Alison Gold
Alison Gold (born May 9, 2002) is an American child singer. In 2013, she signed up with Patrice Wilson, best known as the producer of Rebecca Black's "Friday", to release a string of bubblegum dance-pop songs, "Chinese Food", "ABCDEFG", and "Shushup". Alison Gold ceased to release anymore music since 2014's "Shushup", and has faded into obscurity.
Please note: Alison Gold's music is shrouded in controversy, due to her young age and the increasingly bizarre content of her music videos which always featured Patrice somewhere prominent. While there is no evidence to suggest she was mistreated, the content definitely is odd and most of the videos were removed by Patrice in 2018 after huge backlash from the community. By posting about these projects we simply want to highlight the music itself which is clearly bubblegum dance-pop, and not cause any potential trauma for the young artists. Many young music stars start off doing cheesy projects just like Alison Gold and it is nothing to be ashamed of. For example, Petra Marklund was in Berdie and had a self-titled bubblegum dance album "Petra Marklund" by UFO Records before she became big with September. Artists such as Alison Gold and Rebecca Black, in my opinion, were a victim of their time; people on social media and YouTube can be very unforgiving and cruel, but they should not be ashamed of how they began, as every young star needs to start somewhere.
Biography
Alison Gold was born in Fairfax, Virginia on May 9th, 2002. In 2012, she began working with Patrice Wilson, an American-Nigerian music producer best known for writing and producing music and accompanying videos for young aspiring child stars, whose parents were willing to pay the price. Her first single, "Skip Rope", was released as part of the musical duo Tweenchronic made up of Alison and another girl identified as "Stacey".
Chinese Food
Her first single as a solo artist, "Chinese Food", was written by Wilson; Gold stated that she "loved it right away" after Wilson demoed it for her, and recorded it soon after. Interestingly, in an interview with Vice, Alison revealed that it was Wilson who really loves Chinese food, and she kind of just went with it as she liked the tune. "Chinese Food" became a viral hit, charting at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 2013 and reaching 14 million YouTube views by March 2014. The video for "Chinese Food" included images of Wilson dancing in a panda costume and dancers flanking Gold in (Japanese) geisha outfits, which were controversial. In the same Vice interview, Gold revealed that it was she who requested the Geishas as even though she knew they were Japanese, she loved their makeup.
Despite its chart and viral success, both the song and music video received an overwhelmingly negative response by critics, with some of those critics regarding it as one of the worst songs ever. It was mainly criticized as having simplistic portrayals of other cultures, with Billboard calling it "outright racist" and ranking it 2nd in their 2015 list of "The 10 Worst Songs of the 2010s (So Far)". The Chicago Reader thought it remarkable that the song's "having bugged millions of people in an interestingly annoying way has earned a spot, however small, in pop's history books." Both Gold and Wilson have rejected the song's accusations of racism, with Gold stating: "I don't really understand what that's all about... I mean, I'm not trying to criticize anyone – I just really love Chinese food!" Patrice Wilson eventually removed the video from his channel in 2018, although it was later re-uploaded by others on YouTube.
Later singles
Alison later went on to do another single with Wilson titled "ABCDEFG", which did not chart (this was also removed in 2018 by Wilson). The music video portrayed Alison as a living doll inside a world created by Patrice who played "God" and was undeniably disturbing. The music video for her third and final single done with Wilson "Shush Up" received extensive backlash and further controversy relating to Gold's overtly sexualized appearance and its depiction of her as a criminal, at one point being executed in an electric chair. The official copy of the video was later removed from YouTube, and Gold has not released any new music since.
