From TikTok star in the infamous Hype House to up-and-coming pop star, Addison Rae has a career progression that is distinctly 2020s-coded and unfathomable pre-pandemic. She follows in the footsteps of the current big three in pop: Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX and Chappell Roan, all of whom also benefitted greatly from short-form content and echo-chamber algorithm: all three rising to intense fame after nearly ten years of making music. Yet, there is no real reason that Addison’s new album should have taken off as such a huge hit, as she follows other Hype House member’s feeble attempts at breaking into the music industry. But her self-titled album has been an inexplicable success, peaking at number 4 on the US Billboard 200, and at number 2 on the UK Official Albums Chart.

Addison Rae has very clearly taken inspiration from some of the biggest pop icons of the past half-century. Her rare and underground performances thus far include heavily choreographed numbers with a black radio mic, as well as her first big hit ‘Diet Pepsi,’ a massive nod to Britney. Her music fits neatly with Charli XCX’s anti-intellectual pop album that shook the world last year. In her plethora of acceptance speeches recently, Charli has acknowledged that the lyricism and musical composition of Brat is not groundbreakingly profound, but instead argues her music allows people an ‘escape,’ and the freedom to party, and to find solace in crowds and dance and music.

“Relishing in the artificiality of it all”

Addison similarly encourages people in ‘Fame is a Gun,’ my favourite from the album, not to think about it too much: ‘Don’t ask too many questions / that is my one suggestion’. Addison’s rise to fame was certainly helped by her surprise appearances at Charli XCX performances, due to her appearance on the remix of ‘Von Dutch’ and her iconic and viral scream that is included in the audio. It is no coincidence, therefore, that her album follows in the footsteps of Brat. Their iconic and self-conscious use of autotune challenges our ears and our assumptions. Emerging from a decade where autotune was used under the radar, and artists were heavily criticised if they were discovered to be using it, Addison and Charli both turn this on its head and lean into these extremely twenty-first century sounds, relishing in the artificiality of it all.

That being said, Rae’s album also departs from Brat in some of its more melancholic and pensive songs which take on a slow pace and a dreamscape, nearly dissonant sound. Songs like ‘New York,’ ‘Fame is a Gun,’ and ‘Money is Everything’ take on quasi-political themes and explore the new American dream, excessive consumption and hedonism, and perhaps nod to Rae’s own experience with fame and sexualisation at such a young age. Her performances thus far have always been in her underwear, perhaps a choice which intends to turn the sexualisation that she experienced on TikTok so early on back on the audience; she asks ‘do I provoke you with my tone of innocence?’ as she sports a lacy lingerie set in front of swarming crowds in a physical representation of her internet stardom.

“More melancholic and pensive songs take on a slow pace and a dreamscape, nearly dissonant sound”

All these reasons for her success are tied together by a phrase that is excessively thrown around online: recession pop. This style is an anachronistic interpretation of artists such as Kesha and Britney Spears, whose excessive use of electronic sounds and heavy dance basslines aligned with global crisis; their popularity thus emerging from a need to escape.

However, ‘recession’ is a small word for the state of the world this month. Rae’s album follows in Brat’s footsteps in that it encourages a listener to escape, to dance and to feel; yet with the threat of large-scale war, inflation continually skyrocketing, and the rise of the far-right across the Western world, Rae’s album is both a self-conscious comment on late-stage capitalist hedonism and an encouragement to forget about it all. She screams ‘I’m the richest girl in the world!’ and ‘I compare my life to the new It girl,’ reflective of the all-encompassing desire in a social media age to consume more, to follow trends first, to be a picture of desirability and wealth. In a telling contrast, she has decided to wear no makeup on her press tour whatsoever, a nod to her lyric from ‘Money is Everything,’ she sings, ‘the girl I used to be is still the girl inside of me!’

Addison Rae is obviously not the greatest vocalist of our time, but her album is consciously artificial, her image a pretence: a potent comment on the music industry and the world today.