I know you know about Addison Rae. I’m not just talking about the vaguely defined memory you have of the TikTok star clawing her way into D-list fame through the pandemic. There are countless names (Charli D’Amelio, Bryce Hall ect.) who will linger in the public memory of those young enough to have mindlessly scrolled through 2020. Rae is amongst those young, attractive, often anonymous faces. But she’s so much more than that. All of one snippet.
No, that snippet is not from ‘Obsessed’, the pop track she dropped in early 2021 in a bid to establish a pop career. That song, more a budget Selena Gomez track than anything else, didn’t make waves. The voice wasn’t particularly arresting, the performance was polished but unremarkable, leaving the whole venture to have this artificial flavour that did nobody any good. Any self-respecting pop culture coniseur would have seen that and the following disaster that was ‘He’s All That’ as the proof that this girl wasn’t about to make it.
However, there was something else. In early 2022, following vague gestures towards more music, a leak caught the attention of the world. ‘I got it bad’, a sticky, pure pop hook worthy of a Hollywood Records starlet, started getting some attention. The type of viral moment on TikTok most record labels have been trying to manufacture since 2020 proved it was the cheapest and most effective marketing strategy available. Rae even highlighted the song, and interest was renewed in her music career.
Other snippets followed. An unreleased Lady Gaga demo was given new life with updated production. A Robyn-style banger about being sad to dance music. Something awful and catchy called ‘Lucky’, that sounded like the music Gaga used to write for Britney. Just an array of various, oft-generic pop songs that felt a little too polished to just be a vanity project.
Every few weeks for well over a year, I have been bludgeoned with the same template of post. “The hit that got away”, paired with a repost of ‘I got it bad’. “She actually kinda ate” with a fan edit of some teen heartthrob I don’t know to another song. “Mother” and it’s, you guessed it, yet another leaked track. If it wasn’t all so catchy, my block list would be longer. There was a vocal and invested audience for the music.
Yet…no official release.
Well, it’s now 2023. Here we are, finally able to listen before God and church, with an EP containing four of these leaks. All polished and presented with the care and love that major pop stars sometimes leave off final recordings. A well-balanced little quartet of music you can finally stream. Plus ’Obsessed’, because every dog needs a kennel.
I cannot think of a more satisfying listen so far in 2023 than the first time I turned on ‘I got it bad’ on Spotify and saved it to my playlist. Maybe that’s silly of me, but I’m being honest. Nothing had brought me more joy than taking this pop song that I already knew very well and placing it into the context of real music. Not because it’s significantly better than anything else, but because it felt like I had earned it.
In many ways, Addison Rae releasing music that has been pretty freely available for over a year is like a more deliberate version of pop audiences selecting random deep cuts and ancient hits to make successful in 2023. TikTok is not an app that particularly cares about music being “out” or “legally available” before making it the biggest song in the world to the most consistently important demographic for commercial success. Much like how it took over a decade for Lana Del Rey’s ‘Say Yes To Heaven’ to finally hit streaming, the year between leak and release captured attention in a way releasing it outright in 2022 probably wouldn’t have.
It isn’t that this music isn’t good enough to stand on its own. ‘it could’ve been u’ is easily a top contender for my favourite songs of the year, and I wasn’t even particularly tied to the leak. But there’s something so delicious about waiting this long for something that you know you’ll like. It’s not a party trick I’d suggest for other pop stars, but the continual teasing and undying catchiness really worked wonders.
This EP feels like it’s both saying a lot about the type of pop star Rae has made herself into, and also very little. Clearly inspired by Charli XCX (her duet partner on ‘2 Die 4’) and the pop artists of the 2010s, she has that odd shouty quality to her voice that the white women of hyper pop favour. It isn’t as jarring as a Kim Petras, but it does come across as a bit of a yelp. That’s a feature, not a bug, considering the calibre of star she’s aligning herself with.
To be clear, this is not a “perfect” collection of songs. I don’t particularly love ‘2 Die 4’, which feels like it’d be the weakest song on any collection of leaks Rae put out. It’s telling that you can’t really tell where Charli XCX comes in on first listen. They are not similar vocalists, but the production encourages a mimicry that does what charm Rae’s voice has a disservice. It’s a fine song, but not a good one. Nor is ‘Obsessed’ improved by its company. If anything, the flatly delivered track is highlighted as the worst possible outcome for Rae.
‘AR’ makes sense as a collection of trials by far. A tropical pop song featuring her most vocal supporter, that evidently shows that Addison needs a little more of a tempo to hold her to account. An anthemic ode to good sex with an 1980s vibe that feels dated in the best way. A little pop-rock number that feels fresher than any mainstream artist attempt has managed to do. And, for course, ‘I got it bad’, the best pop song to be released this year.
If ‘Obsessed’ felt like an attempt to make her musical persona mainstream, ‘AR’ is a declaration that superstardom probably isn’t on the cards this early on. Despite the standard of collaborators on this album, including a man involved in the production of ‘…Baby One More Time’, and another credited on the production for Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Good 4 U’, this doesn’t feel aligned to blatantly commercial. At least, no more than Ava Max’s most recent effort. It’s a strong collection, but nothing indicates anything more than just the music.
That’s just the way of pop at the moment. Some people have the charisma, talent, and (most importantly) history to drag a song into the top 10 and make the world pay attention. Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift have all established themselves as big enough names that their catchy music will eventually rise. Most do not. This is not an industry to make your fortune in…unless you like gambling. You can easily release the best stuff of anyone’s career, and it won’t go anywhere.
But my curiosity is sparked by how the lingering hype of ‘I got it bad’ actually manifests with this release. It’s possible it will just sputter away into nothing. It’s not like Addison Rae is some towering figure of pop culture. These tracks sit along a YouTube channel still heavy with the evidence of her history as a decidedly different kind of celebrity. But you do know about her.
It feels like there’s interest. Maybe not enough to relaunch a career, but at least to cement these are points of discussion come year end. Maybe that’s all she wanted out of this. Some eyes on her and a few tracks to point to as a “career” while she continues to be young, and beautiful, and famous enough to make money off of it.
Or it could be that Charli XCX, the “future of music” 2014-2022, has finally found a successor to that thankless role. Who knows?