FEATURE:
Spotlight
PHOTO CREDIT: Inez and Vinoodh for Rolling Stone
going to come to a couple of recent interviews with Addison Rae. A terrific young artist you should know about, many might know her best from TikTok. I am going to start with an interview from Vogue Business that broke down the “business of Addison Rae”: Someone who “has transformed from the realm of TikTok fame to bona fide pop stardom. We break down her It-girl impact for brands”:
“2024 was a big year for Addison Rae. She released her single ‘Diet Pepsi’ in August, almost a year after dropping her first EP. This was closely followed by ‘Aquamarine’, a poppy, sensual follow-up that solidified Rae’s new musical and aesthetic era. Both music videos were rife with high fashion references, from vintage pulls to fresh-off-the-runway pieces including SS25 Di Petsa and AW24 The Attico.
She’s come a long way since her late 2019 ascent to TikTok fame. Rae, who was studying at Louisiana State University at the time, was one of the app’s early success stories, rising to fame with quick-hit lip syncs and dances alongside influencers like Charli D’Amelio. As the pandemic hit and the world turned to TikTok, Rae reached the mainstream. In the years since, she’s shifted from all-American influencer to bona fide pop star.
It’s the right time for fashion to get on board. “Brands are now catching on because she knows the direction she is going in, as her two new singles embody the aesthetics she wants to put out to the world,” says fashion and culture writer Hunter Shires, who has written about — and spent time with — Rae. This year, Rae started working with stylist (and Interview fashion director) Dara Allen, who helped the star hone her sartorial messaging.
Brands are playing ball. Petra Collins sowed the seed in July when she tapped Rae to feature in the campaign for her Ssense-exclusive brand I’m Sorry. Rae sat on the floor in a silver bikini, smoking a cigarette she held between her toes with a tiara on her head. “She really is this collection,” Collins said of Rae at the time.
Now, luxury’s interest is piqued. In November, Saint Laurent featured Rae in the cast of its latest ‘As Time Goes By’ campaign, lensed by Nadia Lee Cohen, alongside stars including Chloë Sevigny and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Rae’s work with the likes of Collins and Cohen harken back to the Tumblr days. Even Rae’s website looks like a “niche, obscure” Tumblr blog, says Rukiat Ashawe, editorial executive at creative agency The Digital Fairy. “Addison has established herself as a ‘cool girl’ through experimenting with fashion, especially with the indie sleaze aesthetic,” she says. It’s timely in a year when indie sleaze returned to the fore and Brat summer captured the zeitgeist (Charli XCX is a friend and collaborator of Rae). Rae’s ability to bridge this messy-chic Tumblr with more ‘normcore’ style elements (thanks, in part, to her Louisiana roots and early TikTok dance fame) enables her to click with a wide audience, experts agree.
When she guest appeared at Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s Sweat tour concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden wearing Mirror Palais and New York designer Miss Claire Sullivan, people took note. “Many people who recognised the dress she wore reached out and were just as gagged as we were,” says Mirror Palais designer Marcelo Gaia.
Sullivan — of Miss Claire Sullivan — also dressed Rae for this year’s MTV VMAs, after stylist Allen reached out via Instagram DM, to much chatter online. Sullivan recalls an editor friend running up to her at a fellow designer’s presentation after the look went live to ask if she had designed Rae’s ceremony fit. “I sort of knew in that moment that it was going to blow up way more than I had anticipated,” she says. The look generated $927,000 in media impact value (or MIV, which calculates the monetary value of posts, article mentions and social media interactions) in the first week, per Launchmetrics — Rae’s highest weekly MIV to date.
“My phone was blowing up for two days,” says Sullivan, who also saw her followers jump. “I was steadily climbing already, but she put me over the 10,000 mark for sure,” she says. “The best bit was seeing people dress up as her in the look for Halloween.”
Clearly, Rae has the star power to generate followers — and sales. (Sullivan helms a custom couture house, but will make iterations if someone is inspired to buy it, she says.) It’s not just emerging and independent designers basking in Rae’s shine. She also does numbers for the luxury labels she dons. Her Thom Browne look at October’s CFDA Awards generated $875,000 in MIV, while her vintage Alberta Ferretti gown at the 2024 Academy Museum Gala generated $276,000, according to Launchmetrics. As Rae cements her place in pop stardom, these numbers are only set to climb.
Bridging aesthetics — and audiences
What Shires calls “normal-hot” is trending, which bodes well for Rae’s ascent. Normal-hot is the essence of a crush you would have in real life, he explains. And it’s a look that’s replicable; Rae is papped as often in Lululemon zip-ups and Alo shorts as she is in vintage designer pieces. “As normal-hot becomes a new infatuation, with Abercrombie and prep looks back on the runway, she couldn’t have come at a better time,” he says. “Addison delivers fashion looks that are aspirational to the normal girl.”
Rae’s ability to toe the line between normalcy and stardom is what hits. For designers, it makes her fun to work with. “She has this relatability but she still provides a fantasy,” Sullivan says. “I love that she’s so willing to just take it all the way there. That energy is my dream client to work with honestly.”
And for audiences, this level of relatability makes them feel like they can buy into the fantasy she toggles. It’s also refreshing, amid a sea of stars who often don’t look thrilled to be where they are. “There is a sense of genuine, childlike excitement and joy when she puts on these pieces and attends these events,” Shires says. “You can see her beaming every time she hits a carpet because she is actually happy to be there.”
Industry figures recognise this, too. In his interview with Vogue (alongside Rae), Mel Ottenberg (who creative directed Rae’s ‘Diet Pepsi’ music video) pulled out a tweet that he felt encapsulated the star’s ability to make the over-the-top relatable: “One way to tell if someone has joie de vivre is if they like Addison Rae.”
This balance makes Rae appealing to a wider audience, which is a win for brands. “With this range comes the ability to tap into multiple audiences, from the everyday suburban girl all the way to coverage from high fashion enthusiasts on X,” Shires says”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Erika Kamano
As a slight diversion, I am coming to this interview from CR Fashion Book. Speaking with legendary British make-up artist, Pat McGrath, Rae delved into creativity, beauty and a fearless boundary pushing. Addison Rae is very much this modern-day icon. I think she is going to reach the heights of mainstream artists like Charli xcx and Dua Lipa. Even if her music career is relatively new, there are signs to suggest she has a very long future ahead:
“In many ways, Addison Rae is America’s Sweetheart. She’s the girl next door with a wild side, she says. And a cigarette. “My vision was to lean into a world of rawness,” Rae recalls of her shoot for CR. “We got to play so much…when you have a team that is open and eager to make something worthwhile, you find inspiration everywhere.” For Makeup Artist Pat McGrath, there was no better source of inspiration than the subject, herself: “I wanted to capture Addison’s duality—her playfulness and her power.”
These defining characteristics come to life on, say, Charli XCX’s “Von Dutch” remix. In a TikTok the musician shared, Rae is smiling, giggling, singing into the mic, when all of a sudden she lets out a high-pitched scream heard around the world. The only word that can sum it up: iconic. The moment set the tone for a very BRAT summer—the song spilling out of car stereos and New York City clubs, not to mention arenas—and signaled Rae’s second coming as a bonafide pop star.
Channeling the Old Hollywood glamour of Marilyn Monroe, as well as pop icons like Madonna, Britney Spears, and Lana Del Rey, Rae has carved out her own niche. In August 2024, she released “Diet Pepsi”, a nostalgic earworm about young love that’s steeped in Americana imagery; “Aquamarine,” and “High Fashion” followed. Each dreamy, pop hit and accompanying set of visuals is more camp, but more real than the last—making this girl next door one to watch. But we already knew that.
The world of music isn’t entirely new to Addison Rae. She rose to fame on TikTok in 2019—surpassing one million followers in the app’s early days; her viral dances allowing her to move from her home of Lafayette, Louisiana to Los Angeles, dropping out of college along the way—but Rae knew from a young age that she was meant for a bigger stage. She wanted to perform: act, sing, and dance. Over the last few years, she has stepped away from TikTok and into the studio. There’s a new Netflix film and an album on the way (her debut is set to release in 2025), but she’s doing things on her own terms—with a wink, a smile and a Cafe du Monde beignet.
Nearly three years on from their first meeting (spoiler alert: it was at the Met Gala!), Addison Rae sits down with Pat McGrath, who’s behind the singer’s “Aquamarine” beat and her CR photo shoot, to discuss their vision, the power of glam, and their guilty pleasures.
PHOTO CREDIT: Erika Kamano
CR: How do you use makeup to create a character?
AR: Glam is similar to fashion. Sometimes you put something on and it completely changes the way you feel. You can either follow it or take it where you want to.
PM: Makeup is storytelling. Every brushstroke helps bring a character to life, whether it’s the subtle flush of innocence, the bold edge of rebellion, or the ethereal glow of divinity. I always start by understanding the narrative—what the character feels, their essence—and then we use makeup to amplify that emotion. It’s about layering details, from the texture of the skin to the intensity of the eyes, to create a persona that captivates and resonates.
CR: What was your vision for the shoot you worked on together for this issue of CR?
AR: My vision was to lean into a world of rawness. We got to play with so much in this shoot. A lot of the poses we did on set were inspired by our fitting before we shot. Those photos are amazing too, because when you have a team that is open and eager to make something worthwhile, you find inspiration everywhere.
PM: For this shoot, I wanted to capture Addison’s duality—her playfulness and her power. We leaned into dramatic contrasts: Soft, luminous skin paired with bold, graphic eye looks, and lips that told their own story. The palette was inspired by modernity meeting timelessness—think Divine Skin Rose001 The Essence for a radiant base, Skin Fetish: Sublime Perfection Foundation for that flawless finish, and dramatic touches with FetishEYES Mascara. Every detail celebrated Addison’s evolving presence in beauty and fashion.
PHOTO CREDIT: Erika Kamano
CR: What would people be surprised to know about you?
AR: I love engaging with people in real life as much as humanly possible.
PM: That I’m a technology buff—I’m fascinated by the latest science and technological innovations and how they influence the future of beauty.
CR: What would you like to achieve in your life/career that you have not yet?
AR: Hmm…It would be interesting to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame someday.
PM: Oh there is still so much for me to do. With Pat McGrath Labs, with looks, with collaborations. You haven’t seen it all from me yet!
CR: Who or what do you both look to for inspiration?
AR: Everywhere. If you’re open to it.
PM: Anyone and everything!
CR: What are your current obsessions?
AR: My new Barbie cowboy boots. Ice cream. Really dry martinis. Passion. My life.
PM: I’m such a gamer. I love Candy Crush!
CR: Do you have any vices or bad habits?
AR: Shopping. Finishing my drinks too fast.
PM: Late-night work sessions that turn into early-morning brainstorms—I can never fully switch off!
CR: What’s your guilty pleasure?
AR: Dessert.
PM: Doom scrolling for sure, I can’t help it”.
I am going to mov to a new interview with Rolling Stone. It is a long interview that I have edited, but I would advise people to read the entire thing if they can. It is a fascinating chat where provide these words: “She became a social-media superstar thanks to killer dance moves and an overflow of Southern charm. Can she reinvent herself as a pop supernova — and earn respect along the way?”:
“This weekend roughly marks her fifth anniversary in L.A. Around Thanksgiving 2019, Rae dropped out of Louisiana State University, where she was studying broadcast journalism, hoping to someday cover sports.
“I kind of thought that was my in to the entertainment industry, in a way that people wouldn’t look at me like, ‘Oh, please. You’re never going to be able to move to Hollywood,’” she explains.
The previous summer, Rae had downloaded a new app called TikTok. The short-form video platform had merged with popular lip-synch app Musical.ly in 2018, absorbing its young stars and fan base. Around that time, however, it was still a mélange of memes trying to find its footing somewhere between the irreverence of Vine and the personality-fueled labor of YouTube.
For Rae, it was just another social media platform to try. She started making videos, often lip-synching to a song or some dialogue. One day, she posted a clip that, she says, got more than 50,000 likes: a sun-kissed Rae with long, beachy waves mouths along to a trending sound bite before a hand grabs her hair and pulls her offscreen. The gears that turn TikTok have always been opaque, but there was no question: The algorithm loved this cute girl with the cleft chin and the perpetual smile.
Rae stayed on top of every trending audio clip, but it was the viral dances that got her the most attention; TikTok was in need of its own homegrown stars, and the kids-next-door like Rae and her peers were the perfect representatives for a new generation’s burgeoning identity. She watched her follower count steadily climb. Soon, brands were clamoring for her to promote their products, from obscure fast-fashion sites to American Eagle and L’Oréal.
“Even though it was still at such a small scale, I think I was like, ‘This is how I’m going to be able to do what I’ve always wanted to do,’” she says.
College wasn’t really working out for Rae, anyway. Broadcast journalism wasn’t the fit she hoped it would be. (“All my prayers out to people who have to write papers on things that they don’t care about,” she says.) Plus, she had failed to make LSU’s Tiger Girls dance team, a lifelong dream for the girl who had been dancing competitively since she was six. “I had to really reassess my goals,” she says.
In October 2019, Rae broke 1 million followers on TikTok. She was starting to get recognized at football games and on campus, so with her family’s support, she left school and headed to Los Angeles with her mom. That December, Rae became a founding member of the Hype House, a now-defunct content-creation collective. Alongside Dixie and Charli D’Amelio, Chase Hudson, and Thomas Petrou, she was part of a new Gen Z Brat Pack — everyone wanted to know who was dating or feuding or duetting who. Brands turned Rae and her peers into ambassadors of the new American dream, where anyone can become rich and famous with just their phone, good lighting, and the willingness to post as often as they can.
“I felt like I was dropped in the middle of The Truman Show,” Rae says. Her mom went back to Louisiana and left her 19-year-old to her own devices. “It was so different and weird and fun. I didn’t feel like I was curating anything. It felt very much like discovery.”
“[Meeting] Charli XCX was an obviously pivotal moment in my life,” Rae tells me. “She has been such a big sister and mentor for me.” After dropping “Obsessed,” Rae started taking more studio sessions with other writers and producers. Charli, who was recording 2022’s Crash at the time, was one of them. She remembers the “spark” she felt meeting Rae at a West Hollywood studio that day.
“She burst into the room in Ugg boots and hot pants after parking her pink Tesla in the driveway and exclaimed, ‘Boys are stupid!’ and then immediately was like, ‘Wait, we should write a song about that!’” Charli recalls. “I know that sounds simple and maybe silly to some people, but to me that was such a sign of instinct and fearlessness.”
Charli listened to some of Rae’s other songs, like “2 Die 4,” which Charli loved. Even though Rae was starting to assemble a dream team of collaborators, her debut project was eventually shelved. She focused on auditions, booking a role in Eli Roth’s slasher film Thanksgiving, and starred in a Snapchat reality show titled Addison Rae Goes Home, where she headed back to Louisiana to reconnect with her roots. In 2022, however, an act of fate occurred by way of an invasion of privacy: Rough versions of a group of songs she’d recorded leaked online.
“It felt so terrible,” she admits. She still doesn’t know how they were stolen. “I was really hurt.”
But something strange happened: Those rough demos began to go viral — and not just in an ephemeral TikTok kind of way. People began begging for Rae to release them. Charli was begging to be on them.
“Charli had texted me and was like, ‘I heard “2 Die 4” leaked. You know I love that song. Let me do a verse,’” Rae says.
Multiple critics called the songs “flawless,” while others compared her to Britney Spears. “I’m not super religious, but I am spiritual,” Rae says. “I think everything happened for a reason. Thank God the songs leaked.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Inez and Vinoodh for Rolling Stone
Even with the buzz, few record labels were clamoring to sign an influencer whose initial attempt at a music career flopped so spectacularly. “There were a lot of people that could not be less interested,” she admits.
Her saving grace was Columbia Records CEO Ron Perry, whom she knew through her boyfriend, Grammy-nominated producer Omer Fedi. They set up a meeting.
“I walked in with a binder, and I made a slideshow,” Rae says. The presentation was full of pictures and word clouds that she felt represented who she would be as a performer. “I just mood-boarded my vibes. I literally had no music to play him at that point, so it was about trust. Like, ‘Yes, I’m in the clouds, and I enjoy being there. But I’m also serious.’”
Perry was impressed and ended up signing Rae in late 2023. Around then, Charli reached out again, this time about the “Von Dutch” remix.
“‘You’re sitting in your dad’s basement while I’m chasing my dreams’ was just some silly note that I had written when I was on a plane,” Rae says, but she sent it to Charli, who encouraged her to put that in her verse.
“[Charli] respected me and my ideas,” Rae tells me. “It was the first time I really took the step on my own to be confident in the ideas I had and follow that. I owe that all to Charli.”
Rae started to do smaller sessions, usually just her and a producer, as a way of challenging herself to trust her instincts. She met songwriters Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjärd, who are signed to Max Martin’s publishing company, MxM Music, and had been cutting their teeth working with Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, respectively. They’re both around the same age as Rae and had been familiar with her; Kloser “knew everything about Hype House” and “absolutely stayed on top of all the drama during Covid,” Kloser says, though neither had any idea what Rae was looking to create musically. “We were both shocked [that] her taste leaned very left and underground at times,” Kloser adds.
Her childhood was rarely steady. Addison Rae Easterling was born in Lafayette, a city on the southern end of Louisiana, to makeup artist Sheri Nicole Easterling and real-estate manager Monty Lopez. Her parents, then unmarried, broke up shortly after Rae was born, though they would end up having two more kids, two weddings, and two divorces over the next 20 years.
Thanks to the marital ups-and-downs as well as her dad taking on new jobs, her family jumped around, which was hard but helped her become the type of person who can adapt easily. “Moving schools a million times, I had to just keep making new friends,” she says. “If I get thrown into a scenario, I can figure it out pretty quickly.” Having grown up in a Catholic family and community, Rae attended multiple private, religious schools. A move to Houston marked the first time she attended public school, an overwhelming shift. Before she started high school, they moved again, this time to Shreveport.
Along the way, Rae began dancing less and less, but it was an early dance studio that planted the idea of pop stardom in her head. She credits both her teachers and her mom’s MTV obsession with introducing her to the music that shaped her: Madonna and Michael Jackson videos; Lady Gaga’s debut album, The Fame; and fellow Louisiana native Britney Spears, who gave Rae hope that she could make it out of the bayou, too. “I remember being like, ‘Whoa, music is everything,’” she recalls.
In 2020, when Lopez and Easterling moved with their sons, ages six and 12 at the time, to L.A., Rae’s TikTok presence was often a family affair. Lopez and Easterling danced alongside her, building their own followings on the app. “When social media opportunities were being brought to me, all I wanted to do was help people that I love and care about,” Rae says. “It made sense for me to keep my family involved. I think I was scared and I was alone. It was a lot to adjust to, and I had lived with my parents all my life, so it felt like the right thing to do at the moment.”
After a couple of years, the family dynamic began to fall apart. By 2022, Lopez and Easterling’s marriage was publicly crumbling, with tabloids and TikTok investigators piecing together clues from their posts for salacious stories, often involving other low-level influencers. Their second divorce was confirmed that November.
At the time, Rae was silent about the drama, aside from unfollowing both her mom and dad. Eventually, her parents reached a better place, but the situation left a fracture. “I feel a lot of guilt for what my family experienced, and responsibility,” she says, about having pulled them into the fold of her fame. “I think it’s just unfortunate that it was exposed like it was.”
She began seeing a therapist and says her relationship with her parents is “always a work in progress.” (While she still hasn’t refollowed her dad on Instagram, she follows her mom again.) Easterling, Lopez, and Rae’s brothers moved back to Lafayette in 2023. Easterling remarried last year and has massively pulled back on her own social media presence. Lopez remains active on TikTok.
“Everybody just wants to survive. Can’t blame them,” Rae adds. “I can only take responsibility for the things that I chose.”
Rae still believes in love. In fact, she loves love. “The Libra in me is a hopeless romantic,” she says. When I ask if she’s still dating Fedi, she confirms in a shy, quiet voice. Even though their three-year romance hasn’t been totally private (red-carpet appearances, social media posts, cozy pap shots), she says it’s the one topic that’s off limits.
“I’m very guarded when it comes to relationships, because my first public relationship taught me a lot about myself,” she says. In 2020, she began dating fellow creator Bryce Hall; they shared much of their courtship with their massive followings all over social media, dancing together, making vlogs.
“I think he cheated on me,” Rae says matter-of-factly. “He says he didn’t.”
When the relationship ended, Rae didn’t talk much about it; Hall, however, did. He repeatedly denied the cheating accusations. “That was a shit show,” she says. “He was very vocal about everything, and it was a mess.”
She’s less angry now. “I believe there’s good in everyone, so I like to think there’s a good part of him,” she says. Hall has since become a celebrity boxer and one of the leading Gen Z MAGA bros. “We were really young,” Rae says.
PHOTO CREDIT: Inez and Vinoodh for Rolling Stone
Rae doesn’t like to dwell on these memories; she’s not big on sadness, especially in her work. “I really struggle with being like, ‘All right, time to be sad and have just a guitar on the song,’” she says. “I applaud people that can do that. Sitting with your emotions in stillness is difficult.… I would actually be surprised if one day I write a really sad song, because I just can’t even imagine.”
Rae has maintained several close relationships with some very famous friends. She pulls out a deck of cards Aubrey Plaza gave her while they were shooting the upcoming comedy Animal Friends last spring. Plaza and Dan Levy were the only cast members on location in Bulgaria before Rae joined them. While Plaza was pretty unfamiliar with Rae’s career, Levy knew her from an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians Rae appeared in back in 2021, when she was close with Kourtney Kardashian. (On the status of their friendship, Rae says, “She got married and has a baby now.… I’ve lived a few lives.”)
Levy and Plaza immediately hit it off with Rae. “The amazing thing about Addison is that where most people’s ego is, she just has creativity and curiosity,” Levy says. “That is such a rare quality in a person, especially somebody with her social media standing.”
The trio would play poker on set, eventually graduating to Bulgarian casinos. “Was she good? She got better,” Levy jokes. But her allure got her far. “She happened to sit by a professional poker player who was charmed by her and said, ‘Let’s put our money together, and I’ll make you a fortune.’” Rae walked out with over $1,000. Levy left empty-handed.
Rae played her demos for her new friends on set too, and they watched together as the accolades for “Diet Pepsi” rolled in. “I was like, ‘There’s my baby girl blowing up,’” Plaza says. “You could just tell she has a star quality.”
Charli XCX has called Rae “a fucking genius,” and Rosalía echoes similar sentiments: “She’s the absolute project manager of her work and has a very clear vision of what she’s creating. Her choreographies seem so beautiful to me. I love how she brings the 2000s American pop star back to these days.”
No matter how much one adores fame, it can still be prickly. As Rae navigates her way into her new, post-social media era, she’s fascinated by how people cling to whatever idea they have of her, like she’s incapable of being edgy or cool or even weird or progressive. The replies on almost every post of hers still claim she’s racist and MAGA, largely from undeveloped political views she held as a preteen raised in a conservative environment, as well as a maybe-too-polite interaction with President Donald Trump a few years ago. (Her first and only political endorsement came in 2024, for Kamala Harris.) Rae is still growing and learning about herself and the world around her, even if people can’t see it that way.
“People have decided who I am,” she says. She’s savored every curveball she’s been able to throw, though. She loves watching the surprise on people’s faces when they hear her music or see her daring red-carpet looks. But she still doesn’t mind leaning into the all-American side of herself. “I’ll be your girl next door,” Rae says, “but maybe there’s a wild side to the girl next door.”
Rae may seem unbothered, but she’s still logged on. She knows everything she does starts a conversation, for better or worse. She sees the rumors and the questions and the misunderstandings. At the very least, she no longer worries that her career can persist in spite of it. She knows it can.
In the following weeks, news will spread that TikTok could be banned in the U.S. President Biden had signed legislation that would block the distribution of the app if parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell it by Jan. 19. (The app would eventually shut down for 14 hours before President-elect Trump vowed to give the company an extension to find a buyer; its future remains unclear.)
As we talk, it seems that just as a new chapter begins, Rae’s most pivotal one may be closing for good. “That’s that full moon for me,” she says. “TikTok definitely gave me a lot of things, so it would be really sad to [see it] go, but hopefully the things that I create and put out surpass that platform.”
But there’s no need to dwell on the past. Her plans for the future are only as big as she can imagine: more movies, more songs, not to mention maybe playing her first headlining shows. All she can hope is that everything she does next will make people feel free and get them to dance — and that she’ll continue to change minds along the way.
“But I won’t beg for it,” she says. “I’ll work for it”.
It is going to be very an interesting rest of 2025 for Addison Rae. Her new single, Headphones On, is one of her best. I would advise people to follow Rae, as she is an artist who has an accessible Pop sound yet one that she very much makes her own. Northern Transmissions went inside Rae’s Headphones On:
“With her string of artsy, showstopping singles, it’s hard to believe Addison Rae was ever just a TikTok star. Her music taste has always been deeper than it appears (perhaps something more esoteric was going on behind her many “I love music” tweets), and her debut run has involved or referenced Madonna, Arca, and now with the trippy, calm “Headphones On”, Björk.
Though her lyricism remains on the simpler side, “Headphones On” is probably her clearest viewpoint; manifestation and affirmations as a lifestyle. “I know the lows are what make the highs higher,” she sings, like something out of a reframing workbook, “Life’s no fun through clear waters.” It’s surprisingly striking (and real) for someone previously relegated to backseat fun.
“Headphones On” shares quite a lot of DNA with Björk, first sharing a name with 1995’s “Headphones”, also about burrowing into music. But its sweeping strings and music video locale — Iceland — are pure “Jóga”, Björk’s volcanic tribute to difficult friendship. But unlike the emotional heaviness of “Jóga”, Rae takes adversity in stride. “Guess I gotta accept the pain,” she sings as an affecting bell toll begins each chorus, about something as turbulent as her parents’ relationship or as (seemingly) frivolous as a new it girl. “You just have to surrender to the moment,” she reasons, which is quite a mature viewpoint to have.
If anything, “Headphones On” and “Aquamarine” are on the transparent side, imitating their inspirations too acutely. Mixed in with the futurepop of “Diet Pepsi” and “High Fashion”, it seems like she’s straddling two worlds. Emulating 90s artsy trip hop or vocal trance is certainly welcome, just a little out of focus; the references serve more to say what Rae likes rather than who she is. And though her production team (Luka Kloser and ELVIRA) do most of the heavy lifting, Rae feels more at home with each new release, padding her discography with an abundance of references. They’re creating a world for her; it’s up to us to put the headphones on”.
I am fairly new to Addison Rae’s music but I a compelled to follow her. There are so many sides to her. A truly fascinating talent who I hope plays in the U.K. a lot, her adoring fansbase is rising. Make sure you follow this incredible artist. With a string of brilliant singles under her belt, I am sure that we will see a debut album come…
VERY soon.
_____________
Folow Addison Rae
