How Addison Rae Got Us All to Root for Her

Pop music has been full of surprising success stories this year, but none have been more surprising than Addison Rae emerging as a cult icon, despite only having a few singles under her belt.

The OG TikTok dance star kicked off her pop career in 2021 with no major label backing her. Though her debut single “Obsessed” is catchy, fun and bubbly, her music career was met with reluctance by millions of people who weren’t really interested in seeing any of TikTok’s most infamous personalities make it off the platform. Critics panned the song and it failed to chart on the Hot 100.

But Rae’s success has had more to do with slow-building viral buzz she’s been amassing. When “Obsessed” under-performed on the charts, Rae’s debut EP was shelved for a while and she instead focused on her acting career. But when songs like “2 Die 4” and her cover of unreleased Lady Gaga song “Nothing On (But the Radio)” leaked, people suddenly showed more interest in her music. She started courting a cult following that pushed AR to finally see the light of day in 2023.

All of this makes Rae’s relaunch this year a hard-earned win. She has abandoned the slick Benny Blanco and Jack & Coke-assisted production for a whole new musical community, aligning herself with Charli XCX and A. G. Cook’s extended universe. She got XCX on AR and then returned the favor by appearing in the beloved “Von Dutch” remix, produced by Cook and released this past spring. While she’s retained the bubbly, girlish Britney Spears-coded aesthetic that was already baked into her persona as a TikTok star, Rae’s 2024 has unveiled something weirder and less-expected as a budding pop star. “Diet Pepsi,” the late-summer banger she dropped to kick off her new contract with Columbia Records, is a smooth, nostalgic cut in the vein of early Lana Del Rey. The lyrics never try too hard: They’re sweet, sexy and endlessly quotable. A black-and-white video that focused on her fluid movement and sense of humor helped further solidify that cult pop fandom, particularly from queer pop stans.

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“Aquamarine” is an even better single, harking back to Erotica-era Madonna as Rae sighs out “the world is my oyster/Baby come touch the pearl.” In the video, Rae most astutely re-affirms her actual and legitimate pre-social media dance background while twirling around dark Paris streets with her dancers.

After a summer belonging to pop girls who had plenty of ups and downs and false starts and flops under their belts who ended up emerging victorious at long last, Rae could be the next Main Pop Girl to continue that storyline into 2025. But one thing’s for certain: if you didn’t love Rae at her “Obsessed,” you don’t deserve her at her “Diet Pepsi.”