Interview Rebecca Black: Dance Pop Renaissance

“It feels like there’s a rebirth of dance music at the forefront of the public consciousness,” she says. “I’ve been such a big fan of dance music forever. I loved artists like Skrillex and Daft Punk. Those influences started the birth of ‘SALVATION’, and influenced the way I approached silence and sounds and minimalism. But what I really wanted, more than anything, was to make a type of pop I wasn’t hearing anyone doing, in my own way.”

Black spent a year writing, resisting the established sound she’d found on ‘Let Her Burn’. She explains: “There’s always a fear you’re going to create the same thing - had I already found it? Was this the world I [would] always live in? - but I took things to the next level. It was important for me to push the limit as far as I [could].”

Prioritising cohesion and a dedication to dance music above all else, the resulting record is massive: a complete immersion into the boldness of the hyperpop and EDM that shaped her adulthood, this gargantuan no-skips mixtape jumps between drum’n’bass melodrama (‘Tears In My Pocket’), underbelly rave (‘Do You Ever Think About Me?’) and sickly sweet hyperpop (‘Sugar Water Cyanide’), standing as a testament to Black’s gutsy approach to reinvention and her capabilities as a curator of dance music.

“Pop music and DJing are so intertwined, but also feel completely different to me. Within my pop world, everything is carefully planned to the second, whereas DJing has been an outlet where I get to be the most accurate version of myself that I am in everyday life,” says Rebecca. “I treat DJing as if I’m going out; I’m just playing music. It’s working off the cuff and being able to move and make changes at any moment. She continues: “It’s allowed me to learn a lot about flexibility, and how flexibility in any kind of performance can allow you to move on your toes and work quickly and problem solve, and I’d always had a fear of that before. It’s one of the most subjective ways of crafting music or a sense of taste.”

Later, ‘American Doll’ is the first time she breaks the fourth wall to address the manipulation, control and consumption of women in the spotlight. Over a thumping bass, her autotuned vocals spit: “It’s safe to swallow me / Take my autonomy […] Did you like me better then? / Do you wanna hate me now?” “It’s something I’d always wanted to write about, but I had to have a little bit of hindsight to my experiences over the past few years to do it,” Rebecca explains.

“It’s not a story that hasn’t already been told by other artists. Being a young person, a young woman, a child in the industry, you’re told from day one that people know better than you and can make better choices than you will for yourself, and that held me back for a while; being around people who didn’t know how to work with women.” She continues: “I’d worked with people who were always unsatisfied with the person I was, no matter how I shifted and changed myself and how hard I worked to put myself in a certain mould. Sometimes that was literally the shape of my body. I’m lucky to have less of that experience now in my personal life, but I think it’s a story that could never be told enough.” 

Given she’s already had more than her fair share of hardship and tumult in the spotlight, Black is aware of the “double-edged sword” nature of pop stardom. “Within this pop renaissance we’re having, all the girls are not having easy experiences; they’re not easy jobs. Once you become desirable at that level, the amount of time and attention and energy you have doesn’t double, but everyone’s needs and desires for you do. I don’t doubt that they’re having the highest of highs and lowest of lows.”

Now that dance records are well and truly part of the zeitgeist, Rebecca admits there is an element of trepidation at the thought of occupying a prominent place in the public consciousness once again - but it’s tempered by a firm faith in her years-long journey towards resilience and resolve. Within the strangeness and toxicity of pop culture’s online spaces - where “everyone’s on the same journey” to maintain mental wellbeing - boundaries have become essential to her survival. “I watch it like an older sister. I watch it as someone within the industry and as someone who has a lot of friends going through similar experiences. [Now], I’m really comfortable within the boundaries that I have with the internet and especially in what I do, what I share, and what I feel I owe people [as an artist], versus what I don’t.”

The unpredictability of Rebecca Black’s growing discography is enough to leave not only her fans on the edge of their seats, but the singer herself too. So, what does the future hold? “I’m going to live in ‘SALVATION’ for a minute, and explore that universe,” she smiles. “I’m excited to show people all the different ways in which this project lives, whether that’s on tour, on bigger stages, or continuing the visual story. As for what’s next, I’m excited to find out myself.”

‘SALVATION’ is out on 27th February. 

Tags: Features, Interviews, Rebecca Black