Episode 79 Recap - ARK Music Factory

Eat your heart out Andy Warhol, because the LA based ARK Music Factory is the hot and new... music factory, or should I say "Music Entertainment" Factory. With such hot talents like Rebecca Black (see previous post), Kaya, Katie Hines, and Lena, that's right, Lena, the ARK hit machine is poised to take over the music industry. Now you may be wondering to yourself, "What?" well let me fill you in. Have you ever heard the term, "Stars aren't born, they're made"? This is where they're made. ARK Music Factory or just simply, ARK, recruits kids and molds them into pop stars in hopes of finding the next Justin Bieber or Willow Smith. There is nothing particularly special about the artists, songs, or videos, but the most intriguing feature of ARK is how hilariously bad the songs are and how the company portrays itself. Check this out.

Surreal right? It's like a amalgamation of Disney meets a middle school talent show curated by children's pageant judges meets MySpace meets my nightmares. So who do we blame for this unintended comedy? This dude.

Meet Clarence Jey

You can become one of his 55 followers on twitter (He's @clarencejey) and be privy to his deep thoughts, like. "@clarencejey It's Saturday and I still am getting over Friday....not fun.. Lol" Apparently he had that Rebecca Black song stuck in his head. With several partners, Clarence has been able to write, record, and shoot videos for this new brand of pre-teen safe dance pop.

I tried to do some digging about the ARK so I started at the most logical place, their website. Lo-and-behold, you have to register to view the "About" page AND your membership has to be approved (it took my membership about 2 hours to be approved). So I finally got on their site and nothing interesting was to be found. Rebecca Black's profile page was written in Comic Sans font, the profile pictures of the "artists" look like preview shots for a porn site, (because they're all around the age of 12 it made me feel a little uncomfortable), and there are links to flash games.

I did find this gem on the "About" page though. "Our team at ARK have certainly recognized that raw talent alone is sufficient to get noticed. However, to further advance as a professional within the music industry, it is absolutely essential for an artist to have hit singles and a well executed image - all within that marketable package!" At least they're being up front about it.

What does this mean for you? Absolutely noting, but what it does mean is that anyone with some audio software, a decent digital camera, and a teenage girl can make crappy pop songs and videos. Though it begs the question, where is this money coming from? ARK charges the parents of these kids to produce them and in turn, reap the benefits of royalties (whatever that may be). I wonder how much it cost Rebecca Black to be made fun of on the internet by millions of people?

ARK's internet damage control team is already in full force by sticking by their horrendous music saying that other pop songs have dumb lyrics too and the music industry works on a pay-to-play format. The industry is a doggy-dog [sic] world and the fine folks at ARK are just getting these kids exposure.

So are these kids and their parents being exploited? Who cares.

The final verdict. All of these people are aliens trying to brainwash the masses, but they're not quite there yet. Keep it up ARK! Here's this weeks playlist.

1. Goon Moon - My Machine
2. The Sword - Night City
3. Weedeater - $20 Peanut
4. Mark Lanegan - Carnival
5. Queens Of The Stone Age - You Can't Quit Me, Baby
6. Gay Witch Abortion - Down With Giants
7. Dead Moon - Play With Fire
8. Hello=Fire - Someplace Spacious
9. Heliotropes - Ribbons *
10. Heliotropes - True Love's Knot *
11. Eagles Of Death Metal - Miss Alissa
12. Egypt - Touch Ground
13. Death From Above 1979 - Losing Friends
14. Brad Laner - Crawl Back In
15. Hater - Mona Bone Jakon
16. Desert Sessions - Hanging Tree
17. John McBain - Farewell Iron Age
18. Torche - Fat Waves
19. Kyuss - Asteroid
20. Yawning Man - Digital Smoke Signal
21. Wellwater Conspiracy - Something in the Air #
22. Steve Morgen - Of Dreams
23. Masters Of Reality - Worm In The Silk
24. Valis - Perpetual Motion Machine
25. Pell Mell - Blacktop   

* - Artist Focus

# - Cover of the Week