Addison: The New It Girl?
Has art ever existed without influence?
A query of this nature will inevitably come to mind in an age where reference-heavy media runs rampant. It’s something we’ve come to anticipate in modern marketing: a red carpet look is recreated for the latest it-girl, an album’s press cycle is marked by meticulously staged tableaus of preexisting paparazzi shots, a fashion campaign pays homage to a y2k movie. One TikTok talking head made the damning assessment that this kind of endless regurgitation has “infiltrated every aspect of our culture.” What once might be viewed as reductive is now a mark of sophistication.
As tempting as it is to frame this phenomenon as a symptom of internet brainrot, it’s not a particularly new means of promotion. Even our most enduring icons were once patterned off of something that predated them. In the late 50s, Marilyn Monroe partook in a photoshoot where she was styled to resemble the likes of Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow, among others. Monroe, a savvy architect of her own image, likely had a hand in coming up with this idea and it speaks to her sense of self-conceptualization that she would position herself within a lineage of iconic women. Considering the blonde bombshell’s cultural impact, such an assertion was not far-fetched.
Addison Rae, one of the first TikTok stars to cross-over into bonafide celebrity, has made her own bids at comparison, channeling Marilyn in a Met Gala ensemble and giving her a shout-out on her fizzy anthem of materialism “Money is Everything” (“Diamonds are my best friend, like I’m Norma Jeane!” she squeals). The song also contains her most explicit declaration of artistic influence, with Rae demanding that the DJ play Madonna, Lana and Gaga, all of whose DNA is detectable in her discography. In recent years, Rae has made the invocation of celebrity lore an essential part of her brand. Her debut album Addison suggests that the democratization of media can yield something both referential and inventive.
The album cover itself – Rae turning toward the camera with a come-hither look amid a tulle-strewn sunset of artifice – has a bricolage quality, recalling not one image or artist in particular, but rather our collective memory of post-Bush pop stardom. This extends to Rae’s music videos, which filter the artful pornieness of American Apparel ads through neon lenses, as if Harmony Korine were directing a perfume commercial. In her early TikToks, Rae’s image was tied to a sort of normcore banality that seemed cheerfully scrubbed of subversion. Her aim at pop princesshood has proved itself to be brasher and stranger than we might have anticipated.
In spite of her TikTok origins, Rae has abstained from digestible soundbites in favor of a lush, layered body of work that rewards repeated listening. Within this sonic landscape, Rae is the charismatic party girl you befriend while doing a bump in the bathroom and its contents are the whispered confessions, revelations and revelry that result from an evening in her company. The sparkling production by Swedish stalwarts Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjärd capture the trancelike fugue of the dancefloor with such accuracy that you might suspect poppers have been seeping through your stereo.
Rae’s most obvious predecessor is Britney Spears, with the two of them possessing Southern Belle charm and an appealing girl-next-door demeanor (not to mention a propensity to bare their midriffs). Like Spears, Rae’s music betrays the dark sexual proclivities and psychic wounds that may live behind the facade of America’s sweetheart. On “High Fashion,” she coos, “I'd rather feel the sun kiss on my skin, with a cigarette pressed between my tits/You know I'm not an easy fuck, but whеn it comes to shoes, I'll be a slut.” The moody europop offering “Times Like These” has Rae speaking to her fear of public scrutiny and contemplating if she’s “too old to blame [her] dad.”
The ability to teeter between irony and doe-eyed sincerity make for some of the most compelling moments on the album, as evidenced in the deliciously craven “Fame is a Gun.” Aided by propulsive synths, Rae pledges allegiance to her own notoriety, singing, “There's no mystery, I'm gonna make it, gonna go down in history/Don't ask too many questions, God gave me the permission/And when you shame me, it makes me want it more.” Whether it be satire or the scripture of an exhibitionist, it’s undeniably thrilling to hear her be so willfully unrelatable.
As we reach the end of our brief, hallucinogenic journey with Rae, she leaves us on a note of resolve. Album closer “Headphones On” makes a plaintive gesture to her childhood, with Rae remarking how she wishes that her “mom and dad could've been in lovе” before brushing it off and deciding to “accept the pain” in stride. Her plight – the dissolution of her parent’s marriage or her jealousy toward a rising starlet – are not all-consuming. They are merely potholes on her way back to pleasure, which we’ve come to recognize as the central pulse of her worldview.
Though the song serves a slight deviation from all the raucous fun we’ve come to expect from her, its somber tone is not without a sense of movement. “Headphones On” is the sober walk of contemplation that follows a night of hedonism, the brisk clarity that succeeds heartbreak. Through this emotional breakthrough, she registers as something unique, abstract from a well-upholstered pop lineage. The maximalism of her foremothers may have given her panache, but a quieter moment reveals something singular. After an album spent metabolizing her influences, Rae has found a way to sound like herself.