Web Sensation Rebecca Black Returns With 'Saturday' Music Video

Ralphie Aversa

There might be a bit of irony in the fact that a day after nominations for the 56th Annual Grammys were revealed, Rebecca Black graced YouTube with a new song and video. If view counts are your thing, know that it has already racked up over 8.5 million hits in a mere three days.

Naturally, Black's follow-up single to her much-talked-about track "Friday" is called "Saturday," thus the reason it hit the Internet over the weekend. Will the latter be equally as loathed as the former? The 16-year-old's original viral video has scored over 220 million views since its 2011 release and re-upload following a legal dispute. On YouTube, it has had a quarter as many likes (321,000) as dislikes (1.2 million) since it was reposted.

 

The new song is trending in the opposite direction after the weekend, with 107,000 likes to 56,000 dislikes. Besides the song perhaps having improved sonically, viewers may also like the fact that this time, Black seems to be in on the joke.

"Two p.m., getting out of my bed," the teenager sings to start the track. "Trying to get Friday outta my head."

There are plenty of other references to the earlier video: Black goofing around with friends, using the same alarm clock, riding around in a convertible, and eating cereal from a bowl with text on it that reads, "Gotta have my bowl." In "Friday," Black proclaimed, "Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal."

Like the first YouTube hit, "Saturday" features a second artist. Dave Days, who has 1.6 million subscribers and a video with Miley Cyrus to his credit, contributes a guest verse.

The pre-chorus and chorus sound similar to something you would hear on pop radio, with a guitar breakdown followed by an up-tempo beat, over which Black insists, "I don't want this Saturday to end!"

Funny, because that's the same thing we usually say to ourselves on the weekend! Kidding aside, Black probably doesn't want the virality of the song to cease. The track earns revenue on every view and iTunes purchase, and "Friday" became such a part of pop culture that it received cover treatments on both "Glee" and Katy Perry's "California Dreams" tour.