Rarely has anyone benefited from a rebrand like Addison Rae.
Rae, whose stardom started from posting viral TikTok dancing clips and has amassed almost 90 million followers on the platform, and her brilliant team of creative directors have tried hard to make her new aesthetics appear like they haven’t tried at all.
She began rocking Y2K-inspired looks — ultra-mini ra-ra skirts, cropped denim jean jackets, a bellybutton piercing and low-rise jeans. Rae flaunted an old iPod Nano like a trendy toy. Her Instagram became a means to create a cohesive, deliberative world.
The music changed, too.
Far from the kitschy dance-pop 2021 debut single, “Obsessed,” the songs in “Addison,” her debut, self-titled album released Friday, are more cool and controlled.
The production, taken charge by two women producers, Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjärd — Swedish hitmaker Max Martin’s proteges — mirrors ’90s trip-hop, with frequent interruptions allowing songs to shift in intensity and texture. They are pulsating, lush and full of stacked harmonies.
The songs in “Addison” echo Lana Del Rey, sometimes Britney Spears and also Madonna, and they’re not bound by any particular genre. She doesn’t deny being a student of the game either. The album, then, is the sort of pastiche that is familiar without being redundant. Each turn is sharp and deliberate, but they all confine within the kaleidoscope of the album’s pop maximalist sonic universe.
Rae’s vocals are sweet and foggy, and her lyrics are threaded with images of a life that's young, fun and free: being naked on a beach, flying to Paris on a whim and taking shots at a bar. There's no ego and rarely any self-seriousness, which makes for pop perfection.
Take “Diet Pepsi” for example. On a chillwave synth beat, Rae coos, “My cheeks are red like cherries in the spring / Body's a work of art you'd die to see,” and that she was, “Sitting on his lap, sippin' Diet Pepsi.” The combination of seductiveness and product placement makes up the brilliance and ridiculousness, and Rae plays it off not with a quirky wink but with a daring stare.
On “Aquamarine,” a deep-house/dream-pop track that evokes Madonna’s “Ray of Light” and Kylie Minogue’s “Fever,” Rae puts listeners through a glimmering, airy and sultry vibe. Unlike a regular pop hit structure, its bridge appears almost like an entirely new song, taking the European trance sound in a completely different direction from the second verse and pre-chorus. It works like a charm.
“High Fashion” sees a deliberate choice of contrast between Rae’s soft, airy vocals on a more gritty, cinematic production. “Summer Forever” is one of the standout moments where Rae slows the pop urgency down and looks for something more atmospheric, daring her lover to be more spontaneous.
She also leaves enough space for self-reflection. “Times Like These” is ethereal, layered and a highlight lyrically. In the fuzzy “Fame is a Gun,” where she teases, “You know I keep it real, I live for the appeal,” the track is sharp, and its twinkly production encapsulates stardom dreams.
“Money is Everything” tethers on the same satirical line as Rae repeats, “Can’t a girl have fun?,” which sums up the entire album’s ethos. She digs deeper during “In The Rain,” a hauntingly beautiful track where she expresses, "Misunderstood but I’m not gonna sweat it / Isn’t it all for the show? / Keepin’ a smile on my face for protection.”
All the self-reflection, youth and enjoyment of life as a 24-year-old woman culminates in “Headphones On,” a vulnerable and poignant album closer. The ambient textures, soft strings and strong percussion cozy up into a full trip-hop, electronica experience.
Like any ambitious debut album, Rae has misfires. As interludes, “Lost & Found” and “Life’s No Fun Through Clear Waters” rather serve as stylistic choices and bog down the album’s pace. Its opener, “New York,” a nod to the works of Rae’s close friend and collaborator, Charli XCX, leans toward being bombastic.
Rae has neither the best vocals nor writing skills. The tracks in “Addison” would have soared coming from someone who could write stronger lyrics and have a more emotive tone. But there would be no guarantee that someone would have as strong a vision for its moodboard as Rae, who knows what she wants and who she is.
So, talented or not, try-hard or real, that’s ultimately up to you to decide about Rae. One thing this quintessential debut makes certain, though, is that: TikTok — it’s her time to take on a bigger stage.
@DangHLe
