With the release of her seven-song EP, ‘SALVATION,’ Black cements her staying power with near pop-perfection through self-empowerment dance floor bops.
Rebecca Black has remained a fixture of pop culture for over fourteen years. She’s 27-years-old.
_SF Rating: 8.25/10
“Friday,” Black’s hit song released in 2011, garnered widespread virality — but not for its stylings or lyricism. Far from it. Instead Black, who was barely a teenager at the time, became a mark for online scrutiny, with disgruntled critics slamming the song for its basic composition and ostentatious “cringe” music video and overall banality. Black’s publicly commented on the pain and insecurities it caused in her early career years.
But Black certainly has gotten the last laughs.
The years after “Fridays” release garnered a loyal fan base for the twentysomething multihyphenate. (Black, in addition to her singing career, is a sharp songwriter and composer, and she has become a world-traveled DJ in recent years.) The song, itself, has made her hundreds of thousands of dollars, catapulted her into the cultural zeitgeist — making every song and remix she releases garner attention … even if the concentration is given under the notion of “have you heard that new track from the ‘Friday’ girl?” — and, famously, opened the door to a cameo in Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” music video circa 2011.
In Black’s newest EP, SALVATION, we see the singer-songwriter-DJ break free of her “Friday” type-casting. In doing so, Black transcended any internet whitenoise and entered a sonic landscape occupied by few of her contemporaries.
SALVATION sits as an exercise of sublime sound engineering. At a hair over 21 minutes long, Black’s seven-song ode to reinvention evokes mantras of self-reliance, expression, and empowerment. But omnipresent subjects are delicately crafted to work inside other, more vulnerable lyrical topics; “American Doll’ is an unignorable dance hall anthem that speaks to the conventional tropes women still suffer under; “Tears In My Pocket” delves into the drunkenness one can fall victim to when finding attraction in a lover’s unexplored emotional baggage.
It’s an immaculately cohesive EP, particularly once SALVATION enters its second half. And it’s there where Black sees herself ascend into hyperpop royalty. The musicality and production subtleties waxed in “Do You Even Think About Me,” the EP’s standout song in our opinion, exploded into cathartic shower dances. “TRUST!” and “SALVATION,” the EP’s two songs which received music video treatments, explore comparable sentiments; the former see Black sit firmly in her sexuality and sensuality as a queer woman; the latter tune reaffirms Black’s dedication to personal growth and autonomy.
SALVATION’s final track, “Twist The Knife,” has Black cooning triumphantly — “I’ll sing it out for karma’s sake” — while confessing she’ll be dancing to her dying breath. In some strange symbolism, she’s done just that — dancing until the maligned criticism of “Friday” finally managed to die off — all while serving one of the most immaculately produced EPs of 2025, thus far.
Welcome to hyperpop royalty, Rebecca Black. It just so happens to be Friday, as well.
