On Addison Rae’s standout track “Money Is Everything,” she blurts out mid-way, “And the girl I used to be / Is still the girl inside of me.” It’s like a brief tantrum, full of sass, directed at anyone who’s ever questioned her artistry. Rae makes a habit of doing this—falling out of her breathy voice and into a conversational speaking rhythm—on her debut album, Addison. Some of her adlibs imbue more effervescence into her already buoyant pop, while others feel like a rare insight into who she is and who the world thinks she is.
Addison Rae and her “authenticity” have become one of pop’s latest punching bags ever since she dared to pivot away from her whirlwind career as a TikTok star and toward being a serious musician. No matter how fully formed as an artist she’s presented, since launching the nearly year-long rollout of her album with “Diet Pepsi”, she’s received her fair share of “industry plant” allegations. Many wondered who at Columbia Records conceived her stellar creative team (stylist/Interview editor-in-chief Mel Ottenberg, indie filmmaker Sean-Price Williams, cool-girl choreographer Lexee Smith, among others) or crafted her intoxicating, avant-garde pop sounds (two relatively unknown female producers, Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser). Aside from her devout followers—many Charli xcx Angels who became a fan of the singer after the Brat musician gave her a cosign in 2021—the masses dismissed the idea that Rae herself could possibly be the genius behind Addison.
