Addison Rae… Queen of Pop???
Saturday Brain Rot
Brain Rot is a weekly round-up of the convos in my group chat and everything else currently rotting my brain. This week’s is free for all subscribers.
Azealia Banks will always be famous. The “212” rapper who once dragged me (deservedly) for being shady on my podcast* was referenced this week by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When asked about Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s new beef, she said “the girls are fighting!” The most annoying people on the internet claimed it was misogynistic to refer to them a “girls” but real ones know she was quoting this Banks meme:
Btw, this beef brings me no joy. Both Musk and Trump come from a Hellmouth. They’ve both been in Ghislaine Maxwell’s Top 8 on MySpace. It’s Alien vs. Predator. Whoever wins, we lose!
**the aforementioned Azealia Banks DM, which I’ve never shared online, for those who don’t know the lore.
If you’re in New York, you MUST see my friend Jordan Tannahill’s new play Prince Faggot. The less you know about it the better, but involves the royals, the hottest gay sex you’ve seen on stage before, and because it’s Tannahill, an exploration of kink culture. But more than that, the lead John McCrea is absolutely unreal in this. One of my favorite performances on stage in quite some time. And Rachel Crowl (diva!!) is equally brilliant. It’s the play everyone is going to be talking about this summer and it was just extended. See it so we can talk about it after it officially opens on June 17.
The play also stars another friend, Mihir Kumar, who you might recognize from the And Just Like That premiere. It’s at Playwrights Horizons (in a co-production from SoHo Rep and Jeremy O’Harris & Josh Godfrey’s bb²) through July 13.
Is Addison Rae Saving Pop Music?
Like MJ’s doctor, Addison Rae is killing the pop game! Or is she? Ask any New York or LA gay and it will be a resounding yes. Me on the other hand… well, I like the beat! Addison Rae seems like a cool chick. I loved her Popcast interview where she discussed gaming TikTok to make herself famous so she could make music. It’s like how many people my age with a media job (or laid off from one, more likely) had to game Twitter once upon a time to get jobs at magazines and media companies (this was possible once, I promise, it’s how I started at BuzzFeed).
However I still don’t know much about Rae. And the music isn’t that revealing of who she is either. Rae first emerged as the TikTok girl with some bangers. Everyone dragged the song “Obsessed” but it’s a perfect song. So is “Nothing On But the Radio,” originally a Lady Gaga demo. Then she teamed up with Charli XCX and was transformed into pop music’s “cool girl.” She has chill, trip-hoppy songs that feel very of the moment while also relying on early 2000s nostalgia by way of Bjork and Madonna’s Ray of Light1. Every celebrity is obsessed with her. She even has an open invite to the hot new LES restaurant Ha’s Snack Bar. I can’t even get a reservation chile…
But I’m still not convinced based on her debut album Addison. The songs are fine, if you wanna lounge by the pool and get high. “Diet Pepsi” is superior. “Fame is a Gun” and “Money is Everything” rock. But it sounds like a bunch of “cool songs” that don’t really offer any personality. Aligning yourself with Charli XCX is cool, but Charli’s mainstream cool appeal came from years of only a select few of us knowing who the fuck she was. Rae has been thrust into the mainstream almost immediately and it all feels a little too… produced?
But that begs the eternal question: are pop stars cool on arrival or do they become cool over time? Britney Spears was cool from the jump. But Rae does not have a “Baby One More Time” in her arsenal and parents aren’t terrified their kids will become her. Parents don’t even know who she is yet.
Don’t Click on This
Speaking of extremely cool music, Miley Cyrus’ new album Something Beautiful was reviewed by the notoriously nasty for no reason Pitchfork. I guess if media is dead you have to keep the streets talking somehow, but this line:
“More to Lose” is weighed down with the ghosts of memories never to be shared: A family. A fully booked vacation. The bedsheets on backorder.
Like I said, nasty for no reason…
Cultured, which I usually love (even though they didn’t invite me to their party this year), interviewed Adrien Brody about his… uh… artwork. It’s an incredibly lazy interview that asks no follow-up questions to any of Brody’s inane quotes, like: “Look, I don't feel the need to correct someone's perception, but that superficial glance is part of the commentary in the work, okay? And so if they miss it, they miss it, but they've also missed the work. They reference things that aren't true to what it is, and that's fine.” The theme of the work is pretty obvious: violence is bad, commercialism is bad, I want to be Warhol and Basquiat but I don’t have a POV, etc.
I don’t begrudge Brody and his watercolors, but the supporting quotes from his friends and no one in the actual art world make this come off worse than an Interview magazine puff piece. Wes Anderson sounds craaazzzzy: “Adrien’s pictures are like time-and-space machine glimpses of the walls of the former art gallery—papered, painted, tagged, and slashed—that was once the streets of SoHo when SoHo was still SoHo…” Girl?
Also the truly wild Basquiat piece in the exhibition goes completely unquestioned. Maybe for obvious reasons, because what the helly.
In other news, I visited the Leigh Bowery exhibit at the Tate Modern this weekend2. It‘s a must-see tribute to an artist with something interesting to say that doesn’t sound regurgitated from Instagram captions and Jay Shetty podcast interviews (how is he absolutely everywhere in my IG algorithm lately).
NY Times needed some clicks this weekend so they profiled Kate Winslet’s daughter, Mia Threapleton, and let her say some silly quotes about how hard she’s had to work to fight nepotism claims. Maybe an instant profile in the NYT off your first film role isn’t gonna help with that! She’s supposed to be great in The Phoenician Scheme though, which I’ll see when I’m back from London.
I’m actually very excited for this film as a Fantastic Four stan (I used to pore my local comic book store for the ‘80s back issues), but please be serious…
I typed this week’s on my phone while sightseeing in London… excuseth the typos…
This almost worked for FKA Twigs’ Eusexua but that album rollout was Normani level of “where’s the album, sis?” and then she canceled all her shows due to visa issues
If you’re a gay millennial you may only know Leigh Bowery from Mimi Imfurst’s attempts to emulate him on Drag Race.
Fame is a Gun is pretty good, if she lets her sound cook a little more she’s gonna have even more success with her next album. Let’s just hope Jack Antonoff doesn’t get to her.
The Azealia dm lmaoooo