After years of deferring to the professionals in classes, 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 “Weight loss program Pepsi” collectively that very same day, the three ladies would go on to write 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 personal depth, often euphoric and different occasions misplaced in itself. It’s music you possibly can transfer to, although not precisely “membership,” usually constructed atop the stacked chords of the Korg M1 keyboard, whose organ presets epitomized the sound of ’90s home. The temper is usually wistful regardless of 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, during which 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 during which 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 varieties of folks 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: “After I was rising up, Momma at all times instructed me to avoid wasting my cash so I by no means needed to depend on a person to handle 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 numerous 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 track, 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 continues to be the woman within me!” She’s made some extent of sporting her inspirations on her sleeve, although Gaga’s affect was stronger on her 2023 EP, AR. As for Lana, there are moments (principally “Summer time Ceaselessly”) 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 usually 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 have been a murals.
In Rae’s first cowl story earlier this yr, 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 buddy’s evolution. “Each merchandise of clothes she wears, every little thing she says in a crimson carpet interview, every little thing she tweets—all of it is part of the world-building.” Initially, I discovered the concept miserable: a teenage woman who’d modified her life performing to a cellphone digicam, 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 towards actuality in favor of romance? In the direction of the top of the Frou Frou-esque “Instances Like These,” Rae hears her personal track on the radio and wonders aloud: “Let’s see how far I’m going.”
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