No one will accuse me of not being hip to what the kids are listening to these days, because even I know the meme last weekend was Friday.
Now, a lot of people are giving young Rebecca an awful serve. Perhaps it's because even she, as a privileged white American 13-year-old, should have realised the song is totally shit and refused to participate until they—the exploiters who served it up to her—gave her something mediocre.
Still, as others have said, she seems sweet enough. I figured that, despite the Autotune hell, she couldn't be that bad... she got the lead in her high school's production of Oklahoma. A show like that is not an easy sing.
Well, it turns out that, for a song with a melody requiring a vocal range less than an octave, the use of Autotune was completely justified.
Yesterday I went to the inaugural Surrey Hills Music Festival, held by the Surrey Hills Neighbourhood Centre.
(I haven't linked directly to the festival pages, because now that it's over that page might disappear and there'd be a dead link on this page.)
The Festival had all sorts of great music, including Anadromiki Compania, the Victorian Flute Ensemble, the Surrey Hills Orchestra, and a young quartet of jazz players calling themselves the Zac Lee Band (can't find a link).
The highlight was seeing The Tealeaves, with their gentle country folk music. I'm buying the record and keeping an eye out for other gigs.
The only downside was the bunch of arseholes at the back of the hall who were more interested in yapping and drinking than hearing the music.
I heard Bowie's Young Americans on the radio yesterday.
I had forgotten just how loose the playing is on it. They don't make records like that any more.