Addison: Less an Album, More a Manifesto
Addison Rae’s self-titled debut album dropped today — and it’s pop perfection. Clocking in at just 33 minutes, it’s filled with short tracks, many under three minutes, built for the TikTok generation’s scroll-happy attention span. But rather than pandering, Rae weaponises brevity: every chorus hits like a dopamine dose, every hook lands like an inside joke. She’s feeding us hits like they’re opiates.
With grit akin to Lana Del Rey’s edge and a flicker of Björk’s weirdness, Rae is carving a name for herself with a blade sharpened by the judgment and taboo of her early TikTok fame. This album doesn’t run from that past — it metabolises it.
She’s found her lane somewhere between weird girl realness and glossy femme power. There’s a divine femininity here — alongside moments that are downright eyebrow-raising. Why are her feet in a banana split? No clue. But if she’s into it, I’m into it.
Welcome to Her New York
Opening the album with the short and sweet (not a purposeful Sabrina reference) “New York” felt deliberately iconic. The move echoes Taylor Swift opening 1989 with “Welcome to New York.” Was this intentional? It’s hard not to wonder — especially given how 1989 became a pop culture cornerstone. Is Addison subtly staking her claim as the next era-defining pop icon?
If she is, she’s got the material to back it up. The sound is fresh, addictive, and — most crucially — authentic. The entire album is produced exclusively by Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjärd, and that intimate creative triangle has paid off. These producers don’t just work on Rae — they get Rae. The result is a signature sonic identity that feels instantly recognisable, like a glossed-up diary entry on an old iPod Nano.
Building close bonds with just two producers — and trusting them deeply — sets her apart from the current revolving-door culture of feature-heavy, trend-chasing pop. This is a vision, not a playlist.
Fluffy Pop, Sharp Teeth
Lyrically, Rae dances between glittery pop escapism and genuinely subversive takes. “Money Is Everything” and “Fame Is a Gun” sneak in anti-capitalist commentary under the cover of glam-pop silhouettes. It’s unexpectedly sharp — Addison isn’t just singing about heartbreak and high heels. She’s giving us bite-sized culture critiques and chewing them with a smile.
This album feels like a redemption arc. Or maybe not redemption — reclamation. “Misunderstood, but I’m not gonna sweat it,” she shrugs in “In the Rain.” She knows exactly how the public boxed her in back in 2020, and now she’s making them eat their cheap, ugly hats.
Synths that Stretch and Ache
The synth work here is euphoric. Euphoric in the way alcohol feels when it first hits the bloodstream — warm, slow, giddy. One has to ask: have Kloser and Anderfjärd discovered cross-media intoxication and kept it a secret?
Even that intoxication is thematically toyed with. “High Fashion” plays like a tongue-in-cheek nod to wanting to get high on aesthetics rather than substances. It’s meta, it’s clever, and it lands right in the centre of the Tumblr-angst-pop lineage that stretches from Lana to Marina to Sky. Addison Rae is not just riding that wave — she’s recalibrating it.
Rae as a Vocal Architect
Rae’s vocals float like a pink fluffy cloud (niche Björk reference) across a marshmallow sky. The topline processing is striking — layered, glassy, soaked in reverb. I didn’t think anyone could out-reverb Lana, but Rae might just manage it — and it works. Her vocals aren’t drowned; they’re ghosted in silk.
The Summer of Rae
“Summer Forever” is a high. It’s the song of the summer. It sounds like being tipsy on a nowhere beach with the love of your life, half-laughing, half-crying. “This ain’t my first time / But baby I hope that it’s my last” — the line captures that bittersweet emotional cocktail of grown-up longing and still-hopeful love. Not innocence exactly, but the ache for something purer.
Addison has turned her “tears into gold” (“In the Rain”). She’s taken the anxiety, beauty, and brutal exposure of your 20s — especially as a woman in the public eye — and distilled it into something rare. In 30 minutes, she navigates politics, fame, desire, familial inheritance, and the agony of being known too soon. It’s delicate and explosive all at once.
Reclaiming the Mirror
“Tell me who I am,” she opens in “Fame Is a Gun.” It’s less a question, more a challenge. This album is Rae reclaiming the mirror, holding it up to every critic, every casual misogynist, and saying: look closer. The hate only made her want it more. The weaponising of the stereotype is what makes this pop — feminist, yes, but also just smart. She knows what she’s doing.
Soundtrack to Your Teenage Existential Crisis
Visually, the album cover is a throwback dream — 90s mall-glam meets 00s low-res webcam chic. Nostalgia dressed in lip gloss. And yet the sound itself is entirely modern. That friction — past meets future — is the aesthetic. Thematically, the album feels overdue, like it had to be made.
“Head out the window / My song on the radio,” she sings in “Times Like These.” That’s the entire vibe. It’s like having an existential crisis in the backseat of a family road trip while writing poetry in the Notes app. The beauty and injustice of girlhood — processed through headphones.
One Final Gut Punch
The 57-second “life’s no fun through clear waters” nearly broke me. It’s dreamy, legato, and sounds like the end credits of a film with no resolution. When followed by the line “guess I gotta accept the pain” — the opening of “Headphones On” — it hits even harder. It’s like a sonic slap: a reminder that the real world doesn’t offer clean endings.
“Headphones On” is the perfect closer. A candy-coated track tinged with melancholy violins and the inherited trauma of modern love. “You can’t fix what’s already been broken / You just have to surrender to the moment” — that’s not just a line, it’s a philosophy.
Final Word
This album has the potential to mark a turning point in pop music. It’s new, it’s sharp, it’s strangely philosophical. Rae doesn’t just deliver pop hits — she delivers self-awareness, commentary, and joy with a knife-edge.
It’s 1989 for the post-TikTok generation. It's heartbreak through a glitter filter. It's commentary in a crop top. It’s authentic. It’s heroin.
Addison Rae is no longer a pop experiment. She’s the moment.