrible. A combination of bad production, insipid lyrics, a glaringly shoddy video, and Black’s unenthused performance made it the perfect nexus of keyboard vitriol.
What it also was, was somewhat affluent parents treating their 13-year-old daughter to a pop star experience through vanity production company Ark Music Factory and unwittingly becoming the central focus of the internet.
Black was forced into the eye of a storm no teenager should have to deal with. ‘Friday’ became the most unliked video in YouTube history and Black was plastered across the media for months. Unsurprisingly, what followed were various attempts at turning the media attention into a platform for music fame.
It was thanks to ‘Friday’ that Black first teamed up with Perry to feature in a music video together. Similarly, 2013 sequel single ‘Saturday’ made a dent but hardly replicated the popularity (for good or bad) of ‘Friday’.
After several fruitless attempts, it seemed like Black was due a relegation to the success dump that houses most early 2010s viral stars. Then something changed.
On the 10th anniversary of ‘Friday’, Black released a hyperpop remix with Dorian Electra, 3OH!3 and Big Freedia. The response was huge. The adults who derided the original were no longer in the picture and the teens who had loved the track were now old enough to make their joy at the kitschy tune known.
It also didn’t hurt that Black had recently come out as queer. The LGBTQ+ crowd that most fervently supported her as a camp icon finding out she was one of their own gave Black the perfect storm to shoot back into the public eye. She might never again be the central focus of the internet as she was in 2011, but for the first time ever, it was clear that she had a dedicated fanbase.
Musical quality isn’t really the barometer for how Black’s late career has been assessed. Even if her particular hyperpop rebrand is your thing, the way in which her fanbase has embraced her is largely through a form of camp empathy.
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