KVR Audio

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 6:27 am

bah, nevermind

Vintage73 · Post by **Vintage73** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 6:34 am

metamorphosis wrote:I actually think the harder act to follow would be producing something that people would dislike equally much...

I mean, it's not everyday (no pun intended) that a band comes with a song mostly about days of the week-

oh, wait.

A.M. Gold · Post by **A.M. Gold** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 6:55 am

My point about this is that I haven't seen much evidence that Rebecca has much other than haters at this point. Justin Bieber has tons of haters, but he also has a huge, loyal fan base. I honestly don't think RB has anything approaching that. So the question would be, where can she take this "phenomenon" from here?

Both her and her mother have stated clearly that they have been devastated by all the hatred on YouTube. Her mother even said she wanted to kill a few people after reading their comments. Rebecca could move forward, but she would have to do a very impressive job of turning most of the negative momentum around in her favor.

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:04 am

BORING! at any rate

A.M. Gold · Post by **A.M. Gold** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:19 am

Ok, wait a minute...like my favorite mid-'70's reporter/monster hunter Carl Kolchak (aka TV's The Night Stalker

), I think I'm on the trail of something truly otherworldly and weird here.

I've just read an article about ARK Music Factory, and then glanced at their website.

I'm beginning to get a pretty clear picture of what happened here. Basically, ARK is a hobby-star manufacturing outfit for the children of fairly wealthy parents (the only ones who are likely to be able to afford their fees).

First, they put out casting calls for girls aged 13-17 in which they hype the potential they have to make these girls into "stars".

Basically, the parents pay and the girls get a total "star makeover", which includes some styling, a song written for them, a decent quality recording produced and mastered, and some kind of basic (but competently shot and edited) video made, then posted to YouTube. This is like Fantasy Island for teenage girls who want to play singing star.

The upshot is that we get the Rebecca Black phenomenon as a direct result. These guys haven't been around for very long at all so I would hazard a guess that the RB situation is the first of its kind to emerge from their "factory".

A girl who very likely would never have been picked up by any serious label is given a brief "star treatment" by a pseudo-label, paid for in full by her parents, and then YouTube takes over and does the rest.

The rest being...the song, video, and singer are all mercilessly ravaged and torn to pieces by hundreds of thousands of eager sharks with YouTube accounts.

IncarnateX · Post by **IncarnateX** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:34 am

A.M. Gold wrote:This is like Fantasy Island for teenage girls who want to play singing star.

I rather think it is a fantasy Island for parents who compensate for their own broken star dreams by placing it all on their kids. They can not distinguish their selves from those of their children and in general they are very resistant to reality testing. I have seen more than a few screwed cases of this phenomenon. I have no doubt that in the ears on RB's mom, the tune is the best she has ever heard EVER and that it really took her by surprise that the rest of the world did not agree. I am sure she already has established several "explanations" for this, such as the idea that it is a few viscous bastards on YouTube who is responsible for the misery.

A.M. Gold · Post by **A.M. Gold** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:43 am

Well, I agree, but I think it's more of a conspiracy between the parents' washed-up dreams and the girls' would-be dreams. I doubt the girls are being forced into this.

What I think is sad, though, is---especially if it really is the parents pushing their kids into this for some kind of vicarious fulfillment---that the kids are really just being sacrificed because the result ends up backfiring and turning into a bloodbath.

The other side of this, though, is that some of them just get completely ignored. As of the writing of that article I linked to, the ARK product who they said had the most natural singing talent had a grand total of seven subscribers to her YouTube channel.

Esgalachoir · Post by **Esgalachoir** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:44 am

A.M. Gold wrote: The rest being...the song, video, and singer are all mercilessly ravaged and torn to pieces by hundreds of thousands of eager sharks with YouTube accounts.

If you have any kind of empathy, it really is painful thinking of what she might be feeling about this whole series of events(especially if what IncarnateX insinuated about her parents is true)...after being told you'd be made into a star(and for a short time, it would definitely feel like you were), you get the rug pulled out viciously from under you...life is going to be on the weird side for a loooong time

Esgalachoir · Post by **Esgalachoir** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:46 am

A.M. Gold wrote: The other side of this, though, is that some of them just get completely ignored. As of the writing of that article I linked to, the ARK product who they said had the most natural singing talent had a grand total of seven subscribers to her YouTube channel.

That is super depressing.

A.M. Gold · Post by **A.M. Gold** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:54 am

I think I smell a shill behind this comment posted beneath the article I linked earlier:

Posted by "Roxanne"

"Yo Douche!!Sounds like you getting Patrice Wilson mixed up with Clarence Jey and got all the information confoosed along the way about Ark Music Factory. Both are 2 of the coolest cats ever.

In any event, the song's catchy no matter how crazy the content is. The song has turned over 400,000 heads in 24 hours, no matter what any one uses.. front seat of back seat.lol"

A.M. Gold · Post by **A.M. Gold** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:57 am

Esgalachoir wrote: If you have any kind of empathy, it really is painful thinking of what she might be feeling about this whole series of events(especially if what IncarnateX insinuated about her parents is true)...after being told you'd be made into a star(and for a short time, it would definitely feel like you were), you get the rug pulled out viciously from under you...life is going to be on the weird side for a loooong time

Absolutely, and remember, this girl is all of 13. She isn't some 20 year old who has grown up enough to have some sense of the perils of the entertainment industry. I have a feeling she didn't see this backlash coming at all.

Esgalachoir · Post by **Esgalachoir** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:05 am

A.M. Gold wrote:
Esgalachoir wrote: If you have any kind of empathy, it really is painful thinking of what she might be feeling about this whole series of events(especially if what IncarnateX insinuated about her parents is true)...after being told you'd be made into a star(and for a short time, it would definitely feel like you were), you get the rug pulled out viciously from under you...life is going to be on the weird side for a loooong time
Absolutely, and remember, this girl is all of 13. She isn't some 20 year old who has grown up enough to have some sense of the perils of the entertainment industry. I have a feeling she didn't see this backlash coming at all.

It's a very, very bad first experience.
It makes me feel a WHOLE lot better about some of my first acts, well, some of them...

IncarnateX · Post by **IncarnateX** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:25 am

A.M. Gold wrote: I doubt the girls are being forced into this.

But the usually are in an indirect manner. For instance there are parents who drag their children to every possible casting they can, totally convinced that their kid is the very best of them all. Then, if they are rejected, they will scold the shit out of the kid for "not doing it right, as Mommy told you to".

Remember that for kids (also at the age of 13) parents are Oracles of Truth. They will do everything to satisfy the parents to achieve love and comfort and they will identify with whatever views of the parents until the famous rebellion at the end of puberty. Thus they do not have to be forced but are manipulated into the deal by the conscious and unconscious influences of their parents' behavior.

In this case, it might even be RB's own idea, but the encouragement of her parents will be the fact the solidifies it. They could have spoken against it, not at least with the potential failure in mind.

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:26 am

A.M. Gold wrote:I think it's possible a lot of songwriters would turn tail and run quickly away from Rebecca

Though wouldn't a lot jump at the chance of having a track on her album too? I can imagine a fair few sales thanks to all this exposure, royalties? Or do all commercial songwriters have strict principals regarding the artistic integrity of those they work with?

A.M. Gold · Post by **A.M. Gold** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 10:27 am

GaryG wrote:
A.M. Gold wrote:I think it's possible a lot of songwriters would turn tail and run quickly away from Rebecca
Though wouldn't a lot jump at the chance of having a track on her album too? I can imagine a fair few sales thanks to all this exposure, royalties? Or do all commercial songwriters have strict principals regarding the artistic integrity of those they work with?

I think it's less a matter of integrity and more a case of calculated risk. If there are enough people determined to drag whatever song RB comes out with through the mud, it might not be the most advantageous career move for a writer to have his or her name associated with that. Everyone now knows the name Patrice Wilson now but it's not a flattering association that they make, for the most part.

I bring you, the horror