Pop music usually plays like comfort food. You throw it on to forget bills, bad news, and whatever drama’s cooking in the group chat. It’s vibey, it’s escapist, it’s the sonic equivalent of zoning out on a late night drive. But every once in a while, a track pulls you back to earth and makes you sit with the stuff you’d rather scroll past. That’s exactly the lane WRB swerves into with “The Rents Too High.”
This joint isn’t trying to distract you. It’s trying to wake you up.
Instead of glossy hooks about parties or heartbreak, WRB flips the script and drops a straight up protest jam. Not preachy, not corny, just raw. The song zooms in on something way too real right now: how regular people get priced out of their own lives while the world keeps flexing like everything’s fine.
Sonically, it rides that dusty folk energy. Think old school troubadour vibes, like someone dragging a guitar through highways and bus stops, collecting stories instead of streams. It’s stripped down, almost humble, but that’s the point. No big production fireworks. Just truth front and center.
And yeah, the real punch lands in the lyrics.
WRB tells the story of an everyday couple who just catch too many Ls in a row. Nothing dramatic, no movie level tragedy. Just bad luck stacked on bad luck until their whole life slips through their fingers. They lose their home, try to claw it back, fail, and eventually end up living in a tent. Not because they’re lazy. Not because they made some wild mistake. Just because the system keeps moving the goalposts.
That’s what makes the song hit different. It’s not about some faraway crisis or a fictional sob story. It feels close. Like it could be your neighbors. Your friends. Low key, even you if life takes a few wrong turns.
WRB doesn’t throw in that tired “work harder and you’ll be fine” energy either. No bootstraps speech. No fake sympathy. Just a clear message: the cost of living keeps climbing while people keep falling. And it’s happening in places that love calling themselves rich and advanced.
What’s wild is how rare this kind of topic is in mainstream songwriting. You’d think more artists would tap into it, but most dodge it. Maybe it’s uncomfortable. Maybe it doesn’t chart. But WRB leans all the way in, and you can feel the soul behind it.
“The Rents Too High” isn’t trying to be trendy. It’s trying to matter. It makes you pause mid-scroll and wonder how thin the line really is between stability and sleeping under canvas. And once a song plants that thought in your head, it kinda sticks.
In a world flooded with background noise, WRB drops a track that actually asks you to listen. No glitter, no gimmicks. Just heart, grit, and a reminder that sometimes music isn’t here to help you escape. Sometimes it’s here to make you care.
Listen to “The Rents Too High” on Spotify
The article was brought to you in collaboration with One Submit – music promotion service
