So Bad It’s Good – A New Music Marketing Tactic?
Amy Davidson
In 2011, Rebecca Black’s infamous song Friday became a global success for being so bad, it was good. Since then, her true intentions behind the release of this controversial track have been hotly debated. Was it a deliberate marketing ploy? Or just harmless fun being had by a 13-year-old artist? Either way, Friday became a pop culture sensation that sparked a new trend in the music industry.
This may be precisely what Sarah Brand is trying to replicate with her song Red Dress (2021), which has generated a ton of confusion, amusement, and intrigue since its release. But with so many tracks seemingly following this trend, are all of them actually deliberate? And is this concept of creating a song that’s ‘so bad, it’s good’ an actual marketing tactic in the music industry?
Macquarie University music lecturer, Adrian Renzo, joins 2SER to offer his insight.
“What interests me about this song, when I can stand to listen to the whole thing, is that there’s actually a long tradition of this kind of music which is so bad, it’s good,” he says, referring to Brand’s track. “There have always been audiences ready to embrace that sort of stuff. So I think it makes sense that nowadays, if you’re looking for traction, one way to do it is to deliberately turn off auto-tune and sing in a different key completely.”
So who is the artist behind Red Dress, the viral song that now has over a million hits on YouTube?
Since the upload of her bizarre music video in July, Oxford University student Sarah Brand has triggered thousands of reactions from critics online: “From the consistently off-pitch vocals to the half-assed guitar solo and the group dance performed in an Oxford church, every bit of ‘Red Dress’ invites a kind of car wreck curiosity.”
One article describes the song as “a dare that tests its listeners’ endurance while also forcing them to question whether something so obviously horrible was made without Brand understanding what she was doing.”
Regarding how deliberate Brand’s performance was, Adrian says it’s hard to be certain. “We can never get inside people’s heads…and to be honest, in the music industry, many people want to give the impression that they know where the trends are going. But the truth is, no one knows anything.”
Ms Brand, who is currently completing a Master’s degree in Sociology, describes her own work as “media infused with sociological introspection spanning topics such as religion, romance, and inequality.” The nature of her degree has raised suspicions among many who believe the viral video might actually be an elaborate social experiment that forms part of her studies. Adrian agrees with this possibility: “I’m willing to bet that it is part of an experiment for her Masters of Sociology degree. I believe it’s about religion and politics, with a dash of popular music in there.”
But is this true? We may never know for sure. In an interview with Newsweek, Brand neither confirms nor denies this theory: “I’d like to leave the intention in question, and focus on impact,” she says. “One of the main goals of this project was to prompt social introspection, and the music video has done just that.”
It’s not hard to see why Sarah Brand has been dubbed “the successor to Rebecca Black” in one publication by Reid McCarter. Both were independent artists at the time of production, and rapidly sparked similar reactions by online viewers. However, one key difference separates the two. Unlike Black, who had little to no involvement in the conception of Friday, Brand had complete control throughout the entire development of her viral hit Red Dress. In fact, she directed, choreographed, produced, and edited the whole thing herself.
Produced by former Los Angeles-based company Ark Music Factory, Friday was actually written by two rising entrepreneurs – Patrice Wilson and Clarence Jey. They owned and operated the business responsible for Black’s viral video, as well as “many other music videos by young unknowns that are just as cringe-inducing,” according to Rolling Stone. Founded in 2010, Ark Music Factory has been described as a production company that takes advantage of wealthy children with “pop-star dreams, and their parents’ cash,” resulting in “music videos with surplus production value and a deficit of talent and individuality.”
It’s been said that Wilson and Jey’s creation of Friday forced audiences “to reckon with a particular formula for pop music.” This begs the question, was the infamous track deliberately designed to go viral for being terrible? According to Dr. Oliver Wang, Professor of Sociology and popular music critic at California State University, this is likely the case:
“Friday embodies any number of current trends practically guaranteed to inspire a set of backlashes,” he explains. “Music for teens, anaemic dance tracks, Auto-Tuned vocals, super-trite song writing and most of all, a resentment toward young people whose presence seems to disproportionately dominate social media.”
The concept of creating music that is ‘so bad, it’s good’ has definitely become more prevalent over the last decade. However, Adrian argues that this trend has actually been around for much longer, highlighting a prime example from a notable 60’s rock band: “Google The Shaggs’ ‘Philosophy of the World’. It’s a band that sounds like they’re all playing different songs at the same time. And then, miraculously, they sing one line together, and it sounds like an accident.”
Indeed, Philosophy of the World (1969) is considered one of the most divisive albums in rock, causing both confusion and intrigue in the “select few listeners willing to brave its jittery rhythms and jumpy melodies” (Rolling Stone). Much like controversial acts who experience virality today, The Shaggs were scorned by internet trolls, despite having many adoring fans, including Kurt Cobain who claimed it was one of his favourite albums of all time.
As stated by Adrian, “There’s always been audiences ready to embrace stuff that everyone else thinks is terrible.” This is evident in the fact that, throughout history, several independent artists have managed to make a name for themselves by creating music that people love to hate. So with that considered, is it safe to assume that many of them were deliberately attempting to achieve notoriety by making music that is ‘so bad, it’s good?’
“I definitely think that’s the case,” says Adrian. “Especially when you’re dealing with people who are not signed to a record label. As everyone knows, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes in making a pop song. And I’m not just talking about getting the snare drum right. I’m talking about all the team members that need to be on board to get traction on a song.”
But why would an emerging artist want to gain traction for creating music that many consider terrible? “That comes back to marketing,” believes Adrian. “If there’s always an audience for this kind of thing, then perhaps it is a savvy move to get traction on a song that maybe won’t get traction in other ways.”
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