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In a recent New York Times interview, the American musician Addison Rae said she realised “how much choice and taste is kind of a luxury”. It’s a telling comment from someone who has built her debut album around carefully curated sonic references, but achieved fame by dancing to viral sounds on social media. You get the sense she’s finally getting to make her mark, the way she wants to. From 90s-era Madonna to the melancholy shades of Lana del Rey, Rae proves herself a devoted student of pop, while managing to shape an intimate, personal sound with its own hallmarks.
There will probably always be a degree of lingering snobbery around Rae. Having launched her career as a social media personality who’d dance to tracks that labels paid her $20 to promote, the Louisiana-born singer quickly became one of the platform’s biggest faces. Her 2023 debut EP, AR, made a stir in internet circles, but its ultra-slick, high-gloss brand of pop never quite converted the sceptics. For many, the leap from influencer to credible musician felt like a stretch.
Addison goes a long way toward changing that. The full-length is a nod to pop past and present, honouring these influences while not leaning too heavily on them. Even its high-saturation artwork is a homage to y2k It girls including Hilary Duff and Christina Aguilera, with a pinch of grainy Tumblr aesthetics. When making her case for a record deal, Rae brought along a mood board with the words “intentional”, “intense”, “loud”, “dance”, “glitter” along with colours – aquamarine and hot pink. The theme of girlhood is ever-present on Addison, from referencing Sofia Coppola in her videos to lines like “Stayin' up all night long / Singin' our favourite songs” nodding to simple times of youth on “Summer Forever”.
When she announced the record on Instagram, Rae wrote that the music came from “a deep desperation and desire to understand myself better.” As well as moments of carefree popstar decadence, there’s introspection. “Headphones On” explores her parent’s divorce (“Wish my mom and dad could've been in love / Guess some things aren't meant to last forever”) while “Fame is a Gun” addresses the rollercoaster of celebrity and the weight of expectation (“Crash and burn, girl, baby, swallow it dry”). The lyric “I got a taste of the glamorous life”, meanwhile, is a nod to Sheila E’s 1984 track “The Glamorous Life” – and perhaps also a dash of Fergie.
Throughout, Rae wears her references proudly on her sleeve. Her mentor Charli xcx has a clear influence on opener “New York”, with its “big apple” lyrics and glimmers of hyperpop. Rae’s breathy coo that opens “Money Is Everything” is pure Britney, even down to her studied pronunciation of the word “money”, and Rae is an admitted Spears superfan (see: the staged paparazzi shots of her reading Britney’s memoir in 2023). “Summer Forever” has glistening strokes of Enya’s new age synths, while the trip-hop track “Times Like These” recalls Madonna’s Ray Of Light.
The entire album is the product of Rae working exclusively with an all-female production crew: Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser, who are signed to Max Martin’s publishing company. From the swinging synths on ‘High Fashion’ to the nu-disco pulse of ‘New York’, the production blends commercial pop tropes with some of the weirdness that has historically been key in making chart cuts stand the test of time. At times, you wish they’d push that weirdness further – Rae’s sweeping, dreamy sonics are cohesive, but the album could benefit from more moments of contrast.
Alongside Addison’s rollout, Rae has demonstrated a consistent ability to position herself as an attention-grabbing artist, whether through spinning through clouds of white powder in the video to “High Fashion” or posing in front of a sign for the uninspiring supermarket chain Iceland to promote “Headphones On”. All this goes to show, as Charli xcx’s Brat did recently, that marketing and the culture surrounding a record can be as crucial as the music itself.
Addison Rae may have started out as an internet personality, but Addison earns her a seat at the pop table. Rather than a work of fluke or novelty, it marks the arrival of an artist who knows exactly what she’s doing.
English (US) ·