The Case of the Multi-Hyphenate

This piece originally appeared on September 8, 2023 in Sound Signal, our biweekly newsletter that identifies emerging artists, scenes, and trending tracks, crafted by the world's best writers and curators. Sign up here to never miss our take on what's next in music.

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It Girl season began on August 18th. Social media stars and actresses Reneé Rapp and Addison Rae each released records on that date, marking their official entrance into popdom. Rae, 22, came to fame via TikTok, and starred in the gender-swapped He’s All That (2021); Rapp, 23, started her career as a teenager as Regina George on Broadway’s Mean Girls, and gained a following from her role as Leighton in HBO Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls. Rae and Rapp have had quite different musical career trajectories, but their sustained social media popularity has assured them both success.

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Addison Rae was initially panned by, well, pretty much everyone—from critics to zinger-slinging YouTube commenters—for her 2021 single, "Obsessed." As a result, Rae decided, dramatically (announced on Twitter), to not release the rest of her music. But then “Obsessed” started to kinda…slap. People began to ask where Rae’s “long lost” album was. The “lost” tracks were leaked, and the hate gradually turned to ironic and eventually genuine fandom. "this. song. is. ART,” Charli XCX famously tweeted about “2 die 4.” Two years later, Rae has officially released the EP, titled AR, unchanged. “2 die 4” song appears on AR, featuring Charli herself, and has over 5M Spotify streams. Rae is now ranking in the top 200 artists worldwide.

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While Addison Rae’s EP is characterized by ‘90s nostalgia and campy appeal a la Paris Hilton, Reneé Rapp’s Snow Angel is a more considered debut, one that follows a 2022 EP. In interviews, Rapp mentions a drugging experience that led her to write Snow Angel’s titular song, and the whole thing was produced with Grammy-nominated artist Alexander 23. She is even featured on the cover of Spotify’s “sad hour” playlist, with the R&B-tinged “Tummy Hurts” in the top spot. It’s the anthemic slow burn “Snow Angel” that is her most popular, with 8M streams on Spotify—perhaps it will reach the 46M streams her song “Too Well” has.

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Rae and Rapp’s transition into the pop sphere is not something casually achieved—to have a career in music one has to actually want it. It helps that they have built-in audiences: Rae has 88.4M followers on TikTok and 37M on Instagram, while Rapp has 849K Instagram followers and 1.4M on TikTok. But the numbers aren’t pure bloat. Both Rae and Rapp are experienced performers, and the music is actually, dare we say… pretty good.

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