Even if your understanding of pop culture is minimal, it is likely that you’ve heard of or know who Addison Rae is. A recognizable social media personality, her claim to fame was in 2019 when she became one of TikTok’s most-followed users through viral dance videos. She then parlayed this fame into a brief acting stint with She’s All That in 2021 and stepped into the music industry with an early bubblegum pop-esque single, “Obsessed.” Similar to the Disney Channel pipeline, where a lead actor was guaranteed some sort of expansion of their career (typically with music), TikTok stars usually have to branch out almost immediately because the turnover of virality is breakneck. Despite being one of the most popular users, her TikTok label was practically a specter over her career, enabling people to dismiss her easily—like me, who has never engaged with a single piece of her content. While her fellow Hype House stars went on to various different careers like boxing and reality TV, Rae took a more traditional route with acting and the pop music industry, and both of her aforementioned initial outputs were critically panned.

Rae’s next step was to regroup and reapproach. She shelved an EP and found a new sonic territory with the help of Charli XCX, and her 2023 EP, AR, exceeded many critics’ expectations. The construction of her most recent album, Addison, invites curiosity as well; it is solely produced and written by a duo of female producers, ELVIRA and Luka Kloser, instead of pop music’s usual rotation of Dan Nigro, Jack Antonoff, or A.G. Cook. Even more fascinating was her approval by pop music’s most enigmatic and influential figures, having her own guest spots during Charli XCX’s Sweat Tour and Arca’s Coachella set. Perhaps as someone situated in pop music’s middle class, the “flop” isn’t as devastating as other artists who are perched on top. What powerfully augured her next album was the lead single, “Diet Pepsi.” Instead of the bubblegum pop you’d expect from her past projects, it is a mature alternative pop track with one of the most pleasant key changes in recent history. Paired with a woozy black and white music video of Rae and her beau sensually in a car, the comparisons to Lana Del Rey were immediate, American flag iconography and all, but it was hard to deny how good it sounded.

The record’s rather excellent singles laid out a digestible thesis statement: Addison is her love letter to pop. “Aquamarine” was Eurodance-flecked house via Kylie Minogue and Madonna; the free-falling sound and finger-snap percussion sounds of “High Fashion” beamed from some shade of 2011, and “Headphones On” has a 90s new jack swing, trip-hop backbone that summons Janet Jackson and Björk, whose native Reykjavík was the filming location of its music video. None of the songwriting on the singles or the album cuts warrants much digestion, besides some moments of clarity such as “Wish my mom and dad could’ve been in love” or hearing her take stock of being in the spotlight through a ketamine filter in “Fame is a gun.” Impersonal and, at times, puerile? Yes. But it can be arguably refreshing considering how this current era of pop music weighs heavily on stars and their mythology. Addison floats through its 33-minute runtime on its vibe, all the way down to the album cover, which harkens back to a CD you’d see in a Walmart circa 2006 of an American Idol star or FM radio’s current it-girl. There’s no fatigue that comes with “knowing” a star before arriving at their music—no red scarves, three-part concert albums, or greatest hits collections—you just dive into the plasticity.

The “vibes” formula works a majority of the time, leaning into nostalgic pop touchstones that pop music hasn’t touched in a while. There are no country-licked banjo joints or a woman burned by fame with her guitar in the woods, but Ray of Light, Homogenic, Blackout, and Born to Die here. If the lyrics disappoint or pass by like a breeze, it’s usually propped up by some engaging-ass music, like opening track “New York”’s squeaky hook of “I love New York” being pummeled by some masterful Jersey club. It is obvious when it doesn’t work; you grin at the opening lines of Britney and Kesha-esque “Money is Everything,” until you realize it’s just an early draft of Lana Del Rey’s “Off To The Races,” a song that already hasn’t aged well. This and “Diet Pepsi” aren’t the only songs made at Lana’s altar: there is “Summer Forever”’s wall of dream pop that makes one hell of a torch song.

Because of the album’s relative weightlessness, it’s easy to dismiss things that don’t work, such as the interludes that take up space in an already brief album. The other elephant in the room is Rae’s past, particularly an episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in March 2021, where she showed off TikTok dances chiefly crafted by Black dancers and creators without crediting them. I also find the album’s shallow songwriting a double-edged sword. It’s easy listening but quite forgettable and a bit conflicting when the self-titled album usually implies an artistic debut statement (Taylor Swift, Fleetwood Mac) or reinvention (Paramore, Beyoncé). Authenticity is a nebulous metric, but it is an urgent conversation, considering this album’s proximity to the discourse around other performers like Benson Boone, who is harpooned daily on social media platforms for his authenticity and whose sophomore album was written in 17 days to capitalize off of his sudden fame. Whether Boone correctly channels Prince and Freddie Mercury’s sexiness or politics correctly is up to debate, but it brings up this conversation about the “soul” of music. Boone has quite the stage presence and the pipes, but does it matter when we can see thousands of people who can match Adele’s and Beyoncé’s vocal control on our screens daily? What are the things we seek instead? What is he trying to say? It’s a pertinent question for Rae as well. The only consistent personality that flows through the record are her breathy vocals and coos. There’s a measure of authenticity to her because she is channeling the music we as Gen Z and 20-somethings grew up listening to on the radio, but the album’s shelf life will potentially suffer because it’s just a pastiche of pop’s past. At the very least, it positions Rae as a curious contender for pop music’s middle class, especially when her fallback is obscurity and not a pop culture standard like Paris Hilton.

At the end of the day, one of the most meaningful things about this record is how much it likely surprised you, whether through the music itself or watching the most cynical pop music consumers begrudgingly admitting she at least ate with “Diet Pepsi.” Most of the criticism lobbied at the record or at Rae herself will be valid, though I’d argue that most 25-year-old debut records, vocal performances, and dances are likely not up to the snuff of people who have been in the spotlight before they were of legal age. There’s also the reality that Rae is one of the many white pop artists in this era that is allowed to arrive on the scene as a work-in-progress, versus artists such as SZA, who has taken years to craft her sound and vibe, or Amaarae, whose 2023 sophomore album, Fountain Baby, displayed the sonic kaleidoscope that Rae shot for flawlessly. Her music might not blow past your expectations, but it is worth the listen because it eschews some of pop music’s current homogeneity, and it is brief and lightweight, so it won’t feel like a waste of time. Perhaps the biggest lesson that comes with this record is letting things surprise you, to listen to “Diet Pepsi” and think to yourself, “My bad girl, I wasn’t aware of your game.” For me, allowing myself to be genuinely surprised by an influencer whose name I knew but never engaged with in my life enabled me to take stock of how being a hater isn’t something sustainable, especially in an anhedonic time like ours, where the people in power seem so hellbent on killing joy and ripping communities apart. Two years ago, you’d never expect Addison Rae to release one of the best pop albums of the year, and for me to admit that Rae’s debut pop album made me less cynical about the world, it was liberating.