After years of deferring to the professionals in periods, Rae met Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser in early 2024—a pair of younger songwriter/producers signed to MXM Studios, the publishing camp of pop mastermind Max Martin. After writing the hook of “Food plan Pepsi” collectively that very same day, the three girls would go on to jot down nearly all of Addison themselves, whereas Kloser and Anderfjärd are the album’s sole producers. What ties its tracks collectively is much less a style than a sense—sensual and heady, propelled by non-public depth, often euphoric and different instances misplaced in itself. It’s music you possibly can transfer to, although not precisely “membership,” typically constructed atop the stacked chords of the Korg M1 keyboard, whose organ presets epitomized the sound of ’90s home. The temper is usually wistful despite the ripe imagery—sun-kissed pores and skin, foggy home windows, drunk cigarettes and so forth—as if life moved too rapidly to relish in actual time.
If Addison has a story throughline, it’s one you’ve heard earlier than, wherein a plucky ingénue strikes out for fame and fortune within the wacky world of showbiz. However Rae is at her most pleasant balancing camp and sincerity on starry-eyed numbers wherein all of the world’s a stage. “You’ve received a entrance row seat, and I/I’ve received a style of the glamorous life,” she trills on “Fame is a gun” with only a whiff of desperation, a callback to a different Britney adage. (“There’s solely two sorts of individuals on the earth,” Spears sang knowingly on “Circus.” “Those that entertain and those that observe.”) She opens “Cash is Every thing” with a faux-naive stage whisper: “Once I was rising up, Momma all the time advised me to save lots of my cash so I by no means needed to depend on a person to care for me,” purrs the woman who claimed that she dropped her Southern accent as a result of “Marilyn Monroe by no means mentioned ‘y’all.’” “However cash’s not coming with me to heaven—and I’ve loads of it!” Rae presses on. “So can’t a lady simply have enjoyable?” Cue the beat drop and the refrain, a barely psycho woman choir whose “Lemonade”-esque harmonies sound like they’re being shouted from the sunroof of a dashing automotive.
Later in that music, Rae traipses to the DJ sales space to request Madonna, then rattles off some shoutouts in a cartoonish yelp: “I wanna roll one with Lana/Get excessive with Gaga/And the woman I was remains to be the woman within me!” She’s made a degree of carrying her inspirations on her sleeve, although Gaga’s affect was stronger on her 2023 EP, AR. As for Lana, there are moments (largely “Summer season Eternally”) when the Born to Die worship approaches Kirkland Signature territory, with lyrics torn from the inscription pages of a highschool yearbook. Rae’s disposition is mostly sunnier than Del Rey’s, minus the abjection that invariably shadows romance. However the place their mindsets meet is a solemn perception that you simply should dwell your life as if it had been a murals.
In Rae’s first cowl story earlier this 12 months, there’s a quote from Charli xcx—her mentor-slash-bestie whose “Von Dutch” remix marked the primary time that Rae got here off as cool—that’s been rattling round my head. “Every thing she does relates again to her artwork,” mentioned Charli of her pal’s evolution. “Each merchandise of clothes she wears, every part she says in a pink carpet interview, every part she tweets—all of it is part of the world-building.” Initially, I discovered the thought miserable: a teenage woman who’d modified her life performing to a cellphone digital camera, now optimizing her each transfer for the aesthetic. Then once more, there’s one thing potent in Rae’s winking efficiency—a borderline unhinged devotion to the American promise that an individual’s future is completely of their arms. Why not commerce small-town boredom for gonzo Hollywood glam? Why not conspire in opposition to actuality in favor of romance? In direction of the top of the Frou Frou-esque “Occasions Like These,” Rae hears her personal music on the radio and wonders aloud: “Let’s see how far I am going.”
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