The New Yorker:

The artist presents herself as a gently debauched girl next door on her new album, “Addison.” It’s positioned to be one of the summer’s marquee offerings.

By Amanda Petrusich

In 2021, the TikTok star Addison Rae released her début single, “Obsessed.” It’s a whispery electro-pop tune about either unapologetic narcissism or chirpy self-confidence—it’s hard to say which. “I’m obsessed with me as much as you / Say you’d die for me, I’d die for me too,” Rae pants on the chorus. The track, co-produced by Benny Blanco, was a great big dud, even despite Rae’s colossal fan base. Back then, TikTok seemed more like a provisional gimmick than a bona-fide rocket launcher; it was harder to imagine an app-born phenom finding genuine purchase on the pop charts. That Rae’s vocals were processed into bloodless oblivion didn’t help. “People weren’t ready to receive that, or me as an artist, which is completely understandable,” Rae, who is twenty-four, said in a recent interview.

This month, Rae released “Addison,” her first full-length album, which is positioned to become one of the summer’s marquee offerings, the sort of thing you’ll hear blaring out of idling cars and tinny Bluetooth speakers from now until late September. It’s a gasping, libidinous collection of seductive and periodically inventive dance-pop tracks, anchored less by Rae’s voice (she has not backed down on the filters) than by her presence as a gently debauched girl next door. The animating tension here is between Rae and herself: what she wants and what she’ll do to get it.

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