Switched on Pop - Put your headphones on for TikTok's Addison Rae

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Despite TikTok defining this decade's music landscape, the app hasn't spawned a bonafide pop superstar – yet. 24-year-old Addison Rae is trying to be the first. She's already had cosigns from Arca, Charli XCX, and Benny Blanco; critical acclaim from outlets like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Elle; and is cultivating a fervent fanbase with a slew of breathy, ethereal, and inspiration-laden singles. But how does one translate TikTok celebrity into pop success? On this episode of Switched On Pop, Reanna, Nate, and Charlie put their "Headphones On" to understand how one of the biggest Gen-Z celebrities is trying to parlay her allure into pop princess-dom. MORE Subscribe to our newsletter to receive your own bingo card! SONGS DISCUSSED Addison Rae – Diet Pepsi Addison Rae – Aquamarine Addison Rae – High Fashion Addison Rae – Headphones On Addison Rae – Obsessed Charlie Puth – The Way I Am Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal Addison Rae – I got it bad Addison Rae – Nothing On (But The Radio) Addison Rae – it could've been u Addison Rae – 2 die 4 (feat. Charli XCX) Charli XCX, Addison Rae, A. G. Cook – Von dutch a. g. remix Lana Del Rey – Blue Jeans Lana Del Rey – Cherry Lana Del Rey – Diet Mountain Dew Lana Del Rey – Bartender Lana Del Rey – Cola Madonna – Nothing Really Matters Selena Gomez, A$AP Rocky – Good For You Edie Brickell & New Bohemians – What I Am Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm producer

Rianna Cruz. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding and I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. All right, let me start with a question for the both of you, okay? TikTok has arguably defined the decade we are now in, right? The 2020s are the TikTok years. And yet, do you guys know of any TikTok influencers that have made a real impact in pop music. I like this question. I feel like I'm on Final Jeopardy right now. Yeah. Well, okay, on our show, we've had Ty Verdi's, Jake with a stylized V instead of an A. But I wouldn't say they're like fully fledged pop stars. So I don't know, Charles. I was recently meeting with an ANR from a major label. And I was like, have the ANRs learned about the sort of you can't just sign a TikTok viral trend and it's going to have a lasting career?

And this ANR was like, yeah, yeah, we've learned that lesson. Which is to say, like, in 2021, you can have a huge viral hit, get signed, and then you never have a follow-on hit. So, yeah, I guess I'm struggling to say who... You don't have an answer is basically what you're saying, yeah. Yeah, you failed. Okay. Yeah, part of being a music professor is learning how to fill time.

Oh, you're teaching me that. Okay, sorry, Rihanna, have we satisfactorily addressed this issue? Yeah, because I would say that there aren't any, to put it bluntly. which is weird to me for a platform with such an outsized influence. And for the record, I hadn't heard of any either until a girl that used to film herself dancing in her home became the current talk of the pop music town. Not my namesake, Charlie DeMilleo. Not Charlie DeMilleo, owner of the best drink of Dunkin' Donuts. Not her sister, Dixie D'Milio either.

I'm talking about their fellow hype house member, Addison Wray. That is Addison's song Diet Pepsi. And I'll go out on a limb here and say Addison Ray is trying to be the first TikToker to make a bona fide full send break into the mainstream music industry as a pop star. And you know what? It is working. You know, Diet Pepsi netted a Hot 100 placement last summer. charted in the top 10 on the UK singles chart. Addison has called Charlie XX a friend and mentor as a pop star

and is generating what I heard someone call a quote, Barb-like cult fan base. What are her stands called? The Addies? The Sunshine Ray. Sunrays or stingrays? What about that? The stingrays.

Some great ideas here, which have potential because the fan base hasn't really decided yet. Right now it seems to be a toss-up between Sunrays, which is quite lovely, R-A-E, and get this, racist. No. Worse than I could have imagined. That can't be a name that the fandom has owned. Rabies. The rabies. Rabees is perhaps a little bit better than what we got going right now.

But there's a lot of buzz around Addison at the moment. And what I'm curious about is how someone who blew up. making voiceless videos, dancing in her living room, is able to move from wordless celebrity into a successful pop career with that same charm and personality. In a recent profile of Addison Ray in the magazine L, writer Susie Expozito calls Addison's image, quote, meticulously curated,

proving there's an intentional effort going into Addison's solo music and this pop music pivot. This makes sense because while she's similar to stars like Sabrina Carpenter and Miley Cyrus, who at the beginning of their careers had built-in fan bases that translated from other mediums, Addison Ray's back career is wordless. You know, it's just image-based. She had to sustain herself on personality alone. And so as of last week, Addison Ray just announced her anonymous debut album, Addison.

So today, I thought we'd take a look at the burgeoning career of Miss Addison Ray and try to understand how one of the biggest TikTok stars of these trying years is attempting to parlay her allure into her own pop stardom. Rihanna, you've totally hooked me. Where are we going to start in this deep dive? Well, I can imagine that Addison does not have the name recognition as some other big pop artists right now. The woman we know is Addison Ray. Her full name is Addison Ray Easter. She was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. She went to LSU for broadcast journalism and dropped out after she joined TikTok in the year 2019. And within mere months on the platform had over a million followers. Man, I'm doing the wrong career path, it seems like.

We're talking pre-COVID TikTok too. You know, like, I was on the platform in these years and like there weren't a lot of people using it comparatively. And it's hard to explain her celebrity if you weren't on the platform during that time. So I'm going to try to take Gen Z words and put it into terms for you guys. Okay. She's like the TikTok golden child. Right? So like if TikTok is TRL, she's Britney Spears.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, thank you. Now I understand. Crystal clear. So as I mentioned earlier, Addison was one of the founding members of the hype house. Wasn't the hype house, like the fire festival of influencer house living? Yeah, I'm like trying to put it into words, but it was like a content camp basically where like all of these young creators, 17 to 20 years old, were being exploited by people

much older than them. Essentially, reading between the lines here, that's what was happening because these young teenagers, you know, these children were being put in this house in Los Angeles. and then kind of running the content mill, collaborating with each other, getting into weird, interpersonal relationships, and dynamics. So it's like real world was to MTV, hype house was to TikTok?

Yeah, basically that. Boom, boom. All right. This is very edifying because I thought hype house was like a generic term for a content mill, but it's actually a specific house that was featured Addison Ray. Okay.

Does this still exist? No, so I learned a lot about the hype house. in this research. It had a lot of people in it at many different times. Addison left the hype house and about eight months ago the hype house closed for good.

So it was just a bunch of hype. It was essentially a bunch of hype. You know, all these TikTokers, there's a list on Wikipedia of all the influencers that have quote unquote lived in the hype house. And it's so long

and I don't recognize like 95% of the names. Okay, so she breaks out through the hype house And then what's the next step in her career? Addison was able to parlay that hype house fame into several brand deals, acting gigs. She starred in a remake of She's All That. That's right.

I kind of remember that. Talk about millennial culture rehashed. She had a beauty line at a point. She had a Snapchat reality show about her and her family. Addison was kind of the moment. And at one point in time was the highest earning TikTok star on the app. So to Gen Z, Addison's kind of a big deal. She's been in our world for a while.

Musically, though. She did not release her first song until 2021, and that is the track Obsessed, produced by none other than Benny Blanco. You say you're obsessed with me, so I took a second, and I said me too. Obsessed with me as much as you.

Is that an interpolation of smooth criminal? Da-da-da-da-d-d-d-dun-dan-dan-dan-dan-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dda-dda-dda- Dun, don't, do. Um, no. It's just the answer to that. Okay, okay, there's a little smooth criminal in there. I was too hasty to shut Charlie down. I always thought it sounded like the way I am, by Charlie Puth,

which is a weird poll, but hear me out. Oh, yeah. No, but once again, clearly inspired by smooth criminal. Clearly, I think there's some kind of shared lineage here, but I feel like I've also taken us down a road we didn't need to go down. obsessed. It's a fun song. I actually like it. I hadn't heard that in a while. Me neither. That's a super catchy chorus. No, it's cool. I like it a lot. It's just over two minutes long. So short, sweet, easy. Fitting for Addison's first song in the public eye. You know, the chorus being this kind

of campy, tongue-in-cheek lyric. Like, you say you're obsessed with me? Me too. Yeah, it's very self-referential. Like, I'm the biggest person on the biggest platform. I'm obsessed with me. Sort of a meta-commentary on a contemporary influencer fan relationship. Yeah, and I think that's what makes the song good, if you look at it in a winking way. Obsess was supposed to be the lead single for her debut record, and people hated this song. Like, Capital Age hated it so much. It got panned so strongly to the point where Addison kind of threw in the towel musically. Like, people were really mean to her over this track.

And as a result, she was like, you know what? I'm kind of done with the music thing, you know? I don't think anyone should be cyberbullied. I also don't think it's the most sympathetic case where you're like, a very successful person tries to do music. There's nothing I dislike more in music when someone's like, I'm going to do music. Oh, I'm not doing music anymore. It's like, no, we're playing, performing, practicing.

You can just sort of like step in, step out, sort of suggest that it doesn't require any talent or dedication. So I'm a little bone the rocks about this whole thing. It's a tough pivot, I think, from TikTok influencer to pop star. Yeah, you really have to thread that needle. And you probably have to be prepared to take a little flack in the process. So Addison said, you know what, I'm done. But then in a true case of internet celebrity, Addison's unreleased tracks leaked onto the internet.

And in a true tale of modern stardom, people fell in love with Addison's demos. One thing led to another. and in 2023, we got Addison's debut EP AR. A.R. Addison Ray. What about, okay, instead of the racist, why don't we call them the Adderalls? Ooh, a little bit better. I like that. The Addies? Sorry, what's on this EP? So it's five songs. We got obsessed for one of them, repurposed for this EP.

We got the 80s Y2K hybrid song. I got it bad. I'm here in Brittany. I'm hearing Michael, you know, a little bit. 80s Y2K joint Ying Yang Slay on that track. The EP also had the song Nothing on but the radio made famous through a Lady Gaga demo.

One of those meta, this is the song we're listening to about another song, very party in the USA kind of thing, very our song. It has a riff which feels like very the cars-ish. But then connects to Gaga.

She's like, she's in the metaverse of music with this song. That's fun. I can understand why people would respond favorably when these EP tracks leaked because I feel like they're a little bit less, yeah, self-referential or coy than the single obsessed. So maybe people were ready to give her a little more goodwill with these. Yeah, and I think this EP is trying new things for Addison. You know, there's a pop-punk joint on this EP. The song, it could have been you. That's a good hook. It's going to be stuck. It's going to be stuck in my head literally all day. And if you thought that was a catchy hook, I'm taking you to the fifth and final song on this EP, the track to Die 4. That's the number two, die number four, which has a

feature from the one, the only, Charlie XX. That's a straight-up Charlie song. A little bit of vampire pop there. So taking this EP at face value, we have five songs here, right? All of which carry significant hooks and vibe shifts. You know, we have pop punk, we have this sparse Gothic production. Something I'd say about this EP AR is while the music is catchy and the songs are memorable, they do also feel slightly devoid of character. You know, they feel a little personality removed.

Yeah. The pop star aspirations are clear, but we're also kind of missing that extra punch. I feel like a big part of that has to do with the vocal delivery. Yeah. It's pretty clear that Addison is not a trained, a diva vocalist by any means. She has a quite thin, breathy sort of voice. It's not that confidently delivered in, I think, some of these tracks. I think they are well-produced.

They do the thing that they're trying to do, but they're not powerful. And thus, sometimes she feels a little removed and not as confident as the track that's going on. I'm going to back you up here, Charles. and I'm also going to speak to all the racists out there, the rabies, the Addies. Like, I don't want to repeat of our Tatum McCray debacle here. We are not passing judgment on Addison Ray as a singer when we say that she does not have a lot of power in her voice, a lot of range. We think she is very effective at, like, lending a certain kind of ambiance and vibe and personality to this song. She has a cipher in many ways, a la Selena Gomez. Can I say that? Is this a safe space to say that people?

Absolutely. And that's not a bad thing. That has an important place in the pop ecosystem. Okay. So just, you know, calm thyself before you come for us. Yeah. It might be an asset for her as someone who is so overwhelmingly famous. I looked up she has got like over 70 million followers now on TikTok. She's so famous. And so by having a less practiced vocal, maybe it makes her feel more relatable to her fans. I totally hear the both of you. I agree with all of your points. I think Addison at this point in her career perhaps understands this criticism as well

because this all starts to change with what I would argue was Addison's biggest breakout moment to date, her feature on the AG Cook remix of Von Dutch by her mentor, Charlie XX. Yes, this is a remix. Yes, this is a remix. Yes, this is Charlie XX's song. But Addison trades off lines with Charlie here so effortlessly. They kind of ping pong back and forth, which I really enjoy. And Addison is directly, you got a lot to say about my debut, about the money that I'm getting for TikTok. But I'm just living that life. She's just like a young woman sharing all of her life on the internet being yelled at by all the people.

That's a powerful consecration, though, to be knighted by none other than Charlie X-CX. Like, yeah. That's huge. I do appreciate Rana, by the way, trying to continue Brat Summer, even after Charlie XX has declared that it's over at her Coachella performance. Addison at this moment is knighted in a way by Charlie and frankly gets to put her stamp on this remix with the scream heard around the world, as I like to call it. It's giving Howard Dean. Oh, my God, Charlie. Charlie, remember we're trying to inhabit the Gen Z mindset here.

We're not making millennial early 2000s political references. My goodness. Sorry. So Addison's debut record, as we've been talking about, Addison is right around the corner. And even in the title, we're starting to see her carve out more of her own space in pop music. She's not AR anymore.

She's not her initials. She's just Addison. A mononym. Share, Madonna. Prince, Addison. Rihanna, Cruz. Charlie, Nate. Charlie, X, Y, no, no.

Yeah, I guess it doesn't have the same ring to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The record has been predicated by a steady stream of well-received singles, I would say, that both managed to show us who Addison is, putting her flag in the soil of pop stardom, while also pulling on her inspirations, of course. And the first single of this run is one of the most critically acclaimed pop songs of last year the song we played earlier in this episode,

Diap Pepsi. A song that's not SpawnCon only features the lyric Diet Pepsi once. I thought this should be called like Young Lust or something like that. The song I actually think is better than the title. I don't like Diet Pepsi. Are you serious?

That's my favorite drink. For real time. Really? Diya Pepsi, straight up. This team contains multitudes. But immediately, Diap Pepsi, parentheses, the song feels different than anything else we've heard so far. You know, it has a similar vibe as to die for where there's this breathiness, this atmosphere

in the production. But there's a lot more personality here. It feels like she's taking a bigger swing, especially for the lead single for a pop album. The lyrics are risque, yeah. I feel like there's sort of this feeling of removal still in the music. It's maybe appropriate for the song, like the uncertainty, the heightened expectations of young teenage romance. I actually kind of like that it doesn't feel like directing totally confident.

It feels like a little breathy, a little excited, a little confused. It's fitting for the song. I see more confidence here, but also the vocals kind of blend into the mix. You know, there's tons of reverb. But I think the delivery of the vocals communicates a slight evolution in her presentation, a slight evolution in her sound. There's a careful breathiness. here that feels very measured, you know, instead of it dripping with an experience. Despite this being a song about an experience, which again, I think is probably a smart move as someone who's like trying to be relatable to 70 million people. Yeah.

Early young teenage romance. People like, been there. It's awkward. It's confusing. At the same time, there's also like a little bit more mystery in the production in the lyrics, a little bit more darkness, even. It feels like there's a little bit of Lana Del Rey influence here. I'm happy you mention that because I think listening to Diet Pepsi, it's hard not to talk about

the elephant in the room, which is that this song sounds like the queen of atmospheric breathiness, Lana Del Rey. And that similarity is mostly in the lyrics. Lana does a lot of detail-oriented songwriting. It's something that you discussed in the Generation Tale. episode because it is a very Taylor Swiftian way of writing. But it's also apparent in Lana Delray's work. So let's look at the first verse of Diet Pepsi and try to connect the Lonian, Lonnie in question mark, Lana Del Reyian? Lonniein flow. Yeah, let's try to decipher the Lonnie and flow we got

going on here. All right. So I'm going to take this bar by bar here. Okay. My boy's a winner. He loves the game. My lips reflect off his cross-gold chain. This is kind of like a structure of a lot of Lana Del Rey songs where she's like telling you about her man. But cross-gold chain specifically is referenced in the track off to the races on Born to Die. And similarly to Die of Pepsi, the song starts with Lana talking about a man in her life. My old man is a bad man, but I can't deny the way he holds my hand and he

Both songs also have this sort of like childish, very simple rhyme scheme reflecting the mindset. Next lines in Dipepsi, I like the way he's telling me, my ass looks good in these ripped blue jeans. Of course, there's lots of songs that I've ripped blue jeans in them. But I'd be remiss not to mention the titular song, Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey. Okay, these are references, but you could be like, surely these are, coincidental. The next line in Diapepi is, my cheeks are red like cherries in the spring, which is very evocative. It's a great metaphor. Lana loves cherries to the point where she has not one but two songs with cherries as the central metaphor. There's cherry blossom from blue banisters

and the track Cherry from Lus for Life, which is one of Lana's best songs, in my opinion. And that's Simon and Garfunkel reference too. Hmm. Evocative. Lots of imagery here. More than anything else, and this is my last point on Lana. Diap Pepsi evokes Lana Del Rey's love of beverages, okay? Beverage pop. Didn't you pitch that one time? I think I did. I love beverages. And I love when people mention beverages and music. And I think Lana Del Rey is like top of the list on soda mentions in her work. She's referenced Cherry Coke. So not Diap Pepsi, but pretty close. close. Sure.

Cherry Coke on the track bartender. I'm not drinking wine, but that cherry coke you serve is fine. And Rihanna, doesn't she have a diet beverage song as well? Oh, she does. The track, Diet Mountain Dew. Mm-hmm. Yes. Give me a Diet Peach Snapple, and I'm a Lana Beverage fan for life.

I don't have a diet of peach Snapple for you, but I do have one of Lana's most evocative metaphors found on the song Cola. She loves that Americana. I just have to be this person

because someone has to go on the record saying that Diet Pepsi is disgusting. Oh! Just to put it out there and let it just be part of the permanent record, it is foul. And we're just going to let the diet mount and do hang over us like it's some gift from

God. That stuff is gross. No, it's horrible. Diet anything besides Diet Coke is nothing you want touching your lips. There, I said it. You guys are crazy. Is it another generational gap thing here? Nate and I are just sitting back drinking our new Cokes. The mini can of

Coke Zero is the apogy of the American soft drink. 7.5 ounces. I disagree. Well, we got to move on. Otherwise, this is going to become too rancorous. What are we talking about?

Lana D'Rae is an influence upon Addison Ray because of the dark pop, the soda references, the breathy vocals, and all of these lyrical connections. That's where we were? Taking it back to Addison, it's not surprising that these things are both in Lana's and Addison's work. You know, these are American everyday items, you know, the iconography of American. culture. But I would go out on a limb to make the claim that few artists are as influential on 2020 songwriting as Lana Del Rey. I feel like we hear Lana everywhere and perhaps we need a generation Lana soon, Nate, wink, wink. But moving on, Diap Pepsi is more than just a Lana Del Rey born to die pastiche. There's still elements here that are very Addison.

And the song contains moments of Addison trying to establish herself and her pop music person. There's one specific moment in this song that I keep going back to. It's like, you know, the addictive aspartame, and it is this moment in the last minute of the song. The instrumental and vocal layering all drops out, and we move into this big modulation for the final chorus. You know, I think the last chorus key change is something that is always there in pop music. but I think the emotional effect of this modulation specifically gives the song this kind of like nostalgic slowed down emotive quality like we're not soaring we're kind of taking a step back you know in like movies where they like cut to a flashback and there's like a music cue and the like whole screen

goes blurry and there's like a vignette around the edges you know that's what this modulation is doing for me I love that interpretation I was super surprised to hear a key change there, as we've discussed on the pod. I did an extensive, or rather musicologist Joe Treble did an extensive investigation into the disappearance of the key change. So this is kind of a rare, you know, citing here in a 2025 pop track. 2024, Nate. 2024. Thank you. Pache, Rihanna. I mean, forgive me, but like, there's so much vibe in this song. Like, I don't know how else to describe it. The song just creates a vibe. And

just like cultivates it. Totally. And I'm thinking about this because you mentioned Generation Taylor. We were talking about Taylor Swift last week. And certainly I think you could maybe say her music creates a vibe too, but it kind of resists vibe. Yeah. It's so hyper literate and specific that it's much less about vibe and much more about

like downloading all your feelings, almost like that kind of journaling aspect we were talking about. This is so different. This is like how can I kind of like. bring you into this atmospheric world. And when we get that modulation, like you said, it just kind of like puts you deeper into that. It's almost like a little trance-like in this way.

And frankly, the thinness of her voice kind of helps with that. Yeah. Because it doesn't like really distract you from the vibe at all. It's just another part of the ambiance. And even though we don't hear a lot of modulations today, again, I think this one is fitting. It happens during a climax of the song, a song about climaxing. it's a feel like this is an age-old thing that people do in a song that is romance-coded. Totally.

And I think both Addison and Lana fall into this category of pop star where the whole emphasis is on like romanticizing your life. You know, I think Taylor Swift, as you said, Nate, is big on like the journaling feelings type of songwriting. But Lana, I think is really influential because she does this kind of romanticizing my life. Like, quote, my life is a movie type vibes. And I think this song really plays in. to that. Main character energy. Tumblr pop is what I associate Lana with. Exactly. Exactly. This is of that

lineage. So Diap Pepsi was released last summer and you might be thinking, how does Addison follow up this new pop sound? Coke Zero. We'll get to the Coke Zero after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready?

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Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. So after Diet Pepsi, Addison Ray overcomes the judicial hammer of music media and falls back into the good graces of the listening public. And she drops her next single, also liquid themed. Aquamarine. I know you like this. This sounds like a ray of light B-side. This is so Rihanna's jam. Exactly.

I love this song. I think it's very good. We're having a house moment. We're having a Europop moment. There's this booming driving beat above this twinkling synth line that carries us through this song. We have trans-like hypnotic vocal delivery.

And yeah, Charlie, if you'll recall, I brought this song up a couple of months ago when we were doing our listening to Madonna series because of that very reason. It feels like it came directly off the Ray of Light Madonna album evoking a song like Madonna's Nothing Really Matters.

We've moved from soda-based beverages to cocktails in Abiza, I feel like. Oh, yeah. And Addison even acknowledges this Madonna connection in a tongue-and-cheek way in the lyrics of Aquammer. Oh, there you go. I'm dancing in my own reflection.

I'm the ray of light. I appreciate it when artists name their influence. I feel like after the whole blurred lines thing, people got really scared to name their influence for fear of getting sued. Let's just call it out. That's what you're aiming for. Great. Yeah.

So now we're covering our 2000s New Age rave bases. What else are we hearing from Madison Ray? Here on Aquamarine, we're getting closer to something more personality. driven, you know, particularly in Addison's vocal delivery. We're getting a mix of the breathy vocals we heard on Diapepi with a deeper register that I feel like we haven't heard from her yet in her catalog. Okay, I've just learned something very important. So many of my students right now are trying to write not choruses, and she just broke all the rules right there. Right? Like her pre-chorus goes higher, sends to this very high note, and then the chorus drops down into her lower register.

It's an anticlimactic chorus, and it features this very dissonant harmony as well. It's almost like telling you, I'm not a hook. It's deep, it's dark, it's blue, it's aquamarine. Aquamarine's not dark, is it? What color's aquamarine? Like a lighter blue-green, I feel like? This is like deep ocean blue. The song, it feels like, I don't know, maybe it's missed.

named, but yeah. And an interesting thing to note here is that Aquamarine is a movie about mermaids, okay, from the year 2006. And this is important because there's a moment on this song where Addison sings kind of like a mermaid or like a siren, luring sailors to shore. Listen to the bridge of this song. There's a trance like quality. The siren call.

It's good. I like Aquamarine. I think it's the best song that I. Addison has released to date. And we're getting more confidence. We're getting a little bit of dissonance. And we're getting, like, quirky production choices. Let's move on to her next single, high fashion.

And right from the top, this John is, like, more in line with Diap Pepsi than it is Aquamarine. It's a weird song. Yeah. This is a really strange song. Listening to the intro, who does this song remind you of? You mentioned her earlier in this episode. I was thinking FK. Twigs.

Selena Gomez. A little bit. It seems stranger than Selena, though. Yeah, darker. They're both implementing whispery vocals. I think there was a period in Selena's catalog where she was using a lot of snap percussion. That's what we're hearing here. Oh, yeah.

And I don't think anybody's musically referenced Selena Gomez before. Like, I've never heard it in a pop song. But listen to High Fashion next to Selena's hit, good for you. And they also share a collaborator. Benny Blanco made Addison Ray's first song. Benny Blanco is, of course, now Selena Gomez's partner and also been a writing partner. It's a weird reference for Addison Ray and makes high fashion a stranger song than it already is because it is a very weird song.

leading into the chorus we get these weird glitchy textures. There's some really clever things happening here with the production. The beat stutters as Addison's saying, I know I'm drunk, but there's something funky happening in her mental state and it's being conveyed through the synthesizers. But the chorus is so strange. There's something funky happening with the synthesizer in the background that I can't really put my finger on in the pitchfork review for this song. Megan Garvey said that the synth is modulating mid-chorus, and it creates this really weird effect. Well, it's another

example of a chorus introducing a lot of sort of harmonic dissonance, where the intervals that the bass is playing are fairly unusual. It's not following common chord patterns. The bass and synth sounds are also like heavily side-changed to the kick, so they're kind of ducking in and out and swelling, creating this almost like nauseating, like feeling over a chorus, which is supposed to be about how great is fashion. But that dissonance, I think, really draws out something about high fashion, which is that high fashion has this very strange remove, like her music. Right. Like when you when you look at a runway with models walking in these unattainable clothes, it's not about like a tactile, real personal relationship. It's about something which is

completely unattainable. Like, there's no eye contact. And I feel like the production choices and the vocal actually create that same feeling of looking at high fashion. Even the way she pronounces it, high fashion. It's like, it's a little disorienting, you know. It's like there's something sinister under the surface. Like, have I been pronouncing fashion the wrong way my entire life?

Is that the proper French way of saying fashion? I think that's how Anna Winter says it, yeah. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And a funniest side, the chorus inspiration came from Pinterest, apparently, where Addison saw a post that said something to the effect of fuck drugs, I'd rather get high on fashion. And she put that in the chorus as, I don't need your drugs. I'd rather get high fashion. Kind of funny. So we're hearing Madonna-style ray of light, Abiza house music.

We've got weird, dissonant, side-chained, high-fashioned hyper-pop-ish. I don't know if that's the exact right. Addison notably loves hyper-pop music, so that wouldn't be too far off. We've got the dark, mysterious, lawn-inspired diet Pepsi. I know you want to share one more song with us. Like, what could this possibly be? So high-fashioned establishes something that I think Addison does really well, okay? Take something so simple and communicate it in a very very,

very tongue-and-cheek way to quirkify, you know, what would perhaps be a trite statement. And her latest single falls into this bucket as well. It's called Headphones On. Before we get into it, we're 10 seconds into this song, okay? There's this really weird sound collage happening here that has this like droning wine to it, vocal loop. It sounds kind of like the annoying background. sounds of walking around in the urban atmosphere that you want to choose to drown out by putting

your headphones on perhaps? Right. The annoyingness of the sound is perhaps the point. Allegedly, according to genius, so who knows if it's true, headphones on samples, Edy Brichel in the new Bohemians track, What I Am. So I don't know if it's true. It's like an unverified genius annotation. But maybe that's what we're hearing in the first few seconds.

seconds of headphones on. I mean, if you took the O from philosophy and downpitched it, and looped it, yeah, I could hear the fretless bass from that Edie Brickell track somewhere in the depths of the Addison Ray intro. That's interesting. Maybe it's real. Maybe it's not. After this droning wine that we get, there's an abrupt cut and we move right into the chorus. I find the central message of this song very compelling, the idea of putting your headphones on and escaping everything, just going into this own private inner sanctum, your fortress

of solitude. What is Addison Ray escaping from? There's only one verse in this song. It's a four-minute song. Only one verse. But that verse has what I'd say is the most authentic lyrics that she's given us in her catalog so far. Wish my mom and dad could have been in love. Guess some things were it meant to last forever.

We're getting into pretty heavy autobiographical territory for Addison. Her parents split around the height of her initial celebrity. If you'll recall, she had a Snapchat reality show about her family. And so they were always in her orbit. And that's a pretty notable part of the Addison Ray story. And her parents were involved in all of her TikTok content. So this being explicitly stated in A song like this is interesting connecting to the central message of music kind of taking away the pain in your external life. But how about that next line of like, I always compare myself to the new it girl? I mean, part of that feels like maybe a nod to her mentor, Charlie XX, who sings a lot about

it girls and her music. But it's also kind of this act of, well, there's just like critical theory idea of recuperation, guide de Boards, idea of like taking something which is, radical and making it safe. Basically her saying, like, I'm comparing myself to the it girls, just like you are all comparing yourself to it girls, my millions and millions of followers, even though she herself is the it girl. It kind of defangs the criticism that she may get by saying, hey, I go through this too. Yeah. And I think coming from such a fickle image-based industry, like TikTok, I can imagine, like comparison and jealousy and a hyper focus on what you

look like and what your images that you put forward does some pretty rough things to the psyche. Oh yeah. Fame is bad. Doesn't do anything good for the psyche. Fame is bad. And I think TikTok fame, there's levels to it that we have not begun to understand or unpack, really. The algorithm puts a new It Girl on your feed every third video, you know? For Addison, at the top, people are coming for her crown. They're coming for her gig. Just to be clear, my TikTok feed is showing me the new It guitar pedal and it synthesizers, not the new it girls, but that just might be middle-aged millennial musician. Mine's showing me the new it girl. If the girl is a new type of fish, that is the fish of the week on my favorite TikTok page. But that's neither here nor there. I feel like

Addison Ray is delivering a very different kind of message. Like overall, her production is quite paired back. There's parts of it that still feel DIY and not totally politely. to me. Some of that is the breathy vocal. Some of the production actually is just fairly minimal. And this combination of these darker minimal productions with her breathy vocal create this estrangement, this feeling of detachment and alienation that I think reflects probably the darkness of fame that we're seeing this incredibly famous young person enter music and write songs that appear to be about high fashion and getting high on fashion, but are actually, about that feeling of dislocation that you have by being on that pedestal in which nobody

else can relate to where you're constantly being critiqued. Yeah. That's the feeling this music is giving me. If it's giving vibes, it's not giving me really positive vibes. It's existential. Yes, but I think headphones on has a pretty optimistic message. Yeah, music can help you escape from it all, all that terrible stuff. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

There is a way out. And it is Buddhist meditation. I'm sorry, no, it's some hot jams. I mean, headphones on to me sounds like new age spiritual woo-woo core. Again, like on high fashion, we're taking something so trite and basic, this idea of like, music is my life. Music will heal my pain. And making it the moment, you know, as she did on high fashion, taking a Pinterest catchphrase and kind of spinning it out into this larger content. And if this message wasn't clear enough on headphones on, the bridge puts it in very blunt terms.

It's like she's talking to herself. I know the lows are what makes the highs higher. So I tell myself, this is a reminder. Life's no fun through clear waters. It's optimistic, but it's also like a mantra. It's a little meditation. And if you'll recall, there was the same kind of speak singing on aquamarine, diapypsey, and even high fashion. Oh, okay.

Establishing her own little thing here. So all these songs are kind of developing these calling cards, which going back to my original question at the beginning of the episode, which was how is Addison Ray parlaying her TikTok allure into pop stardom? Maybe the answer is that she's figuring it out in real time. Each song, we're revealing more and more of the picture of Addison Ray. And each track is bringing her closer to the quote unquote true Addison. You know, we're learning more about her in the process. She's becoming more comfortable on the microphone and expressing herself. And I don't know.

I'm planning my flag in the sand as the captain of T. Madison. Yeah, you're clearly trying to change the fan name, moniker. Yeah, I'm not really down with the R-A-E cysts like that. But I don't know. I really like her. I think she's charming. I grew up on Tumblr Pop, so this feels very nostalgic in a way that a lot of music hasn't really touched. Yeah, this has been super illuminating, Rian.

I was probably pretty skeptical going into this, and now I see that this is not just, you know, an influencer with a record deal. This is someone who has, like, a sound and a vision. And, you know, I was just looking at these credits. And I was struck by the fact that a lot of these songs are produced by a duo of women producers. Luca closer and Elvira. I'm not familiar with either of them, but I'm definitely digging what I hear, and that is super rare. I mean, USC Annenberg used to do an annual study of how many women producers were represented in the Hot 100, and it was always an infinitesimally small number, like 2%. Wow.

So to have a track entirely produced and co-written by women in 2025 is kind of a subtle statement in itself. And I give props to Addison for that, if nothing else. Yeah, I think her whole album is written and produced by her, Addison Ray, and then these two producers. So what I've learned today is that we are beverage obsessed. We need a new fan club name. I'm going with Ray Bands. Ray Bands is good. I feel like it's positive, but it also has the celebrity, the remove, you can't see my eyes.

I'm feeling Ray Bands. And Addison Ray might be around for a bit. This is not a, you know, drop in the bucket. Drop in the bucket? A flash in the pan? Is that what you're trying to say? Flash in the pan. Flash in the pan.

My brain's broken. Here's the thing. I think we have a lot of pop stars today that have roots in the internet. But I think Addison Ray is the first pop star to be TikTok born rather than YouTube born. And because of that, I think she's cut from a different cloth and is simultaneously closer and more personable than ever before, while also keeping. herself at a safe distance.

Switched on Pop is produced by Ranan Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon Farland, illustrations by Arras Gottlie, our theme music is by Zach Tenario and Jossi Adams of Arc Iris. Remember of the Box Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. Find more episodes anywhere you get podcasts. Check out our website, switchdownpop.com, and plug in your email to get a weekly newsletter delivered right to your inbox. Find us on social media at Switch on Pop and tell us what you're loving from Addison Ray or perhaps there are other TikTokers turned pop stars out there that you want to share with us. We'll be back again next Tuesday.

We're getting down with Eurovision. Oh, yeah. And we have a very special interview as part of that episode. So I talk to none other than Estonian Eurovision entrant and Hyperpop savant Tommy Cash. Nice. Oh, before we sign off, Charlie, Did we want to address some of the mistakes from our previous episode about Generation Daler? Oh my gosh, it's so embarrassing.

I was like, oh, we don't think that Taylor ever mispronounces words, like when Beyonce says Sancastle. And in a previous episode that I had completely forgotten, we had found that I had used that same example and that Taylor, in fact, has made the same egregious mispronunciation. It's on, my boy breaks his favorite toys, right, I think, from Torture Poets. She does the same Sandcastle. So

we, yeah, just had a little collective amnesia of that moment. So thank you to our listeners for pointing it out. Now we can sign off and tell everyone until we see you next time. Beautiful. Thanks for listening. Attention, Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine

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