Raven Clemons

Sarah Pardini

Mexican-American singer-songwriter Rebecca Black’s debut album, Let Her Burn, digs into the music she’s always wanted to pursue. Twelve years earlier, on February 9, 2011, her first viral sensation, “Friday,” hit the media, but the negative reception wasn’t what Black expected to get. 

Today, her debut album signifies her comeback to music and her journey in the music industry. “Many people have been talking about this album as a redemption moment for me, which is crazy. I have a hard time sometimes accepting that it’s redemption, as it feels like I’m just beginning, but I get why it is,” she reflected.

Black, 25, burns the past with her new era in hypnotic hyper pop. “This is the album you want to hear,” Rebecca shared with E! News. “It took 12 years of discovering myself after an accidental launch into this world to really figure out what I had to say and figure out who I am.”

The opening track to the album, “Erase You,” reflects a past relationship and resurfacing feelings of bad memories that cloud away all of the great parts of it. 

I can’t think about

Any of the good things ’bout you now

Just all of the ways that you let me down

Got me lashing out

The second track, “Destroy Me,” paints a picture of Black’s relationship with herself and the noise after ‘Friday’ ripped and tore her apart in the media. As she writes in the song, All of your words cut me up like glass / Shutting you off, no more looking back; Black tunes out the world’s opinions to find her individuality and to move on from her past. 

“Destroy Me” empowers Black’s identity and self-discovery journey after being in the spotlight at a young age. “When I wrote that song, I was really struggling with how I viewed myself. That song is really about your insecurity with yourself, about giving permission for other people to come in and destroy you or kind of shake up your own view of yourself,” Black shared with NPR.

The album’s third single, “Sick To My, Stomach,” centers around Black’s earth-shattering experience of running into an ex after a breakup and seeing them with someone else. Her experience makes her realize that it may never be a great time to see an ex, but it stings much more seeing them with someone else.

You’re doing the same dance

But with somebody new

You said I’ll never move on

But it didn’t take you that long

And nobody told me

I wish that they would have had

So I didn’t have to feel

Like I was the last to know

“I wrote Sick To My Stomach days after running into my ex for the first time in months and finding out she was seeing someone new,” Rebecca said. “The punch in the gut that comes with the revelation that you’re no longer the center of someone’s universe is forever one of the most painful blows, so this song is as petty as it is devastating.” 

Sarah Pardini

Ending the album with “Performer,” a standout on the album, she sings about struggling to be vulnerable and putting up a front to cover it up. Black wishes she could break down that built-up wall to be more open, but she can’t seem to break it. 

Every time I try to

Bе more vulnerable

It’s like I hit a wall

Can’t go any further

I don’t wish this on anyone

It’s gone on way too long

Patterns unbreakable

If the question is if Rebecca Black is worth listening to, some would say she’s burning her mark in pop music, for real this time. She shared, “This is my stamp on pop, my art, what I have to say, and I’m here to be here with the rest of the pop stars and pop girlies.”