Sydney (dpa) – An 8-year-old Brisbane schoolgirl's innocent world of backyard bliss has been turned upside down after her heavy metal song about loving her pets went viral on YouTube and sold up a storm on iTunes. Australians were undecided Monday whether to rejoice in the success of singing sensation Juliet's smash-hit, My First Hardcore Song, and how it has it has catapulting her into the commercial world of trust funds and T-shirt sales. Matt Sanders, professor of clinical psychology at Queensland University, questioned the wisdom of Juliet's parents, saying family videos were best kept private. “Fundamentally I think, we as parents, we have a duty of care not to expose our children to any potential risk, which could backfire,” he told the Brisbane Times. Juliet's mother, Kristina Childs, defended a YouTube posting that has received 12 million hits in just four days and gone on to top the heavy metal charts on iTunes. “It wasn't a set-up or anything,” she told the paper. “We harmlessly shot a video to show our friends and family and then it went all crazy.” The lyrics of the 59-second song, in which Juliet shares her love for her 2-year-old miniature Dachshund, Robert, and her tropical fish, were her own work. The video was shot by Childs and the piece put to a thrash-music soundtrack by music producer and family friend Rob Sharpe. “Basically, we're very comfortable and know that we never intended for any of this to happen. There's never been any point where Juliet has been exploited in any sense of the fashion.” Childs said that she and her husband Steven put the song on iTunes and decided to sell T-shirts to prevent others from exploiting their daughter. The money they make will go into a trust fund for Juliet. “I had an inbox full of emails and people were already doing covers of it on YouTube,” she told the paper. “We were like ‘we should probably just put the song on iTunes in case someone else rips a bad copy of it and puts it up' … so we put it up and within 24 hours it went to number one.” Childs said she was not contemplating a career in heavy metal music for her daughter, although that was the music most commonly played at home. “She's listened to it all her life because I play a lot of metal but she likes listening to Jesse J and Johnny Cash. That's more what she likes to sing along to,” she said. Childs is hoping that their lives revert to normal. “I dropped her off (at school) this morning and none of the other kids … they didn't really care or know,” she said. “The only people who knew or cared were the other parents. They were all coming up to me saying ‘I bet it is crazy at your house.'” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/rmDoz Tags: Australia, Pets, Youtube Section: Animals, Latest News, Media, Oceana
