The Year of Addison | How I Fell for Addison Rae

Video Description

Hi everyone!

Because style is my favorite subject, today I want to talk about an artist I completely fell in love with this year: Addison Rae.

Since discovering her debut album Addison this summer, I haven’t been able to stop listening.

To the point where I started asking myself an important question: “Am I in love with Addison Rae???”

Her music is infectious, her persona is smart, and her stage presence is undeniable.

In this video, I break down Addison Rae’s rise to fame, my first impressions of Addison, how Charli XCX shaped my understanding of her artistry, why Addison continues to improve, and why I genuinely believe she’s on track to become a generational pop star.

Please be sure to comment below what you think about Addison Rae.

Are you a fan? Are you curious? What do you think of her music?

But most importantly, I hope you have a fantastic day, and thank you so much for watching!

Video Transcript

Hi everyone, I'm Joshua Miller and welcome to my YouTube channel. And because style is my favorite subject, today I want to talk about an artist that I fell in love with in 2025, why I love her so much, and why I think that you should too. And that artist is Addison Rae.

In this video specifically, I'm going to dive in my initial thoughts on Addison Rae before I knew who she was, how I got to know her, and what it is I love about her now, and why I think that she's going to be a generational pop star.

So, to start with my thoughts of Addison Rae, before I even really knew who she was, I didn't even know about her during the Tik Tok days. I first heard of Addison Rae when she did a song with Charli XCX, and I remember seeing her with like pink wigs and like maybe seeing her at a couple of festival performances, and I just thought of her as like a hyperpop Hannah Diamond character. I didn't know anything about her Tik Tok days until I discovered her as an artist and I started digging through her back catalog, which makes it really interesting to me because I know that there are so many people that are being reintroduced to her now that remember her as being like this southern Tik Tok dancer, but now she's a pop star.

Like the whole thing about her, I get that it can be kind of weird, but that's kind of what I find so interesting about her. And the thing is is that even when I wasn't super close to Addison Rae, I could still kind of feel this Lady Gaga Madonna energy raiding off of her. It felt like what she was doing was kind of avantgard against the grain, but it felt like it was still authentically her. And that's what I kind of liked about it. I like that she wasn't afraid to acknowledge the fact that she's playing a character. While yes, the music and her artistry is very her, it is also a persona, and she doesn't try to hide that.

So, moving on to my first ever interaction with Addison Rae and the art that she creates. My first interaction with her was with her debut album Addison. And I remember listening to this album for the first time while I was on a walk during my lunch break at work. And it didn't even take me getting to the first chorus of the opening song titled New York for me to realize that I was listening to an album that was going to change my life forever. At the time, I was still obsessed with Brat and its subsequent remix album Brat and it's completely different but also still Brat. So, it had been a while since I had found something new to be obsessed over. But the second that I heard that first chorus in the opening track, I just felt like I had found the thing that I'd been looking for for the longest time. Throughout the way that she presented herself on the album, it felt like she has such a clear idea as to the moods and the images that it was that she wanted to be associated with. Throughout the album, she very quickly carves out this thematic mood board of all of the things that she wants to be associated with and all of the things that she doesn't want to be associated with. I love that she was aligning herself with the pop music legacy of New York City, specifically with Madonna and Lady Gaga in a way that you could hear throughout the sound. And there were also so many nods to Britney Spears in both the vocal delivery and also the lyricism as well.

And because I tend to consume pop music like its musical theater, I always want the albums that I listen to to tell a story from front to back. And Addison did that. It introduced herself by talking about who she was before. And throughout the project, you get to see her develop into the person that it is that she wants to be. And I feel like this just shows such a command of audience expectation that to me just shows that she is going to be a generational star.

When it comes to evaluating the artists that I want to align myself with and the type of musicians that I want to be a fan of, I often find myself gravitating towards the people that I think are going to go the farthest, even if they aren't exactly there yet. Like for example, when I was in college, I remember discovering Charli XCX during the How I'm Feeling Now days. This was before Crash. This was before Brat. This was before she even did live choreography, but I just remember feeling that she had something unique to say, and that was what I loved the most about her.

And the other thing that I loved about Charli XCX when I first discover her is how willing she was to improve inside the public eye. As an artist, it can be really scary to try things in order to grow. So sometimes you see people get put inside a box and they kind of just stay there. But that's not what Charli XCX did. She continuously pushed herself. Whether it was forcing herself to do a pop music marketing in a way that made her uncomfortable or challenging herself to dance while singing, even though that was something that was outside of her comfort zone, she wasn't afraid to lean into that discomfort because she ultimately knew that it was going to make her a better artist. And that's why I loved her so much. And I feel the same way about Addison Rae.

Like if you go back and listen to her original music like her debut single obsessed or her first ever EP, those sound completely different from the music that she is putting out now. And it's just crazy how much she's been able to improve in such a little amount of time. for her first ever concert series when she was opening for Lana Del Rey. It felt like she had to choose between being a resonant and full singer or being a full dancer and performer in the way that she ultimately is growing into be now with the way that her singing, her choreography, her dancing, and her stage presence has improved in less than a year. Who's to say how far she's going to go in the next 5 years or even the next 10 years? And the last reason why I think that Addison Rae could be a generational star is because she has such a love of the craft for popular music.

Like the Swiftologist says, Addison Rae truly is a student of pop culture. When you listen to the way that she talks about music or the way that she talks about art, it's very clear that she understands pop culture history and where it is that she wants to insert herself into it. A lot of times when you're listening to artists, it feels like they don't have anything to say or they have something to say, but they're not willing to listen. But I feel like Addison Rae perfectly balances both of those things. Like another thing that I love about Addison Rae is that she is Charli XCX verified. Charli XCX herself has said that she thinks that Addison Rae has fantastic taste. And when I look at the way that Addison Rae dresses herself, the way that she talks in interviews, and the way that she presents herself, you can just tell that she knows exactly what it is that she likes and exactly how to communicate it to the audience to get who she is and who she wants to be across.

And the other thing I want to say is that seeing Addison Rae get nominated for best new artist at the Grammys, I think just also encaptures how well of an artist she is going to be. If she was able to cleanse herself of being seen as a Tik Tok dancer and is now being able to stand in the spotlight in a way that makes her compared to artists like Britney Spears, Madonna, or even Lady Gaga, who's to say that in the next 3 to 10 years, she can't be the next one of them? And I think that that is one of the biggest reasons why I want to follow her so closely and why I think that you should too.

So to conclude, it is for these reasons and so many more that I am declaring 2025 to officially be the year of Addison Rae and also why I'm declaring Addison to be my album of 2025.

But that's enough about me. What about you guys? Do you guys like Addison Rae? Have you checked out her debut album? Do you plan to check it out? What are your initial thoughts on her? I would love to hear your guys' thoughts in the comment section down below. But if you want to make sure that you're in the loop on all of my videos, make sure to hit the subscribe button down below.

And if you like this video, make sure to give it a like as well. It helps me so much in getting this YouTube channel off the ground. And if you want to follow me on other places on the internet, you can find me on Instagram and Tik Tok at JoshuaMiller. And if you want to see some of my blog content, you can find my stuff there at JoshuaStyle.com.

And while this isn't the last video that I'm going to be posting in 2025, I hope that you have a fantastic holiday season and I just wish you the best December and I hope that you're doing the best that you possibly can to navigate this stressful time of year.

And with all of that to the side, I hope you have a fantastic day and thank you so much for watching.

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I look so stupid. [clears throat] Oh, hi ring light. Hi ring light. [laughter]

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