Fresh Friday Festival marked its first anniversary on Oct. 9 with a red-carpet premiere night in conjunction with ElevenLabs. The show was the festival’s 41st week, and it brought FFF’s running total to 656 premieres.
Thirteen videos filled the anniversary lineup. Oatmilk Fan opened the night, followed by TMSTRY, Never Toured, Green Lounge Records, Aidan Yagu, Dead Electric, Andy Riffeth, From June To December, KAI, Steve Anderson, IONE, and Morrwyn of House Elarokh. A collaboration between Professor Jacket Music and House of Sttar closed the show.
ElevenLabs is also backing the festival’s weekly Community Winner prize for the next 11 weeks. Each week’s winner receives a free month of the ElevenLabs Creator plan, a $22 value, and the program runs through the Christmas season.
For the anniversary, the audience and the FFF team chose the same video, one with a long history of its own. The Viewer’s Choice race behind it came down to a single vote.
Viewer’s Choice and Staff Pick: Andy Riffeth, “I Hope Heaven’s Got a Double Wide”
After the final premiere, the audience votes for its favorite video, and the FFF team names a Staff Pick. This week both went to Andy Riffeth’s “I Hope Heaven’s Got a Double Wide,” a country-inspired track that drew the most Viewer’s Choice votes of the night.
“Double Wide” was the first song Riffeth ever produced, and it marked the start of his creative work online. It is also where his stories about Euhaw, Georgia, began.
The video brings back a character with a track record. Sgt. “Skip” Whipple of the Euhaw P.D. first appeared in Euhaw P.D., Riffeth’s AI-generated sketch comedy video. That video won Curious Refuge’s World’s First AI Sketch Comedy Competition and a $6,000 cash prize. Whipple now turns up in “Double Wide,” carrying a character from Riffeth’s comedy work into his music.
The song took a long road to the screen. Riffeth first assembled it in Suno V3.5. He then rebuilt it over thousands of attempts across several generations of models before remastering it in Suno V6 for this release. He had wanted to make a video for it from the beginning, and the anniversary premiere was its debut.
After the show, Riffeth thanked everyone who watched, listened, and followed along, and invited viewers to come home to Euhaw.
Credits
Artist: Andy Riffeth
Music: Suno (created in V3.5, remastered in V6)
One Vote Back: Oatmilk Fan and Madisynn
The race behind Riffeth was close. First-time FFF participant Oatmilk Fan and festival veteran Madisynn, representing Professor Jacket Music, tied for second, one vote behind the winner.
Oatmilk Fan’s “Late Nights Next To You,” from the EP Colour’s End, is a remix of the artist’s earlier “Mornings Next to You.” The pop-acoustic song mixes English and Cantonese lyrics about the small routines of a relationship: rainy nights indoors, pet videos, Netflix on the couch, candlelit rooms, and a shared blanket. The video moves from a mysterious host and a masquerade dance to a park date, a mysterious gift, and a puppeteer.
“Madisynn’s Mis-Uh-Vengers” is Madisynn’s biggest video to date. It is a homemade superhero comedy made for about $200 with a hot glue gun and a large supply of cheese fries. Her team fights through cardboard cities in questionable costumes, with makeshift effects and an orange cat with suspicious powers. The costumes are by House of Sttar, the costume designer for the Jess & Madisynn series. Backyard battles and a blooper reel make the DIY limits part of the joke. (Jess & Madisynn is co-created by this recap’s author, and Professor Jacket Music is his label.)
Watch it first. Watch it together.
Fresh Friday Festival premieres new AI music videos every Friday on YouTube. The audience watches together, reacts together, and votes for the Viewer’s Choice. Check out Week 41’s full lineup in the anniversary playlist:
If you’re an AI music creator sitting on a music video and wondering where to premiere it, submission is free at freshfridayfestival.com.
Zinstrel publishes this recap independently, courtesy of Fresh Friday Festival, and no artist pays for placement.