Victorian-era trade cards: mandolins and lutes

Woolston Spice Company, Toledo, Ohio

Music Weird previously featured Victorian-era trade cards of piano and organ companies. Today we have a gallery of trade cards that picture mandolins and lutes, which seem—from what I've seen—to be the most common stringed instruments to appear on trade cards. 

Many of the companies that used images of mandolins were not music companies. They sold unrelated goods and services and incorporated mandolins into fanciful images that were meant to catch the eye and evoke harmoniousness or nostalgia.

The trade cards themselves were merely printed advertisements, but the colorful artwork was intended to make people notice them and collect them, and perhaps even reward the issuing company with their business. 

Auburn Drug and Chemical Company, Auburn, Maine

Chas Counselman & Company, Chicago, Illinois

Barretts' Dye House, Boston, Massachusetts

Wesp, Lautz Brothers and Company, Buffalo, New York

The Broadway Tailor, Brooklyn, New York

Circa 1890, no advertising

Neptune Umbrella, Buffalo, New York

August Pollman, New York City, New York

A.M. Peel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Kendall Mfg. Co., Providence, Rhode Island

Rebecca Black's "BFF You Make Me LOL": What happened?

In 2011, The Sun reported that Rebecca Black, the amateur teen singer whose vanity single "Friday" unexpectedly became a Billboard chart hit, was prepping a followup single. 

This followup single was to be called "LOL" and was said to feature the lyrics "BFF you make me LOL." 

The song never materialized. Instead, Black released "My Moment" later that year.

Nevertheless, the news of this alleged "LOL" single created a stir. If it seemed as if the ridiculousness of "Friday" couldn't be topped, the reported lyrics of "LOL" suggested otherwise. 

Listeners who searched the Web for news about this upcoming single were suckered by videos on YouTube that purported to have news about, previews of, or even the full audio of Black's new song. Some of these videos are still on YouTube. 

Following up on The Sun's story, HollywoodLife.com reported that Black's manager said, "There's no truth to any story about a new song from Black." 

“Rebecca does not have a new single titled LOL,” the manager insisted. “Just to be clear, she does not have any new single recorded at this time."

The story in The Sun was picked up by the usually reliable Billboard, and the Billboard article said that Black was working on a full-length album. Like "LOL," this album never materialized.

Rebecca Black at the MTV Music Awards

"Here I am in a studio working on my debut album. I'm going to prove you wrong," Black supposedly said. (Not a very believable quotation.)

"Just like 'Friday,' 'the new songs are pretty catchy,'" said Black, according to Billboard (via The Sun). The article added that she was recording her album at the Flying Pig Productions studio in Los Angeles.

But her manager told HollywoodLife.com, “We are not working with Flying Pig Productions, they are good people and have wonderful studios—but we have no business arrangement with them.”

After "My Moment" (Black's finest single, in my opinion), she released the so-so "Person of Interest" toward the end of 2011. In 2012, she released "Sing It" and "In Your Words." Both were lackluster songs but showed that she had been working on her singing. In 2013, she released a sequel to "Friday," titled "Saturday," which actually charted slightly higher on the Billboard Hot 100 than "Friday." She has been releasing videos of mostly cover tunes since then, but in September 2015 she announced that she's going to release a new single called "Alive."

It appears that The Sun completely fabricated its story about "LOL." In picking up the story, Billboard must not have realized that The Sun is a British tabloid like Weekly World News or The Enquirer. I asked Black's publicist to comment on the whole shebang and clarify whether Black ever recorded an album, but he didn't reply, even though he's probably not very busy these days.

I like to believe that an unreleased Rebecca Black album from 2011 is in the can and will one day be released as a lost classic of early 21st century teen pop. When it is, I'll be the first in line to buy it.