She's back, y'all, and she's Black, y'all

...and she's Blackity Black and she's Black, y'all

About Rebecca Black's new video, "Person of Interest."

Usually, when we talk about an artist "maturing," we mean finding their identity -- not something that's necessarily unique, like art, but a slight but interesting variation on the current theme of pop, a mutation of the virus. Whatever gets into the marketplace and spreads, is strong; whatever dies off is weak. And it's not even usually a bad thing for the artist; in popular music, selling out at least gives you focus. And more often than not, it does utilize whatever particular talents that musician has.

In Rebecca Black's case, however, she has to first upgrade to mediocre. The disturbing news isn't that she's there -- she isn't for a while yet  -- but that this pop-culture in-joke is moving towards it at all. Just shows you what a little publicity can do; I mean, hipsters are always upset that being mediocre, in the entertainment industry, gets you automatic points towards being awesome, but thanks to the interwebs, being awful now gets you automatic points towards being mediocre.

I'm not beating up on Rebecca. We all know she just did what she was told, and she's either too determined or too nice or too oblivious to care that we know. Despite what you've been told over the past decade by a PR campaign Patton might have orchestrated, however, Britney Spears doesn't deserve this kind of attention either. There's nothing wrong with Rebecca that wasn't already wrong about pop music. No, it's the d-listers writing songs for Miss Black that are ruining her quinceañera. I mean, look at this. This is her new song, and it's called "Person of Interest."

(Remember that title. It becomes important.)

Shhh. Shhh. It's okay. I know you want to kill yourselves. That's normal. Actually, you know, that chorus wasn't half-bad, if you just -- damn you, industry! Remove your cock from my mouth!

Anyway, Rebecca is, as always, blessed with an insanely sunny smile, a guilelessness that verges on the eldritch, perfectly calibrated to blind you while her handlers attempt to rob you. She's like the Tim Tebow of pop music -- we know she's not ready for the big leagues, but, d'awwww. She's so nice. As with Tebow, however, Nice quickly graduates to Super Fucking Annoying. It just hasn't manifested itself in this particular -- Wait. Wait a minute. Go back over those lyrics.

There's a crime scene on the dance floor
Ring the alarm

Uh-oh.

There's a chalk line on the dance floor
In the shape of my heart
Crime scene tape on the front door
And you are
A person of interest

Oh God.

Can't deny you're implicated 
in a mayhem in my mind

There we go. Okay. Now that's professionalism. I had to check to see if it was bad. She's definitely graduated up from reciting her day planner.

Officer! Officer! He stole my heart! Get the UV light! I wanna see if he left sperm all over it!

Okay, like I said, I know this hurts. She has no right to inflict this on people, the privileged little mall rat! But before you judge, listen to her back story. Yes, she comes from money. But when she was just a little girl, her parents took her to the opera, and after it was over, they decided to take a detour down what was known as Metaphor Alley.

A Metaphor jumped out at them and demanded their money. Then he shot both of Rebecca's parents. And ran off.

Rebecca determined, there and then, sobbing on her knees in the rain over the bleeding bodies of her family, that she would avenge their death by personally seeking out metaphors and torturing them until they died, hiring amateur (very amateur) songwriters to craft her weapons and utility belt. That's right. Rebecca Black is to metaphors what Batman is to crime. That's a metaphor inside a metaphor inside a metaphor. A turducken of metaphors, if you will.* Which actually constitutes a fourth metaphor.

You are welcome.

Actually, I made all that up. Metaphors can't kill people. This vigilantism has got to stop. Who protects us from you, Rebecca? Who protects us from you?!  

*actually, it's an analogy. Shhh. Don't let her find out about analogies!