Lloyd Bishop/NBC
Whether you love or hate Rebecca Black's viral hit "Friday," we think you'll agree that Stephen Colbert's version makes it all worthwhile. One week ago, Jimmy Fallon announced that the Comedy Central star would perform "Friday" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon... if viewers raised $26,000 in five days for the school-supplies charity Donors Choose. Fallon's fans rose to the challenge, and on Friday night, Colbert sang a soulful rendition of "Friday" with Fallon's house band The Roots, plus some very special guests. Watch the video below:
The most amazing thing about Colbert's performance isn't that it's funny (because, well, we expected that). It's that the song sounds so good. Colbert's country-ballad intro makes the lyric "time is a-going, tickin' on and on" sounds almost profound -- even though it follows that line about eating cereal. The Roots elevate the song with their trademark hip-hop funk sound, while their emcee, Black Thought, makes that embarrassing rap interlude sound suddenly respectable. Former American Idol winner Taylor Hicks and famous cheerleading troupe the Knicks City Dancers add some flash, and Fallon himself does his best fake auto-tune while reviewing the days of the week. In short, it was a great performance for a good cause -- and it has us eagerly checking iTunes to see if they'll release it as a single.
We'd say this was the best thing to happen to Rebecca Black this weekend, but on Saturday, the amateur pop star got another ego boost: an apology from Miley Cyrus. Cyrus, 18, complained to the press last week that Black's overnight success had come too easy. But on Saturday before the Kids' Choice Awards, Cyrus told E! that she had been misquoted.
"I love Rebecca Black... I think she's great," gushed Cyrus, who admits to doing a "Friday" cover of her own.
"I actually have this really embarrassing video that my sister has on her phone," she told the website, "and I'm just waiting till the day that she puts it on YouTube. It's me driving, singing Rebecca Black and my hands are not always on the wheel while I'm singing the song. Not so good."
Not so good, eh? Maybe Miley should let her YouTube fans be the judge!
