Addison Rae’s 2024 began with a bang: screaming excessive of mentor-slash-bestie Charli XCX’s viral “Von Dutch” remix and letting unfastened a brief, fiendishly easy earworm into A.G. Cook dinner’s Britpop spotlight “Lucifer.” Rae’s first solo monitor of the yr, the shimmery Lanacore ballad “Food plan Pepsi,” turned her first Billboard hit, having obtained a tidy profile increase from its triumphant reside debut on the Sweat tour’s MSG cease; her follow-up, the ridiculous-but-enchanting “Aquamarine,” performed like a Ray of Gentle deep minimize sung by Nomi Malone. And each singles arrived with elegant, humorous movies directed by Sean Value Williams—cinematographer of Good Time, director of edgelord fairytale The Candy East—and creative-directed by Interview magazine impresario Mel Ottenberg, for that additional little bit of cool-kid clout.
So a remix of “Aquamarine” by Rae’s dream collaborator, Arca—titled, clearly, “Arcamarine”—ought to be one other straightforward win. In fact, it’s most likely Rae’s first actual miss this yr, a inventive misalignment that doesn’t make significantly canny use of both musician’s expertise. There’s nothing offensive or unlistenable about “Arcamarine,” however that’s its first mistake: Each Rae and Arca have used their music to rage in opposition to the bounds of excellent style, and “Arcamarine” sounds a little bit just like the type of secure, nameless dembow remixes that main labels use to juice chart numbers. (Arca’s finest collaborations, like “KLK” and “Watch,” pressure vocalists to suit themselves into her mutant engineering; on a remix like this, she’s restricted to working with pre-existing vocals.) The slower pulse saps “Aquamarine,” one of many yr’s higher pop singles, of its thriller and drama; when it ends, you’ll be able to’t assist however really feel type of blue.
