Let’s get one thing straight: Rebecca Black didn’t just survive the 2010s—she’s thrashing her way through the 2020s like a glitter cannon fired directly into the sun. Fourteen years after “Friday” turned her into the internet’s favorite punchline, the 27-year-old artist is roaring back with Salvation, a project so audaciously fierce it feels like a manifesto written in neon. This isn’t a comeback. It’s a full-scale pop resurrection.
Remember the 13-year-old who just wanted to kick it in the front seat? She’s all grown up, queer as hell, and cranking out electro-pop anthems that sound like Charli XCX crashing a Euphoria rave. Tracks like “TRUST!” and “Sugar Water Cyanide” don’t just demand attention—they hijack your nervous system, all jagged synths and defiant hooks. Black’s evolution isn’t subtle. It’s a middle finger dipped in sequins.
“I’m more that deranged, Glee-obsessed kid than ever,” Black tells PEOPLE, laughing but not joking. Back then, she was the theater nerd nobody “got,” too earnest for the cool kids’ table. Now? She’s the architect of her own chaos, funding DIY music videos (see: the Salvation visual, a dystopian dance-off that looks like Mad Max meets RuPaul’s Drag Race) and doubling down on the same unhinged passion that once made her a meme. “Annoying as f—? Oh, totally,” she says. “But that kid knew what she wanted.”
The road to Salvation wasn’t smooth. When Black first played demos for collaborators, the response was… crickets. “People didn’t get it,” she admits. But where 2011 Rebecca might’ve folded, 2024 Rebecca weaponized her cringe. “I fought to the finish line,” she says. “I knew if I pushed, they’d hear it.” The result? A project that’s equal parts euphoria and exorcism—the sound of an artist reclaiming her narrative, one shattered dance floor at a time.
And let’s talk about those videos. In an era where indie artists rarely risk big-budget visuals, Black went full throttle, choreographing routines that demand TikTok armies mobilize immediately. “Nobody wants an indie artist to make videos—it’s expensive, it’s hell,” she says. “But I needed it.” Cue “TRUST!”, where she vogues through a neon wasteland, a queen commanding her legion. Take that, hindsight.
Does Salvation vindicate the girl who just wanted to sing about weekends? Absolutely. But Black’s real triumph isn’t in shaking the “Friday” ghost—it’s in embracing it. “That kid would’ve gagged for this,” she grins. “She’d learn the choreo in, like, five seconds.”
So here’s to Rebecca Black: no longer the internet’s awkward footnote, but a pop maverick rewriting her destiny. After all these years, Friday’s finally here—and the weekend’s just getting started.
