The three singles for her upcoming debut album have been pretty good.
"Diet Pepsi" made it into ILM's top 10 tracks of 2024.
I think she deserves her own thread.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 14 February 2025 22:34 (nine months ago)
Love diet pepsi. Lana pastiche
― treeship 2, Friday, 14 February 2025 22:37 (nine months ago)
New single out today: “high fashion” sounds like Banks.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 14 February 2025 22:44 (nine months ago)
Love all three of these songs/videos. She’s the real deal. Also the chorus of “High Fashion” has one of the craziest chord progressions I’ve ever heard in a pop song
― J. Sam, Saturday, 15 February 2025 15:40 (nine months ago)
Rebranding herself as an ingenue-coquette popstar was a good move, it fits her. It hasn’t been done in the mainstream in a while. Britney championed it in “one more time” and Lana Del Rey was a darker spin on it on the Born to Die and Lizzy Grant era.
Her music has had some great production and interesting musical ideas in these three singles. Her debut album should be great if she continues this streak.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 15 February 2025 16:29 (nine months ago)
whoa "high fashion" is great, what a video.
lana pastiche sure but she has beats and these can be played in a club.
― spoonman (steve aoki remix) (map), Saturday, 15 February 2025 22:26 (nine months ago)
I always get her confused with Madison Beer.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 15 February 2025 23:04 (nine months ago)
Re: the wild chord progression in the chorus and bridge of "High Fashion" to my ears it's giving ominous medieval polyphony, like in Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33yR2-vXblo
Whether it's intentional or not (probably not), it's a really cool and unusual place for a pop song to go harmonically.
"I know how to make the hard things look really easy"
― J. Sam, Monday, 17 February 2025 02:39 (nine months ago)
Whether it's intentional or not (probably not)
pointless to speculate but some of these professional songwriters know an awful lot.. i wouldn't be surprised if luka kloser or tove burman or .. ELVIRA.. knows their kyries
feels like pop lately has been trying to be "dark" whatever that means - maybe it just means catholic? see also the new gaga album.
― spoonman (steve aoki remix) (map), Tuesday, 18 February 2025 18:02 (nine months ago)
The Addison Rae / Tate McRae / Madison Beer axis is a tricky one...
Anyways, the new single ("Headphones On") is fantastic!!
― siggi’s skyr stan (morrisp), Friday, 18 April 2025 17:01 (seven months ago)
She definitely put in the work, every single so far has been great.
Consider me a Raecist. Or however her fans call themselves.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 19 April 2025 05:12 (seven months ago)
I must’ve listened to “Headphones On” at least 20 times y’day…“Aquamarine” is the (slightly) weakest of the four tracks, but even that one is pretty solid. It has a “2000s Madonna” feel to me?
― siggi’s skyr stan (morrisp), Saturday, 19 April 2025 16:19 (seven months ago)
I thought her EP was alright but I don't really like any of the recent singles. She's in that Selena Gomez zone where she sounds too afraid of the microphone to get a take that communicates anything besides the melody.
― some dude, Saturday, 19 April 2025 16:58 (seven months ago)
I would counter that the main idea/value of these songs isn’t really “expression” (and it hasn’t stopped Selena from releasing a few of the best singles of the past decade!)
― siggi’s skyr stan (morrisp), Saturday, 19 April 2025 17:11 (seven months ago)
The lack of pop histrionism is why I like her!
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 19 April 2025 17:17 (seven months ago)
oh that's right people here thought "bad liar" was good
― some dude, Saturday, 19 April 2025 17:21 (seven months ago)
'madison beer' sounds like an artist concocted by AI to appeal to college kids in the Greek system
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Saturday, 19 April 2025 17:27 (seven months ago)
“headphones on” is incredible as someone who has never liked selena gomez’s music i think addison’s best songs are a cut above that kinda middling pop fare for two reasons 1. her lyrics are way more memorable. “losing all my innocence in the backseat” and “need a cigarette to make me feel better” are standout contemporary pop lyrics imo. she’s also willing to go there lyrically and it doesn’t feel like rote provocation — selena would never sing “my ass looks good in these ripped blue jeans / my cheeks are red like cherries in the spring” … instead we get PG-13 stuff like “good for you” 2. addison has actual taste… or is able to project having cultivated her own taste. moving out of tiktok influencer charli d’amelio land and into charli xcx/PC music world before brat blew up, arca remixes, even that she works with the same duo of non-famous producers. so when she releases a trip-hoppy single you feel like she actually has a genuine connection with the source material. when selena gomez sampled the talking heads you didn’t feel like it was because she is a huge david byrne stan. maybe that’s unfair to selena but pop stardom is about what image you can convincingly sell to the public. i think what addison’s doing right now is really savvy — she’s a tiktok influencer signed to columbia who nonetheless is operating as this sort of renegade marching to the beat of her own drum on the fringes of mainstream pop. she is the anti-industry plant industry plant. and that persona threads thru to the music, what she gets away with lyrically etc
― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Saturday, 19 April 2025 18:33 (seven months ago)
The almost cartoonishly aggressive sexuality of the lyrics/videos feels a few ticks away from camp to me (but I'll leave that others to trace). It's part of the whole concept for sure.
I don't really see the comparison to Selena beyond in the most basic sense... I think the lyrics of her best songs are also pretty good/memorable, just in a different mode.
― siggi’s skyr stan (morrisp), Saturday, 19 April 2025 18:48 (seven months ago)
It has a “2000s Madonna” feel to me?
I realized (listening in the car) that this song's lyric includes the line I'm the ray of light... so I probably don't deserve an Influence Spotter Award for this particular observation.^^
― siggi’s skyr stan (morrisp), Sunday, 20 April 2025 00:16 (seven months ago)
Album out June 6... looks like every song was done by the same team. It's also billed as "The first & last album by Addison Rae" for some reason, lol
― unrequested refill (morrisp), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 18:47 (seven months ago)
love that cover
― five six seven, eight nine ten, begin (map), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 19:05 (seven months ago)
I don't really see the comparison to Selena beyond in the most basic sense...
"diet pepsi" in particular is very post-lana del rey midtempo dark moody pop to me, very much in the vein of a lot of selena gomez songs, just... a lot better in every conceivable way
― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 19:10 (seven months ago)
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 19 April 2025 05:12 (four days ago) link
lmao
― treeship., Wednesday, 23 April 2025 19:46 (seven months ago)
marketing this as her "final" album seems just like a way to invite discussion. maybe she is nodding to the end of the album as a relevant format? she came up through tik tok...
diet pepsi is one of my favorite songs of the past few years.
― treeship., Wednesday, 23 April 2025 19:49 (seven months ago)
xxp Fair enuff... I guess these Rae tracks feel like weightless Euro confectionery to me – in the best possible way! – and activate a very different pleasure center in my brain than those other artists (but it's possible my reception is misaligned with the intention behind them).
― unrequested refill (morrisp), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 20:12 (seven months ago)
Are there any truly “similar” tracks to Headphones On? It’s the kind of song that feels like it must have some key antecedents… but every track I revisit (or sample off a playlist) feels like it’s missing a key part of the vibe/sound.
― bad faith guy (morrisp), Thursday, 22 May 2025 01:51 (six months ago)
latest single "Fame Is A Gun" sounds like...Annie? I'm going to be absolutely feral for this album
― monotony, Thursday, 29 May 2025 23:35 (six months ago)
Is addison rae an ilxor?
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 30 May 2025 00:34 (six months ago)
"headphones on" would be right at home on the velvet rope but i don't think it's so derivative you can point to it directly referencing just a few tracks or anything
"fame is a gun" is quite good too
― ufo, Friday, 30 May 2025 08:25 (six months ago)
album's pretty good, i really like "new york". i don't know why "headphones on" is the closing track though
― ufo, Friday, 6 June 2025 13:50 (five months ago)
Wow
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 6 June 2025 14:41 (five months ago)
Yes wow incredible album.
I think Headphones On makes a lot of sense as a closer. A melancholy yet uplifting ode to the healing power of music--sums up her whole ethos.
https://x.com/Ioonugu/status/1748523169445757408/photo/1
― J. Sam, Friday, 6 June 2025 17:11 (five months ago)
I need to listen. This is getting lots of media praise
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 10 June 2025 17:25 (five months ago)
Not bad.
NY Times on her and her team
Rae met the Swedish songwriter-producers Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser, who are part of the powerhouse hitmaker Max Martin’s publishing camp, last year after signing her record deal. The first day they worked together, they made the hook for what would turn into “Diet Pepsi.” It would become Rae’s reintroduction single, a calling card for her brand of diaphanous pop and a template for the album to come, a project wholly produced by and almost completely written with that duo.
― curmudgeon, Sunday, 15 June 2025 21:17 (five months ago)
really have no complaints about the album, other than that i suppose the interludes are kind of pointless. all of the album tracks are to me on par with the quality of the singles, and it's short enough that as soon as it's done i want to loop back to the beginning again
― monotony, Sunday, 15 June 2025 23:23 (five months ago)
This album frustrate me, hopefully it grows as it has the right ingredients.
― maybe the bee is OK? (Bee OK), Monday, 16 June 2025 00:53 (five months ago)
that key change in the last 45 secs of "diet pepsi" is very very striking, key changes/modulations being very nearly gone from contemporary music for many many years…
― veronica moser, Monday, 16 June 2025 19:12 (five months ago)
and it goes lower instead of higher, which is rare
― five six seven, eight nine ten, begin (map), Monday, 16 June 2025 19:44 (five months ago)
She's touring the US in September
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 19 June 2025 03:50 (five months ago)
great album
― flopson, Thursday, 19 June 2025 13:13 (five months ago)
I only have a notion of what TikTok is and what affect it might have by reading about it; I don't want to add to the list of computer shit that I use compulsively. and so I only know what prominent Tiktok people do on tiktok secondhand, which is to say not well at all. But in watching the video for "Diet pepsi," you can see that this young lady is extremely adept at — I'm really struggling with how to describe this— doing memorable physical actions in 1- or 5- or 10- second bursts, like 25 of which occur throughout the video. Which is to say that that ability to be compelling in short bursts is her metier.
― veronica moser, Thursday, 19 June 2025 17:26 (five months ago)
This album is great sorry if this offends
― from…Peru? (gyac), Tuesday, 1 July 2025 16:01 (five months ago)
I like this despite usually hating everything
― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, 1 July 2025 16:21 (five months ago)