He’s Doing Things To Me You’d Never Understand

Addison Rae “It Could’ve Been U”

Addison Rae is famous – and in many circles fully iconic – as a dance-centric Tiktok personality, and she’s been flirting with a pivot to pop stardom for a little while now. From what I can tell some of the hesitancy has been in finding the right music to suit her persona and aesthetic, which Stargirl’s Emma Baker has described (in great detail!) as a joyful expression of “embodiment.” Which is to say she has a seemingly effortless and carefree physicality, an incredible asset to any pop star but something that’s a bit ambiguous in terms of pairing with music that could potentially be hugely popular in the moment.

Going on Baker’s conception of Rae I think the most obvious type of song for her would be something along the lines of Whitney Houston’s classic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” or Beyoncé’s “Love On Top,” but even if someone could write a song of that caliber for her, I don’t think she’s necessarily ready to sing like that. The second most obvious thing, and probably more in Rae’s wheelhouse, would be to emulate prime era Britney Spears. But if your goal is to reach teens now, you probably have to meet them where they are, and so that means the best songs on Rae’s new EP are post-Olivia Rodrigo pithy rock songs with a little extra dance-pop gloss.

“It Could’ve Been U” is co-written and produced by Alexander 23, a rock-leaning pop producer whose best-known work is contributing to Rodrigo’s mega-smash “Good 4 U.” He does fantastic work here in crafting a tight, hook-packed song that fits well next to any Rodrigo rocker but also feels like something Selena Gomez might’ve done earlier in her career. It also sounds like something you could easily nudge into a killer EDM remix if that was required. It’s interesting to hear the song in the context of the track Charli XCX produced for this EP, which sounds rather stale – I assume Charli gave her pretty old scraps? In any case, it’s a situation where in shopping around for a style it’s clear that for the moment she’s got a couple songs that are fully of this current zeitgeist, right on down to the requisite ultra-literal first-person expression of resentment towards an ex. It sounds fresh and fun, and I have no idea whether this will be Rae’s pop lane in the long run but it suits her right now.

Buy it from Amazon.