Another Death of Autotune

Technology, here in 2011, really is at a magnificent level.  Every single day people like you and I* traverse both the current limits of outer space (up there) and our own vast oceans (down there).  A seemingly infinite wealth of knowledge awaits those who dare to have a gander, and the almost-daily advances in technology only help this cause.

And of course, most people couldn't give a shit - technological advances that people care about in 2011 seem to range only from iPhone apps to Oyster cards.  Unless the grandfatherly David Attenborough is explaining the luminescent Angler fish or the hunky Prof. Brian Cox is chatting breeze about the birth of stars, the general public's understanding and usage of available technology seems only to stretch to shit YouTube videos and texting in to support idiots on talent contests on ITV.

Now I generally don't have a problem with this (I am of course using remarkably advanced technology to write a blog that no one will actually read), and it would be hugely hypocritical of me to judge how other people use the tools available to them.

HOWEVER.  That was before I saw this:

"Sunday", by Sadie B.  I would give up every Sunday to cancel out the very concept of this video being born

We've all heard Rebecca Black's seminal "Friday" and marvelled at its innocent, if hugely shit, video.  We all had a chuckle as she pondered over the differences between a car's seating options, and sat open-mouthed when that rap started.  It was never going to stand alongside Revolver and Blonde on Blonde in the canon of rock history, and it never tried to.

But this, THIS is a different animal. Setting its stall out early by putting "Rebecca Black Parody" in the title of the video, "Sunday" by Sadie B presents quite the convincing argument for casting aside our current technology and regressing rapidly back to the Stone Age so 'parodies' like this cannot take place.  The main problem is that for a parody it is remarkably, almost impressively, completely not funny.

The crux of the humour seems to be replacing "Friday" with "Sunday" and giving it a religious angle.  And that's pretty much it.  Using two white rappers (an argument can be made they have better flow than Patrice Wilson in the original, to be fair) adds a dose of wacky, pre-watershed humour whilst Sadie B ponders "which service can we make?"  Hopefully one led by Jim Jones, if there's to be a happy ending to this horrible, bastard journey.

My first thought was that I was overreacting to this and a stupid video shouldn't get me angry - but I then realised the anger was in fact sheer frustration that someone - nay, some people, a group of sentient beings that reached a unanimous decision over this - sat down and decided the video would be a good (hilarious, even!) idea.  Then actually went through with it.  Then unleashed it on the rest of the universe, culminating with me viewing it and writing hundreds of words about it.  The joke is almost certainly on me right now, but at least that's still funnier than this car-crash** attempt at comedy. 

The Christian angle makes the awful idea even worse and paints non-evangalist, non-bellend churchgoers in a bad light merely by association.  Namedropping the big JC in your song does not make it a positive Christian message, in my opinion.  Unless the ditty in question is Supergrass' steeped-in-science-fact "Jesus Came From Outta Space"*** -  a song that would certainly do more for the Christian church than Sadie B.

Sadly and inevitably, this has already spread like the fucking T-Virus and at the time of writing over 23,000 people have watched it, due to the ease of recording, editing and hosting technology today. My only hope now is that we see a nuclear winter sooner rather than later, and any evidence of this on YouTube is destroyed before the 2211 version of Brian Cox can explain that society 200 years previous actually spent precious time creating Sadie B's "Sunday (A Rebecca Black Parody)".  Because that would just be embarrassing for us all - they'd think that were were in on this from the beginning.

Now this, on the other hand, is a cover I can get behind

* Better people than you and I.
** Coincidentally one of the few things that would have made this video worth watching.
*** Other songs considered for this sentence to make the same point:  "Jesus Shootin' Heroin" by The Flaming Lips; Cake's "Jesus Wrote A Blank Check"; and the Ramones' "I'm Not Jesus".