“WRLD WIDE WEB” features Forever the Rebel exploring the hidden downside of the online realm. Aptly named the world wide web way back when it began, it has become a reflection of our world, amplifying an already intense existence. Even in the greatest nightmares of steampunk, nobody understood how all-consuming living on the internet would be. Yet, though we have our corporal bodies for now, its escapism is hard to resist. Forever the Rebel even describes this well when they explain how they spilled codeine on their keyboard, yet an escape from what was supposed to be another escape already.
The disconnect from reality that the song offers has an intensity. Right from the beginning, they treat the vocals in a warped, distorted fashion. A neat mixture of trap, and hyper pop, all within a yearning context, the song has a poignancy to it. With the way that people can be so intimate in real life yet so distant online, there is a pain peculiar to those who grew up without any other kind of experience. Beats go for the blasted, hitting with sheer physicality. Nods to Yung Lean appear throughout as there is that same level of yearning, though Forever the Rebel’s style has a lot more technicolor elegance.
Forever the Rebel speaks to this moment in time, the community, and how it crashes down on users with “WRLD WIDE WEB.”
