141: "Friday" vs. "Miracles" (with Andrew Unterberger)

Hi, I'm Todd Nathanson and I'm Lena Morgan, and this is song versus song up in this bitch. We, we're gonna have fun, fun, fun, fun today, Lena. Are we? I think we are. I think we are or we're going to feel really bad and guilty because we are doing Rebecca Black's Friday versus insane clown posse's miracles. You know, there are miracles everywhere you look, Lena. They're all around us. Yes. And one miracle we have in the studio today. Our good friend Andrew Underberger from Billboard magazine. Welcome back to the show, Andrew. Wow. Happy to be here. Well, I will admit, I was kind of hoping I would get the a you Andrew Underberger intro, but maybe when I see peace miracles is pretty good too. Well, we are all one of my peace miracles. Also, a lot of syllables in Andrew Underberger's doesn't quite fit the Patrice Wilson flow so well. Oh, yes. Patrice Wilson's excellent flow. What I always think of now, as I, as I told you, Andrew already, you were invited onto this show because you are, in fact, the biggest jugalow I know. That might also be true. I don't know. Yeah, I know. Three songs are theirs, which is more than most people. Yeah. I can name about five. One of which was because I watched wrestling in the in the late 90s. They were pro wrestlers for a little bit and they they were in a group of a click called the oddities and they wrote a theme song for them. And I thought it was pretty good. But I knew I, for some reason, I wasn't supposed to like ICP so I told everyone it was bad. And now that I'm thinking about it, three might even be a little bit of an exaggeration. Maybe two. Let's, let's say a CIF II. My record club, we did a, a theme one round where it was albums from 1997. So we, somebody picked the great Malenco and we listened to it and, and, and it had thoughts that we all shared with one another because that's what we do with our music club. Did you, have they done Rebecca Black yet? No. All right. Well. Well, anything could happen. Okay. 15 years ago, as a budding young content creator, making fun of bad music on the internet. These two things fell in my lap. And I have never said a single thing about them ever. It was too obvious. Everyone was having too much fun with it. I didn't feel like I had anything to add. And this was like, right when YouTube was like really starting to take off. So there were billions of commentary and parodies. These were very much like the, a few of the first YouTube viral videos like, um, okay. Can you think of any before that? Certainly none that were like famous for being bad, exactly. Well, there was like a chocolate rain was certainly chocolate rain, chocolate rain predates. Which we talked about in the rain episode. It did come up. Um, yeah. I mean, I think about like, this is sort of the era of like the schmoyoho. So a lot of that let a double rainbows, a lot of bed intruders like that. I feel like a sort of goldmage. Got a lot of rainbows in this one also 15 years later. It feels weird to look back on these songs because our understanding of both Rebecca Black and the insane clown posse are very different now in 2025 than they were in 2010. Like I think we like both of them. Do we? Well, what are you, what are you thinking of mostly when you say, I mean, I, I would agree with you about Rebecca Black and I look forward to kind of getting into the nitty gritty there. But how would you say the perception of the insane clown posse has shifted dramatically in the last 15 years? I think everyone likes them. I think they're considered very wholesome actually. Well, I think everyone recognizes their right to exist, which might not have been the case 15 years ago. And certainly wasn't completely not 30 years ago are people kinder about their music? I don't know if that's necessarily true. I will say, okay, so like I'm thinking about it now and somebody had had said something about one of the two guys had drawn a comparison. And I think the joke was you can't tell me that that's not just Guy Fieri with clown makeup on. And I will say that I think maybe there's a parallel to be drawn between the way people felt about Guy Fieri before and the way they feel about him now see that. And I see people for and now. So that's my that's my comparison. Well, I, I have a distinct memory of juggalos circa, I want to say 2000 or 2001 lined up waiting for the planet music to open so that they could buy the new ICP album, I guess. And like they were, they were chanting fuck M&M over and over again in line. They were in same cloud, like do you remember when it was easy to dunk on in saying clown posse? Well, I did not recognize the right to exist. Do you remember them from the late 90s? Yeah, I certainly remember them being kind of a punchline sort of sort of used as interchangeable for just kind of the music that nobody would voluntarily choose to listen to. It's, I do wonder if there are corners of the internet where they have done a great reclamation of the insane clown posse discography and maybe there are people who have kind of done the deep dive there and and kind of figured out, no, these are the kind of canonical ICP albums or the singles that are really worth knowing of theirs. And here's why they were important or a relevant part of the musical timeline or something along those lines. I have not seen that happen personally. I hope it has because I obviously no one stays as successful as they have for 30 years now without doing something right and without contributing something pretty meaningful to the pop discourse. But yeah, I think Lena's sort of Guy Fieri parallel is a fair one. I don't know if people are, you know, if people on Twitter necessarily lining up around the block to go to Guy Fieri's restaurant anymore, like doing, they'd be absolutely dead. Buying the DVDs for season four of Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives or anything like that. Certainly, Guy Fieri, yeah, it's like, okay, he's not, there's worse out there than Guy Fieri, I think is is what everyone say now and people sort of appreciate the sort of, yeah, they're good. So there are good things about him, right? Like there are things you can look up online. So I think that like ICP is basically Guy Fieri with lore. Do you know what I mean? Like I think that's that's the other thing, especially now if you're trying to look at a difference in the way people might view them in the modern day is that there is sort of this Gen Z obsession with the concept of lore, right? Like trying to understand like the intricate backstory. And let me tell you who has an intricate backstory, at least like in the stories that they create is in St. Clampossi, right? Like when I say I listen to the great Malenco, like there's a whole bunch of fucking lore about the great Malenco. Like there's like all this stuff about them. Like I don't care about it personally, but like the people that do really fucking do and people really care about lore generally. So I feel like it has an impact on how they're viewed in a modern era. Yeah, I would say it's a combination of that and just sincere positivity is kind of viewed more sympathetically than it used to be. That's, you know, the songs like this obviously are coming from a pretty sincere emotional place, even if they're a little bit ridiculous. And I think we're a little bit more receptive to that as a society now. That total lack of irony, yeah, yeah. I mean, like it's, I think it was probably easier to dunk on ICP in an era where Gen X still had any purchase on the cultural consciousness as a mainstream thing, because Gen X is all about sarcasm and not liking things that are sincere. Yeah. Yeah. Well, wholesome was not yet a compliment in 2010. But it is down back on the menu, boys. Yeah. And poor Rebecca Black. Well, that's the most fucked up thing of all. And I have to tell you, I feel very grateful in hindsight that I didn't care. Like the Rebecca Black phenomenon completely passed me by. Like I guess I was aware of its existence at the time, but like it just, I mean, the really, the embarrassing truth is that it didn't hit me until a little while later, because there was a, I mean, I saw this come up in the comments on Patreon, but like there was another song that I heard that I did hate at the time, and now look back at him extremely embarrassed, which was attributed to Rebecca Black. Apparently, a lot of people just thought it was Rebecca Black, and that's Call Me Maybe. Oh, really? I fucking hated it when it came out. And I feel so stupid now. But that's the same thing, right? Like Call Me Maybe has got this like very, there's something very sincere and sweet about it. And Carly Ridge, Epson, of course, is below for that now. But like, no, as a, as a younger person, I found it deeply irritating. And now I look back and feel like a fool. You know, I've heard people mix up those two before, and I can see the similarities. But also, come on. How on earth? How on earth? You don't, why wasn't paying attention? And I'll tell you, you know, maybe you could say come on all you like, but you know, my perspective is that has aged very well for me, not the Carly Ridge Epson part, but like, you know, you look back on Rebecca Black. And like, she was this perfect mixture of like, has Justine landed. And I'm gonna let you finish, except that it happened, that this thing that happened happened before both those things. And also she was 13 years old. And so being able to look back and say, Hey, I didn't torment the 13 year old. That feels pretty good. Let's say I'd never felt quite part of it was, you know, there, you know, that material was stripped mind immediately. But also, I had like this kind of sense that, you know, this was not fair game. And you know, most of my stuff is making fun of, you know, stuff that was going to make a billion dollars back in 2010. So I was like, I don't, you know, I don't, like, I want to say here that I was not above making fun of it because Friday is objectively funny. It is an objectively funny song. It is an objectively bad. No, there's no such thing as objectively bad. And I know a lot of people have tried to reclaim Friday, including Rebecca herself, obviously, but I saw it on Twitter. That was where I saw it. On, on the early days of Twitter, I'd only been there on there for, you know, like a year or so, make Twitter rest in peace. We miss you every day Twitter. I didn't know we don't. No, I don't. It was Mike Nelson from Mystery Science Theatre saying this, and I think that's where most people saw it first off of Mike Nelson saying like, this is the greatest music video I've ever seen in my entire life. Like I said, YouTube was still pretty new. Viral video was still like only like five years old at that point. A lot of things did not go viral off of YouTube. And this was like the first one that I just seemed to come up the fuck out of nowhere. And I was like, what am I watching? Like even chocolate rain wasn't this big. The difference to me. So I, going into my own kind of backstory with this song, I had just started working at my first full-time music writing job around that time. Early 2011, I was working for a pop music blog called Pop Dust, which doesn't really exist anymore. And this song arrived on a Monday. It might have come out over the weekend or might have caught fire over the weekend, but it's sort of kind of popped into my inbox like that morning from my boss saying, okay, this is the thing we're covering now. And like the next four to five weeks was like only this song. Basically, I can think of maybe four times since I've been writing about music since 2011 professionally. And I can think of like four times where one song has kind of just taken over and has become the only song that exists for a number of weeks, a number of months even. And this is one of them. The others are like drivers license and call me babies and other one of them and old town road. Yes, it was bad. And yes, that was the reason why we were covering it extensively was because everyone was freaking out about the badness of the song. The thing that I never understood is the people that were mean about it. Because to me, it wasn't this song isn't the worst pop song ever made. It's the best bad pop song ever made. And there's a difference there. Absolutely. Yes. And we'll go into a little bit more what I mean later. I'm sure. But like there is an ought to this song. There's like a wondrousness to this song. It's not just, oh man, this is so fucking terrible. It's how does this song exist in this specific way? What is going on here? And it made you want to learn more about it and more about the person behind it and about Patrice Wilson and about what the fuck is our music factory and all this other stuff. And that's why it kind of created this entire stream of content. The only thing I can really compare it to from that time period was was Linsanity. When Jeremy Lins started popping off and then it just kind of created this month worth of cultural content that nobody saw coming. This was that kind of phenomenon at the time. And if it was just a bad song that wouldn't have done that. If it was just a really bad song, that wouldn't have been the case. But it was a very specific kind of bad song in a way that was interesting and kind of telling about the moment that produced it too. So to me, I never understood why people would like make fun of her for it or like really kind of use her as a punchline. Yes, it's a bad song, but like it's an awe-inspiring bad song. We don't get a lot of this. It's right in the Goldilocks zone, right? Like of just like perfectly hits the Uncanny Valley because like chocolate rain is, you know, it's in comp, I don't want to say incompetent, but it's very cheap. It's incredibly cheap. It's just a guy with, you know, a, you know, basic editing software in a studio. Like this is their production values behind Friday. Yeah, this is close to being a good pop song. And I don't know if you if you all have had this experience of like playing it for like your parents or for people like 20 to 30 years older, they're totally tuned out of early 2010s pop music. Even sort of what Lino was saying earlier, if she was sort of unplugged from the from that moment where like two older people are to people that just don't really care about pop music that much, it can kind of sound like Carly Ridge Epsen. It can just kind of sound like an average pop song. Like it you have to sort of pay attention to what to understand why it's so uniquely terrible. But to other people that just kind of hear it and passing, it's close enough to being a coherent good pop song that you might not even notice that there's anything remarkable about it if you aren't paying pretty close attention. Did you, Lino, did you even remember hearing it at the time when it was big? Yeah, I mean, it's weird, I say younger. I mean, like 2010, I was a fucking 30, Todd. I was 30 years old. I was working in a comic book store. I didn't like it just my life was a 2011 crap. I'm saying the wrong thing, the entire time. Yeah, but regardless, like I would say that I'm trying to remember when I started writing on the internet regularly, but like if I was writing on the internet, it was like I had a buffy fan site and I worked at a comic store. I was not my finger was not on the pulse. And I'm not trying to say that Lino is as out of touch as my parents are in this regard, but I'm just saying that if you know I might have been. If you're not plugged into pop music at the time, it can kind of sound interchangeable with a lot of what was actually going on in pop music at the time. Yeah, I had no clue. I was I think I was I was completely tuned out at the time. I moved Todd, you know, I've talked about this in the past that like, yeah, you know, like that was like the the the the the wasteland of like I had transitioned to transitioned and then was really depressed for a long time. And so the idea of new music bummed me out. And I didn't really figure that out until much later in life, but like I only listened to stuff that was like from the before times anything from like 2008 or before was fine. Anything after that weird blip of my life became this thing that I just like wasn't studiously avoiding, but I just stopped absorbing. So I did I became like a weird like almost like pseudo boomer where I wasn't really aware of any of that stuff. So no, I mean, like I'm sure I had heard it. But again, like I had heard probably maybe much more like at least for me. And like maybe that's that's again timeline for when I started listening to pop music again. But like, yeah, like I just it didn't register like I was aware that somebody was getting made fun of. And I was like, yep, this sounds bad. It's not like a bad song. And I had no interest in it. Yeah, I was like, if you don't like auto tune, this is what all auto tune sounds like you, right? Yeah, I think this is the difference, right? Like, um, much of her you were saying that like, I think that someone who is older would potentially mistake this for a regular decent pop song. What I remember is thinking it was bad. And that was it. Like I didn't think good song or like all pop music is as bad as this. It seemed like a distillation of a lot of the things that I didn't like about pop music anyway. And so I just didn't think about it beyond that. Which is also this is totally fair. Yeah. I mean, this is a right at the time when, you know, Justin Bieber was at his most unpopular also. So like, baby had just blown up, I think boy, that's a, I really did. I, I consistently dislike Justin Bieber a lot more than I dislike Friday. I can tell you that much. Well, you know, I'm holding a second. We're, we're almost like 20 minutes in. We have an answer to the question. Uh, we always forget to do that. What's the better song? First, we have to define our standards here. Like by, what do you mean by better? I mean, do you want to do it as which one's less bad? I don't, I don't know. I mean, like, which one do you prefer? Can I, can I sort of answer here? Cause I've thought about this a good amount. Because, so I think there's sort of three ways you can kind of set the parameters for this. You can do it in terms of the best, like, most successful song, which I imagine is how 99% of song versus song winners are determined. Right. You can do it as the, either the, either some version of the worst song or the best bad song, or you could do it as the better, more rewarding internet moment. But to me, it doesn't matter. Cause all three of them are Friday. I understand why this match up is what it is. I don't know if there's a better match up for Friday. I have another thought which maybe we can get you later. But, and I respect miracles in the place it has in the culture, but I don't think this is close. And I don't necessarily see the argument for miracles being better than Friday. So I'm curious, because I'm sure at least one of you has to present it. So I'm curious to hear what it is. Was someone supposed to present miracles is the better one, Todd? I mean, I can volunteer for that. But I can say, I certainly thought miracles was funnier. And that part made that's partially because, uh, insane clown posse were fair game. I didn't have to feel guilty because these were grown-ass men. They were established artists in their way. And they'd been a punchline for, you know, 15 years, or, you know, or getting onto it. And, you know, Rebecca Black was just like an amateur, making an amateur thing. Like you'd think someone who had been doing this as long as the insane clown posse would know better. Partially, it's because I didn't know anything about the insane clown posse besides, you know, that they were, uh, you know, I knew they existed. I saw them wrestle a few times. And secretly, I liked that theme song they did for the oddities, but other than that, I wouldn't admit to like knowing or any like, you know, their songs. I remember, like, they were caught up in like that whole Marilyn Manson Eminem Columbine controversy. Like, they were, you know, they were, we were to understand that they were bad people, but they didn't have like the, let's say, like the surface level of deflection of also we're actual artists that you have to pay attention to. We're not relevant. We're not, you know, you don't have to take them seriously. We're just bad artists that are kind of miraculously famous in our own little way. Another miracle. It was like talking about Marilyn Manson, but all the bad parts, all the, uh, you know, the parts that were like corny and try hard. And also like, just bad people that school shooters like also where they were that also Marilyn Manson without hits. Yes. Also without success. Without songs you had no, you don't have a guilty pleasure in saying clown posse song. Or at least you didn't in 2011. I've gotten, I've become quite fond of juggalo island since then. I'm not familiar, but I can't believe that to be true. No, I mean, what you're saying is true, and certainly miracles is a very funny song. To me, it was sort of an established formula for them. I mean, like, I'm not, like, I really knew their music all that well. But if you told me, like, a week before this song came out, okay, there's going to be this insane clown posse song coming out, that is all about how life is full of these tiny miracles. And they include things like magnets and dirt and, uh, like, giving birth and having a concert with 15,000 people and all that. I can't be like, okay, that, that sounds plausible. That, that sounds like something that would probably worth watching once or twice and having a good laugh at. And that's basically my, that was basically the sum total of my consumption of miracles. I probably hadn't watched that video in at least a decade, maybe close to 15 years before this podcast. And also, I mean, this is maybe not totally fair of me because I wasn't really working in musical time at that point. Uh, I remember watching the video for miracles for the first time, like, while I was at my TV research job, or I watched TV shows and wrote trivia questions about them to test the effectiveness of the advertising. So I was not like in the trenches the way I was when it came to Friday. Maybe I would have covered this for four or five weeks. I don't know. Maybe it was that kind of phenomenon. I just didn't realize that at the time. But to me, it was kind of a low grade joke, like it was a good joke, but it was a predictable joke. And it was one that didn't have a ton of replay value, whereas Friday kind of kept unveiling itself over the course of four to five weeks. And then to an extent, the entirety of 2011. And it just kept getting richer and richer. And like the more time I spent with it, the more I liked it and the more I was grateful to have it in my life. So it's, yeah, maybe it was more satisfying on first viewing it. I didn't think Friday was that funny the first time I saw it. I was like, okay, this is kind of funny. And then it took like a number of youings. And more specifically, it took, I'll be curious if you remember this talk, because I know you were you dabbled in it too. There was an I love music web board thread about the 100 funniest things about the music video to Friday. And it just kept going for like 3000 posts. And by the end of it, I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. Like the one that really got me I remember was that there was like a gift of the part in the video where she does the my friend is by my right and and it's just the because she also has she's like in the back seat with two friends and she she only refers to the friend on the right. And it had the friend on the left with the forever alone head over them. And I thought it was like the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I laughed at that for like a straight hour. And by that point, I was totally on Friday. But like it took that much. It took a little while to sort of understand why it was funny. It was like a richer form of bad music video comedy. It's such a thing existed. I don't know. Well, that's just stuff that even I think Rebecca Black doesn't have a problem with. And I think even at 13, like she gave, I mean, I think she gave a lot of coach dancers when they would, I mean, God, put her on like Jay Leno. What a nightmare. Awful stuff, because you know, Jay Leno doing that fake, like he gives a shit. Like, how do you deal with it? I'm asking this because I care. And not because like that, this is what people want me to ask. And I don't give a fuck at all. I'm glad that they had an answer for her. I assume that somebody was like, say this. And then she said it wisely. But the answer she gave, I think is probably real, which is that there was some stuff that seemed pretty genuine. That was just like a genuine funny response. But she was like, I laugh at those. And then there are other things that are just weird. And I was like, yeah, the stuff where it's like weird sexual jokes about a 13-year-old, that's fucked up. How the hell did we let any of that slide? Well, that's the thing. I've always kind of not like, I don't, I didn't have anything to feel guilty for because I didn't really, you know, participate in anything I'm ashamed of. But also, like right away, Rebecca Black was on this. Or at least she had people who were on this. She had people around her who saw the opportunity. And that's why we can still, you can still talk about what Rebecca Black is up to right now. Like I had a friend like, like within a year later, who had gotten an invite to some like internet influencer thing and met Rebecca Black. She had people around her. She had an agent. She had a publicist and all that stuff. Like it all happened very quickly for Rebecca Black. Like she was like, she was in a Katy Perry video that year. Yeah. And this was the Katy Perry era. This was as you referred to in the last podcast. This was the main pop earlier. And it was the era of Lady Gaga and Kesha and Adele and all these kind of Titanic pop figures. And for a while, she was kind of one of them. Like she was on all those interviews. She was that level of discussion. People cared that much about Rebecca Black and they had intersecting with the Katy Perry video. I totally forgotten about that. But then also I think relevant to the fact that you wrote up Lady Gaga also was that both Lady Gaga and Katy Perry were Rebecca Black defenders. And the funny thing is is like when they would ask her like, what do you think of the song? Like, do you defend the song? Do you like? I mean, not only did she not have anything to do with the song's creation really, aside from singing it, like she would admit, like I didn't even really know what a good pop song was yet. Like I was 13. Like I had no idea whether it was a good song or not because I didn't know anything about music really. She was very, very raw in that sense. Yeah. So like there's a, you know, a sense like nowadays where we were relooking back at, you know, all the way the Whitwin retreated for the, you know, the 2000s and early 2010s and we were like, man, that's fucked up. But I remember like it was already happening in 2011. It was already happening for like everyone was like, you know, let's not go too hard on the, you know, the 13 year old girl who did not write this. You know, who just went to, you know, pop music fantasy camp for a little bit. And because I think we were already feeling bad for the Star Wars kid by that point. We just not sure about that one. No, I don't know. I don't know what to say about it. The 2010s internet was weird, especially like this was like close to the height of internet cruelty. But it wasn't the absolute high because you're right. I think if this had happened 10 years earlier or maybe even five years earlier, years earlier. Yeah. Like the cruelty would have been there and there would have been no checking of that. There would have been no people coming to your defense. And if they had come to their defense, they would have gotten roundly mocked for it. Like, leave Brinnellone got roundly mocked for it. Like, yeah, we were still at the back then that like you deserve more mockery for defending the popular young person thing than for actually doing it. Like it was crazy. Right. Yeah. There's an arch of it, right? Like like you were saying, entrepreneur, there was a time where like if you had said like, yeah, like leave Brinnellone, you get mocked for it. Now like I think by the time you get to 2011, we're just at the beginning of people going like, wait a minute. And you know, and I think that sort of gave way to social media starting to build actual like a mechanism, but like obviously the has just landed things still happen. But there did kind of become like, oh, like, well, this, this is the kind of harassment that's unacceptable on our platform. And that was a mechanism that existed for a time. And now it's 2025. And those mechanisms are gone. The arc has really gone back the other way. Like what I'm saying is I'm not going to be putting out any leave Brinnellone videos in 2025. I think I might be murdered in the streets. Not about, I mean, if I said about Brittany, I would be safe, but like whatever the equivalent is now, I don't think it would go well for me. Regardless, I'm kind of curious. Like you keep talking about like the sort of like four or five week period where this was like the thing that you covered. Do you remember what the initial coverage was? Like do you remember what you were writing about in particular? Not specifically. And I wish I could look it up now, unfortunately, popped us as mostly been nuked from the face of the earth. So it's tough to kind of check the archives on that. Although in some cases, that might be a good thing. But I do wish for my own reference. I can check it out. I don't totally remember what the tone of it was like. It definitely was a little snarky because that was kind of the mode of the blog at the time. There was still like, we were kind of the pop blog for slightly skeptical adults at the time, I guess. So there's definitely like a little bit of that sarcastic tone to it still. I don't think we were ever outright cruel of it. There's nothing that I think that I would blanch out reading today, but probably things that I would write a little bit differently if I was doing it now. But it was definitely more sense, not like, like I was saying, it's not like how terrible this is. It's just like what is going on here. And getting to the bottom of all the craziness that kind of led up to this video existing in the first place and unpacking all the ridiculous lyrics in it and kind of going the second by second on the video and figuring out why all these things are happening. And this is sort of the other thing that that really really kind of says it apart from miracles to me. I mean, they both had long tails in terms of the immediate response to them because they both had a lot of parody, some of which were really high profile. Miracles was they did a parody of miracles on SNL. And sometimes it was less funny than the original. Sometimes I forget which lines come from which, to be honest, like why are some mountain shaped like presidents? It's like sometimes it's like, oh, that would have been the funniest line in the original miracles, but I can't remember which one actually comes from. But that's in the parody. Yeah, it's in the parody. But even though they both had like a pretty long tail in that respect, I feel like today miracles is only the fucking magnets. How do they work song? Down to the point where on your last podcast when Todd, you announced this podcast, we can ask her, oh, was that the fucking fucking magnets? And I had a similar interaction with one of my friends when I told them I was going to be on this podcast. And I was like, that's that's the one line from that song that everybody remembers. But I went into a random stream of somebody that I watched play video games and she's much younger than I am. She's 24. And I said, hey, if I say the phrase fucking magnets, how do they work? Does that mean anything to you? And the answer was no. Oh. So I find it like, it was interesting to me like the question of the tail on miracles. I mean, obviously that's purely anecdotal. It's a one off. And I found myself wishing that I had the gumption to just go from 24 year old to 24 year old stream and be like, fucking magnets, how do they work? Does that mean like does it mean anything to you? But like, I feel confident that if I said Rebecca Black, they would all know what Friday was, right? Like, and that's that's the sort of the other half of the point that I was trying to make was that there is no one line in Friday, Friday is Friday. Like every one line in that song adds up to Friday being what it is because you could ask 50 people what the funniest line of that song is, they might have 35 different answers. Yeah. I was also good to say if we're looking at this in a modern context, you've brought up the SNL parody of miracles. I don't really, I mean, that I aware of it, but that's not the parody that I think of. I think of the style parody of miracles, which is incredible thoughts by the lonely. I mean, it has always seemed to me that that's what that is. Like everything about incredible thoughts is just miracles, except it's good. It's like what is miracles, but good. That has always been my perception of that song. There are a lot of like baffling decisions in Friday, like where you just can't understand why it got here, but like in the end, it's just, you know, a, you know, bad hack writing of, you know, adults trying to write for kids. Miracles was like mind blowing to me who's like, watching a very stupid person try to be smart. And I was like, oh my god. I was like, I didn't realize these men are morons. And I feel bad for that now because they seem cool, smart guys to me now, but like I remember thinking like not only for, you know, being out of their depth, but also like being off brand is like, but not that. At least that's what I like their whole thing was that like they often did songs like this. I did not know that. I don't think most people did. You'd have to be deep in the lore of insane clown posse. You know, they have a lot. I know them as the guys who got, you know, a choke slammed by the big show in 1999. And they, you know, made it. It's an honor to be choke slammed by the big show. That's it. It's just an honor to participate. Yeah, I don't know. I just, the other half of what I wanted to say is the person who did a version of Friday, within the last five years, is Rebecca Black. She did a hyper pop remix and it whips. It kind of does. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's good. And like, you know, it's pretty popular these days. Hyper pop people like it. You know, like, it's definitely a music for a certain generation. It's not my generation, but I still like it anyway. And the more I listen to that, I mean, like the truth is I really like that remix. But if I think of Friday and my head, I'm not hearing the remix. I still hear the original. Whereas again, if I'm hearing miracles, I'm not hearing miracles. I'm hearing Andy Sanbergo go like, a kitty cat to the cocaine. Like I don't know why. Yeah. And we're talking a lot about how ICP is kind of like harmless fun now. So why bother dunking on them? There is like a real fake news bent to this song too, which is maybe still pretty rough. Oh, yeah, because they're like, basically like anti scientists. Yeah. Like y'all getting me pissed. Like I don't want to talk to no scientists. Like it's it's it does feel like it's sort of at the core of the song in a kind of uncomfortable way. I so I remember I don't want to name the person because I don't want to send like a tacked hugs against anybody. But I found a video from around that time from a YouTuber where they were based. It was like atheist cringe. I don't know how else to describe it. But like if that was the core thesis was like miracles as anti science and is like this fundamental proof of the of the basic common idiocy of most human beings. And I was like, this feels like a stretch. Like maybe I would have when I was, you know, 10 to 12 years younger, would I be on board with this potentially. Now in my mid 40s, I look back on it and I go, it just feels like a lot. And as far as insane clown policy is concerned, the thing that you find that's sort of fascinating about them is that there are reams of articles and and posts written by juggalos who basically all have the same mentality, which is if I go to an ICP show, I feel safe. If I am in a bad way and I need money and I say, hey, I'm broke or I'm starving or whatever, I know another juggalo is going to step up and help me out. I have never been let down by the community, which is a little, I don't know, it's a little unsettling because you're like, what don't I know about the cult of the juggalo. But like, but at the same time, like there is something a little wholesome about it, right? Like that they're, I trust that there is at least some element of truth to that. No, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Like if in sane clown policy, you deserve to be compared to anyone, it's it's certainly not like Eminem or Marilyn Manson, I think it's it's the Grateful Dead. You're a fish. Some like that. Yeah. It Jimmy Buffett. Like, yeah, that's a good one. Jimmy, Jimmy Buffett said I'm Margarita Bill. I guess this is their Margarita Bill really. Yeah. Well, like I said, check out Juggalo Island. Like that's what. But I can Margarita's, how do they work? But the other thing that that is like while we're talking about sort of like the moral centers of these songs and what they kind of mean in the larger culture, it is sort of important to remember about miracles. And this is going to be a sound like a sort of, you know, Benel observation to be making about it. It's really not a good song. Like it's really a very, very poor pop song. There's no chorus. It is. Like there's sort of like a whispered refrain, but I wouldn't really call that a chorus. There's not much in the way of any sort of hooks to it. There's that one kind of like post J.R. Rotum, like super high pitched synth hook, which doesn't really go anywhere. It's fine. It's not a bad synth hook, but it doesn't really build so much. And then it just kind of repeats for four and a half minutes. I actually kind of like the closing guitar solo ish thing. I think that's kind of nice. But that's just about it. It's a pretty, it's not a very musically rich song, which is not to say that Friday is, you know, Bohemian rap city. But it's like a hearing pop song. It's got a chorus. It's got a bridge. They function as they're supposed to. Like it's, it works as a pop song. And this is why it's kind of infusible with Carly Ridge Epsen or other sort of pop songs in that period is because it's catchy. It's very, very catchy. Oh yeah, you cannot say it doesn't have a hook. Exactly. So like even I was just watching the video recently with Lisa my girlfriend, like before in preparation for this podcast. And she was like, this is actually like a lot less bad than I remember. This is actually like less like she was less focused on the uncanny valley aspects of it and more focused on today. This is a fun pop song. This reminds me of fun times. And it kind of functions like that. Miracles does not function like that. Even a little. No, I think there's a, there's another thing that we have not touched on yet, which is that, you know, miracles as a song, like I guess, like I think it like whatever you want to say what I see P and how they've like grown an estimate estimation for some people. Like I don't know that is really changed dramatically. Whereas there is a specific thing that happened to Rebecca Black, which makes perfect sense to me because like, you know, she went on glee and like she was a young person that was getting harassed all the time. And like she made a goofy, campy pop song. So of course the gaze love her. And you cannot oversell the potential energy of that, right? Because like, truly, I mean, I do think that there is a wisdom to whoever was behind the scenes. Like I think a lot of people made smart decisions for her until she was able to make decisions for herself. But like, I mean, Rebecca Black got her bag. And I guess maybe better to say she got her bowl like, I'm sorry. That was terrible. But I do think that that is because she, I think, has a basic understanding of the fact that like the queers liked her. They fucking love her for sure. I mean, like she made a hyper pop song. She definitely knows. Like she's not, she's not unaware. And she's obviously comfortable playing into it. You know, I saw people talk about like, oh, like listen to like these new songs from her. And like, there was one that's just called All Caps Trust with an exclamation point at the end. And she references Gaga, which we know at least is in part because Gaga was a defender. But it sounds like a Kim Petra song. And I was like, this is interesting. But like, yeah, I think that that's a big part of her success too. Well, I mean, we've sort of hinted at this throughout the podcast. And actually, I think the thing that Todd said at the beginning of the podcast about me being the biggest ICP fan, he knows he originally build this podcast to me as you should come on this because you are. In fact, the biggest Rebecca Black fan that I know, which is probably true. She is actually one of the best pop recording artists working right now, I think. Like it's gotten past the point where she is good for the girl who did Friday. And now I think she is just very, very good. And I don't know, I don't know how deep the two of you all have gone on, you know, the Rebecca Black was here, EP or the letter burn album when she released a couple years ago, at this point, those are both really, really fucking strong collections. Like, those are good pop songs on there. And I think it's not really surprising because I think if society has taught us one thing, it's that the most interesting art is made by former child stars in their 20s. We went through like really kind of fucked up traumatic early teens. And now I've kind of come out the other side of it. And I sort of compared to someone like Willow Smith, who had another, another very, very large novelty hit around the same time as Rebecca Black and has now kind of rediscovered her artistry as someone who's equally influenced by Fiona Apple and Tyler the creator, and sometimes Esperanza Spalding and sometimes the Deftones. And Rebecca Black is sort of in a similar space. Her music is a little bit more, it's a little bit more along one path that she kind of does like the, the alt pop hyper pop thing. It's sort of halfway between Carly Rae, Jepsen and Charlie XCX, I would say. But I think she's really successful at it. And we should also say to the point of her being something of a gay icon. She is a gay woman herself. She came out in 2021. And that is certainly informed a lot of her songwriting. She has a really, really great song called Girlfriend, which is about her getting back with her girlfriend. And it's sort of a delirious pop song that kind of perfectly captures the moment of deluding yourself into thinking of really terrible decision that you're making is actually the best decision you've ever made. And it's got that kind of energy to it. You see it occasionally more and more people discovering okay, Rebecca Black is more than the girl who did Friday. And she actually did like a boiler room set a few months ago, which is the same thing that Charlie XCX did. Charlie XCX. Yeah. Yeah, she kicked off the brad here. We got Brad slumber. Yeah. And hers is really cool too. And she looks incredible. And she's having a great time. And I think she's only kind of one step away from Rebecca, that being Rebecca Black in people's memories beyond the girl who did Friday. But she's not, she's obviously not there yet. I hope that she can get there because I think she's really good at what she does now. Now maybe I am going to take take take her in the pop part fantasy league. Maybe you're saying there's just to to get me to to waste one of my way for wires playing the long game winner. I kind of think it would be fun just to take her. Yeah, you know, I yeah, it's interesting to sort of watch people evolve and figure stuff out. I didn't I literally was looking at this so last minute because I've been dealing with a bunch of other stuff this week that like I had missed that she came out. I had no idea. That's incredible. I mean, I guess it's not that I mean like whatever like people figuring themselves out. I was not, you know, it doesn't have to be seen as incredible. But like that's nice. Good for her. Good for her. Absolutely. That's great. Gosh, that makes me happy. Yeah, I can imagine that, you know, as a as a queer person yourself, you would be gravitating more towards Rebecca Blackin away from the insane clown posse. I mean, again, like I have no beef with ICP. It's just that again, like when I think of miracles, I don't think of miracles. I'm literally thinking of incredible thoughts. Yeah. Whereas if I'm thinking about Friday, I'm thinking about Friday. So the record insane clown posse are very pro gay. They did not used to be and now they are. So they have disavowed a lot of shit. They have said they were saying in the 90s and they say it's against the jugelot ethos to be homophobic. So Tata, I know you you've heard like a good number of modern day Rebecca Black songs by now. What is your opinion of 2020's Rebecca Black? It hasn't really done much for me. I'm sorry. No, that's fine. I you know, I was listening to it just now. I'm not really feeling it. That's why we have you here. I'm glad to be the sole representative of a modern day Rebecca Black fandom. I just think we remember her second song because right when Friday blew up, they were like, okay, now we're going to release a real song and not, you know, from pop music fantasy camp, but like a real song and it was like an American idol. Like type ballad. It was awful. It's not not a good song for us on Friday. Yeah. But do you know what Rebecca Black's highest charting song on the Billboard Hot 100 is? Is it that? No, it's not that. Okay. Well, you wouldn't say this if we were Friday. No, it's not Friday. Friday only peaked at number 64 on the Hot 100 in the in the era before YouTube counted. YouTube counted. It would still be number one today if YouTube counted probably. Yeah. She had another song a few years after that called Saturday. Saturday, of course. And Saturday peaked at number 58 beat Friday out by six spots. Oh, I don't know. Like Friday was a joke that worked once. I looked at all the other art music stuff and I was like, oh, and I was like, it got to the point where it's like, okay, I can see you're in on the joke and I don't like it. Yeah. The Saturday video has some cute moments. There's, you know, she's got like a bowl that says I got to have my bowl on it. Like she's she said, spell stuff out in the sand. I can't remember what it was, but it's other lyrics from Friday. It kind of works and it like, it shows that she's growing up a little bit, I guess, and it kind of maybe primes the pump for what comes later. But yeah, no one's no one's returning to Saturday. I don't think Friday is the lone day of the weekend that we really need from Rebecca Black. Yeah, I want to know where she does go because I mean, again, I listened to the two most recent tracks that she put out. The ones that the two tracks came out last year and they're both pretty solid too. They're both solid tracks. And you say that she has an EP coming up, but like, man, I don't know. It's like, I am I am now at this point accustomed to, you know, obviously she's much younger, but like there are a lot of artists that have kind of all come out of the woodwork to have really great solo albums or, you know, like great albums period that, you know, maybe don't know, always necessarily get huge attention, but the people who listen are like, wow, this is really fucking great. Like, you usually, when I talk about black rainbows, which is Cora and Billy raised album that came out like a year or two ago, like. Oh, yeah, the one that kicked ass. That whole record is incredible, but I'm not sure how much, I mean, again, I have no sense of how much of a purchase things have in the cultural consciousness because I'm only really interested in defy like something. But I wasn't thinking about her beyond the, the, the, the, the having put in her records on that whole time. And then that record showed up and I was like, this is incredible. And I bought it and I listened to it all the time. You know, and like, same thing like, you know, how long did it take Beth Gibbons to put out a solo record after Portis had disbanded a long fucking time, but she put that out last year. And that, for my money, was one of the best records of the year. You know, I mean, like, that's a, that's a much longer-lived person. But it, what it says to me is that whether or not Rebecca Black is going to find huge purchase on a billboard chart again, I couldn't say. But do I think that she will continue to put out music that is way more interesting that you would have expected the 13-year-old who made Friday to create? Yes, absolutely. Like, I think that that's worthwhile. Like, who was that? I also kind of want to be a little bit to Vanessa Carlton, even though Vanessa Carlton also was, was writing her own music. But like, I always say that she didn't get interesting until after she basically didn't have a label anymore. She started making whatever she wanted. And that's when her music becomes something that to me is worthwhile. And Rebecca Black, you know, whatever the sheen is still behind her. Like, she obviously is far more in control of her, her brand identity than she was, she was 13 five years old. No, this is what told me, oh, sorry, hold on a second. I got, I got a blow the whistle a little bit here because there was some major disparaging of early Vanessa Carlton being done just now. And I have to shout out a thousand miles. One of the greatest pop songs ever written. I, of course, as you know, love that song. I'm talking about the records, the corresponding records. I just want to make sure we didn't go on records saying anything we couldn't take back. That's all. If anybody has any doubts about my feelings on that song, feel free to go back and listen to the episode that we did that covered it. Uh, wherein who was the other we did, uh, everywhere versus a thousand miles. Yeah. Michelle branch, a real, a real fan. By the way, it's a little bit matchup. I'm sorry. It wasn't, it was a mistake to do it just because like, I, Michelle branch who I like fine barely got talked about at all. Because all I could do was talk about Vanessa Carlton. So I did my best. I just want to be very clear. That like, I'm just not be hating on that particular song. It's saying that like the corresponding record and I think the record after that and, and maybe even the one after that were still like, she was trying to make pop music that was going to be on a chart. It was part of the mixture. Yeah. And when she stopped doing that, she started making music that was for me. Much more interesting. Like she put, I think she's put out like three or four more records after that. And I have enjoyed all of those much more. Um, and Rebecca Black. I, now I, you tell me that like, you know, 2020, is that I look a good starting point. Just like 2024 word, let's say. Yeah. The stuff before that, she's trying some things to kind of find her own identity. I really, I really listened to a couple songs. There was one that made the dance chart in 2016, which is a fine dance song. It's not that memorable. Uh, it's really Rebecca Black was here, which I think is 2021. That on is, is where she starts to get pretty serious. And I think worth attention. And, and she does have a following. She doesn't have like, you know, she's not Carly Ridge episode. She's not Charlie XCX certainly. Uh, but she, she tours very respectably, you know, all of her songs, you know, they, they get, you know, a million plays on Spotify, whatever. Like she, she does okay for herself better than you would think again for the girl who did Friday. She's not a star yet. Maybe she'll get there. Maybe she doesn't, but she's, she's, she's, she's, she's living her life. She's doing, she's doing pretty fine, all things considered. Okay. Here's my, here's, here's, here's what I'm going to plant my flag on. I, when we did our, well, when we set up the league for this year, I did pick Charlie, Carly Ridge, Epson, because I was like, maybe this is the year where it's just a huge, like, actual, like billboard success year for her. I don't know what the odds are, but I will say this, if this wild thing that I decided was going to happen comes to pass, it can only be good for Rebecca Black. Couldn't agree more. Can I say, you know, if you had told me in 2011 that she would be a respected indie artist 14 years later, I think I would have not been said yes, because like I could sell looking at this girl, like, you know, it's not that she's like a talentless terrible person. It's just, you know, she's too young. She's too young to be exposed to the internet like this. Like, I think just about all of us are too young to be exposed to the internet, the way that Rebecca Black was the answer. I'm about 45, Todd. I'm still too young to be dealing with this stuff. I mean, I was like, she's, you know, she's, you know, not a child star. She's not like, you know, maybe someday, but like, they just, they just pushed her out on stage to out in the spot, like, too early is what I understood. Like, I would say, like, I don't think she can sing, but like, you know, lots of people can't sing at 13 who can turn out to sing, like end of this. It's not like they, she was given a very good, and not exactly a vocal powerhouse of a melody to sing either. No, but what a, what a, not something you would perform on American Idol. Yeah. Well, I think we can all agree that the rap versus the first part of Friday. I, you know, I, that song is like the entire song is basically in my DNA at this point after 2011 and the amount of time I had to spend on it. I can still remember absolutely nothing about the rap versus beyond our B for Becca Black. And I was like, I was actually like, like, laser focusing in on the lyrics this time. And I realized the reason why I can't remember any of them is because they are literally all filler lyrics except for that beginning part. The rest of it is just like, what can I say that won't get me to the end of this verse? And we can get back to the chorus. Like, there's one part where he says, I'm in the fast lane switching lanes. It's like, no, you're not. Like, you can't be both in the fast lane and switching lanes at the same time. It doesn't happen like that. Tell him under burger. Come on, Patrice. All right. What's the funniest part of either song? Gotta have my bowl. Gotta have cereal. I don't even know. It might be. I do. Gotta have my bowl is like my, all right, my hot take, which is not an answer to your question, is that the opening verse is the best part of that song? Yeah. That's it. For me, the funniest part of Friday is just the opening. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Cause it's like so auto tuned badly. It's, it just, it doesn't sound right. It just sounds awful. What are you going to say? I was going to say that I love the corresponding part of the video where it's going through the calendar, you know, the kind of the days of the week calendar are kind of flying by. And they have like an iconic song to go with each. Yeah, the Wednesdays child and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Then they get to Wednesday and Thursday. They got to kind of go deep into the vaults for those. I don't know if they just really have like a Thursday's child. And I'm just really has the same pop appeal as like Friday. I'm in love or manic Monday. But yeah. That's it. That's always the, I think any of us who have made mixed tastes have to have noticed this problem already. Yep. You said like the one line from Miracles is magnets. And that is certainly hilarious. And I, you know, for what Friday was to you, Miracles was to me and my friends. Like we watch it many times. For me, the funniest part is like towards the end of Miracles where he just shouts, crows, ghosts, the midnight ghost. Like every now and then I'll just randomly burst out crows, ghosts. Oh, I remember that part that no, it's a bit of a richer text than you remember, I think. I guess I was just born a little bit too late. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I've just been just had a year earlier into my professional career. Maybe I would understand the multitudes of Miracles. I think we have talked these two songs to death. It's been an hour, John. What, what, what comes next? The four questions? Yeah. Yeah, it's the questions. So God. Okay. So after we talk for an hour, we do the, the, the questions that hopefully make all the nonsense makes sense. Question number one, question to history. One of these songs going to stick around for everyone's going to disappear. Well, I can never existed for the culture, which one has to say Friday. Next question. Yeah. I do. We, that doesn't really require discussion. Right. Like we don't need to talk about it. Like it's very obviously Friday. Although I will say that Friday, you know, I will say that Miracles had, I think was a big turning point in the perception of the insane clown posse into, you know, the harmless good time guys that they are. But so it's not like you lose nothing if you lose it. But like, Friday looms large. Yeah. All right. I guess a little more complicated. You can experience soup to nuts. The creation of one and only one of the two songs, including the music video, which is the one where you want to see how the sausage got made. I can't say I'm terribly interested in either. I guess it would have to be Friday just because I would be curious of like the sort of the pacing of it all. Like how, how fast are they cranking out these videos and these songs? And like how much, how much thought did Patrice put into that wrap first? Like that would be slightly interesting. I don't necessarily need to be like in the, like the, the, the, the bong smoke soaked room where I see you're coming up with the. Absolutely have to be in the bong soap room. I want to know how brilliant they thought they fucking work. Got to know like what got left on the cutting room floor? Like what was like not quite miraculous enough for miracles? Yeah. I don't know. It's kind of wild to me that, that both of you are assuming that that Patrice wasn't in a bong soaked room. I imagine the arc muse. What was it called? Arc music records or factory? Yeah. Like factory was the right word. I think like I can just imagine him just like scribbling out stamp next. Like we got to pitch these babies out. Only last like another couple, only last like two more years I think after Friday, like it folded pretty quickly afterwards. You would think that, you know, that kind of publicity would buy me a little bit more of a, of a leash there. But I mean, certainly a lot of, a lot of people signed up their kids for that shit right after Friday blew up trying to make lightning strike twice. I would imagine so. Was there one who was like, there was like, I don't I can't remember her name now. Her last name was gold though. Alison. It was so, and it was so offensive that the video had to be taken down the Chinese food. There was a lyric there that was like gold is the new black. Oh, wow. Oh, and just for the record, it was not. Yeah. All right. Question number three, Megan, the stallion going to make a playlist of high girl shit, which what, I mean, I don't know why you would do the long version of this, which one of these songs is high girl shit? I mean, the hottest of girls shit. And I bet you make it a stallion herself is in a enormous fan of Friday. I imagine if they decided that they were going to do it a third time, I actually kind of ashamed that that she wasn't as big as she is now. A mega verse on on the hyper pop version of Friday would have been pretty good for sure. Yeah, I mean, they got big Freedia on that one and answer three. Don't forget about three or three. Yep. To think three or three pre date Friday, that's crazy. You think they were like caused by Friday. I have difficulty thinking of three or three as, you know, the hitmakers of 2009 there, the hyper pop godfather's of the current point of time. It's fair. Anyway, the Neil Young of hyper pop. Yes, the godfather's a hyper pop. All right. All right. Fourth question, most important question, yes, not just of the show, but just an all human creation. William Shatner, he's going to do a William Shatner version of one and only one of these two songs, which one of these songs must be Shat upon. It's not even close. It's miracles. Yeah, this is the one you got to give to miracles. Although I do think like him doing got to have my bowl, got to have cereal would be a pretty I can't do, but I want to be clear that I'm taking Friday in this. Oh, okay. No, wrong. You know what? That's fine. That's fine. We can be a house divided for the billionth time. Yeah, water. Here's here's my turret. Here's the thing about miracles. It's too wordy. It would go on forever. The thing about Shatner and I am not short of words, but like it's not as I mean, like there's just so much to miracles. I think that like there's a less is more principled to Shatner. That makes me think that like doing Friday would be better. That's it. That's my argument. You can feel free to dismiss it if you like. I feel like miracles is already a spoken word piece and we can, you know, I think William Shatner could really capture the awe that ICP tried and failed to. I see a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. Miracles ain't nothing to lie. It's there. There's something there. There is something there. Look at the mountains, trees, the seven seas and everything chilling underwater. Please. Well, you know, we've been talking for over an hour. I think it's time to be honest before we get to the listener comments. Todd, you didn't think this was a real episode of Song versus Song, did you? No, I absolutely did not. This is, this is, this was the shark jump moment. Like as soon as, as soon as you said, what the songs were going to be, I actually, I actually called on to burger up on the phone and said, Hey, I'm worried about Todd. I think he's, I think he's sick. I think something's wrong. I'm concerned. This is an act of self-harm and act of harm to both of us. And that's why this is not an episode of Song versus Song, but is in fact a need to invention. Difficult conversations were had, but yeah, this is what's gotten us to this moment. We love you. Well, nobody else loves you, but we do. And we're worried. So I can, can I ask before we get into the listener comments and the overall voting, was any consideration given to Friday versus Gangnam style? No. It's not, it's also not totally a fair match up because Gangnam style, I don't think is famous for being a bad song. And I don't think it is a bad song. I think it's a perfectly fine song. But I think as a phenomenon, it's much closer to Friday than miracles is. And in terms of the way it was received in the way it kind of permeates in the culture, I think it's much more closer Friday than then what? Well, I, I was not thinking very hard. But yeah, that, that does make complete sense to me. I can totally see that. I can't believe no one suggested it. I, I, I, I said, didn't people suggest, um, baby? Also, they're like, oh, it should have been baby versus pretty. Ultimately, the more that I think about it, because I also thought it was a really strange match up when you said it, but for the record, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that like, the way in which they presented his memes and the way that people's perception of ICP and Rebecca Black changing over time does actually weirdly make them yeah. Sympathico. Yeah. And also the fact that like genuinely, like if you think that miracles are silly and I certainly do, that's valid. But obviously there is a huge percentage of people who look at that song and ICP in general and also see miracles and also feel a tremendous amount of community and hope like for whatever that is, like I'm placing no value judgment on it, but like it does factually exist. Like that is just fundamentally true. And to a similar extent, you know, Rebecca Black was was maligned to the extent that she then became a person that like a lot of people went on to really relate to because eventually everybody started getting shit on on the internet, not as bad as she was going to, but like the more time is progressed, the more people were like actually Rebecca Black is that bitch because she survived that shit and kept going like, like Tosh 2.0 like brought her on an interview years later and was like, my God, why did you bother keeping on going? Because Tosh is still a piece of shit. And like, and like she was like, why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I? And honestly, if you can't relate to that, if that's not inspiring to you, I don't know what to say, that inspires me. And I think that there's a lot of other people who feel the same way. So I think the more I have thought about it as a pairing, the more sense it has actually made. Not because I think Todd thought about it. I think you just, I think you just got me. Yeah. Miracles all up in this bitch. It's a logical pairing. It's just a blowout, I think, but yeah, but it does make for a fun episode. All right. Comment time. All right. Michael Martin writes, Todd, Lena, what the fuck? And then Daniel Schultz writes, I strongly suspect that Lena had nothing to do with this. That's a fucking right. All right. Jazzy SPF writes, being so bold as to try to have one more fun than the Beach Boys is a move. I respect. I have to give this one to Rebecca Black. I remember fun, fun, fun, fun being the funniest part. I wonder if she was given any sort of like stage direction on that word, because she does it in this unbelievably monotone like, like robotic way. I don't know why that would be the way you would choose to interpret that word, but I guess she just wasn't getting the right guidance from Patrice, perhaps. Or was she getting the perfect guidance? Because also a fair question. All right. Kynan Clark-Chancellor writes, "The retroactive appreciation of Friday is one of my least favorite things online at the moment. The internet over-corrects. You can say the bullying of a child is bad without pretending the product was good." At the moment we've been loving Friday for 14 years, man. Get real. Yes. All right. I will say, okay. Hold on. The one thing I willing to to give is when they asked Lady Gaga about this, she said, "Rebecca Black is a genius." That was an overest. I mean, like, no shade. That's too far, yeah. That is a little bit much, especially she was 13. I mean, 13-year-old Rebecca Black, maybe on paper, but I don't think that that Friday was proof of that. Anyway. All right. Brandon Hay writes, "The thing that baffles me most is how many times Patrice Wilson managed to follow up Friday successfully." Like, there were that many families who looked at Rebecca Black and thought, "Yeah, I want that from my kid." For the record, the funniest of the follow-ups was it's Thanksgiving, the Col Westbrook. I remember that one. I did too. The thing about Fridays, they weren't trying to get famous off of it. It's just like a gift you give to your kid, like, make a music video at the booth at the mall. Yeah, it really. Like, with a little more money, but. Yeah, when I think about it, I'm always like, it's like somebody was having their botnets for, and their theme was the weekend, and their parents were like, "We're gonna buy a song, and you'll record it, and you'll perform it live." I do wonder if modern listeners and people who are in a round for Friday the first time, if you could possibly sort of explain to them the phenomenon this song was, because I'm sure most people today, which is listening to it and go, "Oh, it sounds like an AI song." It would not seem that remarkable to them, because there are songs like getting produced like this all the time now. And it just kind of sounds like a pop song made by a not very smart computer. Fun, fun, fun, fun. Yeah, I like to believe that if I heard this today, I would be able to recognize the human genius behind it. Hope so. Okay. Franco Del Rosario. You are legitimately emotional. All right. Franco Del Rosario writes, "Rebekah Black wants relayed this story of being at a club with a friend, and then the friend turning to Rebekah and saying, 'Oh my God, that's your song. The song was call me maybe.'" That's correct. That is correct. So I see that wasn't alone. No, I even remember there was a time when I was having a conversation, and I was working with Spin by this point. I was having a conversation with a punk band's manager about pop music. And I was talking about, it was just after a motion come out, and I was talking about how remarkable it was that Carly Rae Jepsen was basically a critically acclaimed now as radiohead, and how this was the new kind of critical consensus music with Carly Rae Jepsen. And they were like, "Is that the girl who did Friday?" Reminded me that not everybody is on the internet. The way I am. Yeah. The Omega Geek writes, "Rebekah Black was just a kid who suddenly found herself standing in the shadow of a tsunami of internet hate. Meanwhile, it's fair to clown on adults for their bad musical choices, especially when they are literal clowns." That's another good point. Yeah. I mean, that is fundamentally the difference, right? Like, they were adults. The same thing with, like, has Justin landed yet. Like, was that also extreme? Yes. Justin Sacco was a grown-ass woman. You cannot overstate the fact that Rebecca Black was 13. She was 13. Good grief. All right. Rudis Muldsnacks, I apologize for mispronouncing your Eastern European name, but Rudis Muldsnacks writes, "The reason miracles gets my vote is because of how violent J randomly shares the time he tried to befriend a Pelican only to be met with betrayal and abandonment. I don't know what it has to do with miracles, but it's actually kind of heartbreaking." That also might be the funniest line in the song, especially the little, like, run-away motion that you dope does in the video. It's good stuff. Yeah. Jamie Paradise writes, "Both songs are cute, but I'm giving it to miracles for recognizing that Pelicans are the bastards of this green earth." I certainly thought a lot about Pelicans every time I hear this song. All right. "Service writes, is it better to be an amateur or an idiot?" Song versus song, asking the real questions. As we always do. Yes. Jason Lee writes, "I've always found the lyric gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal to be oddly melancholy." I like the idea of just saying it monotone as you weep. Yes. Gotta have my bowl. You're like a year and a half into the pandemic. Have you guys heard the Bob Dylan version of this song? No, is it AI? It's not AI, but it wasn't obviously literally Bob Dylan. It was someone doing Friday in the guys of Bob Dylan, but the gotta have my bowl. Gotta have cereal. It was definitely a highlight. All right. Sam Reuter says, "This is the hardest choice since the front seat backseats Kism." The phrasing of which seat can I take specifically? Yeah, that's another one. That's like we had three minutes to write this. We're just like scribbling downwards here. All right. Cliff Excellent writes, "I would like to thank Todd for ruining my Spotify recommendations for the next few months." You can just say it for anonymous. I do it for every episode. All right. Gene Youngkin writes, "I'm going with miracles because nobody looked back 15 years ago and said, 'Why was I so mean to ICP? Why did I think it was okay to make fun of a posse of insane clowns?' Also very right. Laura Polk writes, "Why must we always pit women and clumsily earnest men and clown make up against each other?" That is like one of the best comments we've had in years. It's very, very good. All right. And Jane Doe for our final one says, "I think you can just end the podcast after this." It does feel like it's over. It is, but like so many things that should have been canceled, it will continue to go on. God, we did it, Joe. Just like another season of Ted Lasso. Here we go. We're still here. All right. And now the results. Andrew, you have already told us what you think is going to win by how much do you think? I did see early voting on this, so I feel like maybe I shouldn't weigh in. Before I knew I was going to be on this podcast, I did vote in this poll. All right. Lena, what do you think? It's got to be an absolute crushing success for Friday, like it's got to be like, I'm going to say 85/15. That's my guess. 85/15. All right. For a total of 75/55 to 355, that's 68 to 32. It's Friday. Friday. Gotta get down Friday. Obviously, but like that's, that's, you know, I see more miracles. I see more miracles there. Respect. We'll show you. Here's my question to you. Do you think that this poll got shared on an ICP, like, rather, or something? If it had, it would have been a crushing win for ICP because those fuckers are organized. And that, and that is a reason to believe in miracles. Yes. Like the juggle army, if they are ever mobilized, will be much more powerful than people realize. Well, that was song versus song. Please give us money. Like, please, please, please, please, we need your help not as much as many of my neighbors in this city, but things are tough. Things are tough everywhere. So if you could go to our Patreon, song versus song, and give us a dollar or two, we have bonus episodes for you. We will watch a movie every month. This month, you are making us watch the yacht rock documentary, which is great because we both already watched it. Yes, we did, but I'll happily watch it again. Me too. And then we get to talk shit about Rick Bietto. No, I know you will. I will clown on him exactly for this one thing that he said and probably nothing else. You know, name me in like, I think I'll probably clown on him and then talk about how much I like Pat Finnerty. I'll spend more time on Finnerty than Bietto. I mean, I'll give you sports, but I'm wildly pro yacht rock as a music and as a label. I am strongly supportive. So we'll get into it. I'm looking forward to it. I think it'll be a good bonus episode to be sure. All right. And finally, you're ready for our next one. Do you want to thank Andrew for coming on and doing the show? Yeah. Do you want to plug your pluggables? Andrew, like where can we find you? Sure. Yeah. I write for billboard. I am no longer on Twitter or X, but I'm now on blue sky under a you get off my gold. And I am doing my own podcast for billboard now called greatest pop stars, which is all about the art of pop star greatness in both real time and historical senses. And got some fun episodes coming up, perhaps with one member of this podcast, at least. And yeah. All right. Anyway, Lena, you ready for the next episode? Yes. I am ready to move on from this episode. We will be doing my sweet Lord by George Harrison versus spirit in the sky. Right. Norman Greenbaum. We are going to find some, find some Jesus today or next week or in two weeks when we do it. I mean, one of us might. I mean, Jesus is just all right with me. So. Okay. All right. All right. See you next time. Thanks, everybody.