Hi, everyone. Hotthony Boytano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Addison Rae album, Addison.

California pop singer, songwriter, TikTokker, Addison Rae. After numerous singles and a lot of buildup, she is finally dropping her debut album, her first real major push to grow her brand into something beyond just being a TikTok personality.

Now, if you have been following up until this point, she has certainly had some help along the way in validating this direction, like with the crossovers she's done with pop phenom, Charlie XCX, which despite my skepticism and lack of enthusiasm behind the singles on this album, even that had me curious as to how this record would pan out.

But the more I listen to this album, the more I'm convinced that Addison is very much a what you see is what you get artist, because I'm not finding a whole lot of subtext or layers on the 12 tracks and 33 minutes of this album, which would be fine if what I was getting on the surface was something that I loved. It's not.

Let me preface this by saying that internet and media personalities of all types and stripes have, for generations now, been here and there making their own attempts at crossing over into the music world. Some of these attempts have gone down in history as the most laughable music known to man. And Addison's music definitely is not laughable. It's certainly listenable, but I feel like that's the best compliment I can extend to it. I can put it on, and if I'm not really thinking about it, be taken away by its pleasant, gently danceable beats, and moody ennui.

But I feel like this record really contains no thrills or appeal or depth or excitement or substance beyond that. And honestly, I currently feel like there is no shortage of placeholder music in the world. So I'm not going to come on here and pretend like Addison achieved something impressive by meeting that very bare minimum standard, especially when she's made it painfully obvious that she stands and is hugely inspired by artists who, even early on in their own respective careers, have shown a lot more aspiration than she is here on this record. I'm not tuning into this album to merely hear her color within lines that Lana Del Rey has already drawn up, on tracks like "Diet Pepsi" as well as "Summer Forever", songs that melodically sound like dead ringers for Lana songs already, just with synthier production, or the other tracks on the album that consist of these half-hearted callbacks to '90s and 2000s era dance pop, none of which actually managed to conjure what made those eras of music so interesting and cool and fun.

Look, being unoriginal is one thing. Nobody is entirely original. But if you're going to do someone else's shtick entirely, at least sell me on it, which is just not happening with all of these lackluster vocal performances. As across this record, Addison's delivery is just consistently sleepy, very whispery. I just find her singing to lack conviction, emotion. Sometimes it's barely fighting through the mixes of tracks like "High Fashion". And after 30 minutes, I'm pretty tired of the feeling of just having someone up in my ear going, When I was growing up, my mom always told me to save my money.

I feel like I'm just being subjected to someone else's just very bad impression of what they think a sexy voice is, which I'm not here to deprive artists of the creative choice to do such a thing. In fact, I think there are a lot of modern mainstream artists who do put on a little bit of a campy delivery when talk singing their way through their songs. Sabrina Carpenter is pretty notorious for that these days. But at least when she's doing it, she's actually putting some personality into it. You can feel the character in the performance. It's also a lot of the time employed to be funny.

Meanwhile, what Addison is doing here just feels like borrowed from a bad '90s perfume commercial where models with a pouty face just make these meaningless illusions to desire, elegance. It feels a few shades away from an SNL skit, just due to the lack of any real specificity or depth or meaning, which makes this album feel like Addison is just doing this as a means of branching out with her brand, which I can commend on one level because I don't think being a TikTok personality is a formula for long term success. I guess I would rather she do this than a bunch of other stuff. Pipelining your fans into a bunch of cool girly pop nostalgia is certainly better than starting a podcast or being a right wing grifter or or getting them to invest in some meme coin.

But that still does not change the fact that it doesn't really feel like a lot of these songs are coming from a place of deep passion. Because if it were, I would imagine there would be more effort being put into just attempting to forge your own path or define what makes you distinct as a pop artist.

There's also the issue of these tracks having very little to say seemingly, like with "Fame is a Gun", for example, which – look, right now in the current pop meta, there is no shortage of songs and albums out there that are just an analysis of being famous and the highs and lows that come along with that. This song here has to rank among one of the most vapid and thoughtless attempts at this same thing recently. Because for someone who is so famous and is so infatuated with her fame that she references it multiple times across this album, she doesn't really have anything significant to say about it. Plus, with lines like, "Life is a drug" and "I've got a taste of the glamorous life ... I'm free" – it's as if Addison lacks the capacity to write in any other mode than cliché.

Also, take the opening track on the album, "New York", which starts with her saying something about taking a bite out of the Big Apple. And then throughout the rest of the track, she just makes a bunch of references to very ordinary experiences that you could indulge in in just about any major city. She's getting off a plane, getting into a black car, dropping her luggage off at a hotel, then dancing at a club. You don't need to go to New York to do that. But I think Addison, being a lackluster lyricist goes beyond her inability to pen a song about anything of note. It comes down to a lot of one-liners that I'm sure her and her collaborators thought on some level were, I don't know, very witty or enticing in some way. Like on "Aquamarine", where she says, "The world is my oyster / Baby, come touch the pearl / The world is my oyster / And I'm the only girl." What is this? Some gender solipsism?

There's also "High Fashion" where Addison goes on about not needing your drugs, I'd rather get "high – fashion." Which is not only upsetting because it's lame, it's a lame line, but just all the lost potential on this song, too. Because honestly, I think this track could have turned out great in terms of exploring maybe all of the fashion that Addison is into and why it's better than either drugs or a shallow love interaction. But we don't get any of that, which actually would have showcased some mind or personality behind the bland instrumentals baby whisper-sung vocals. Instead, it's just moody, mediocre crooning about a cigarette pushed between her tits. "I know I'm drunk, but..."

Look, I feel like my main issue with this record, despite it being as listenable as it is, is that I don't think music should just be an advertisement for an internet personality. It should have some entertainment value beyond that.

With that being said, even the production on this thing isn't that interesting or mindblowing. Whether it be the redundant bbeats and perks on "Diet Pepsi", which sound like they're being rehashed moments later on the track "Money is Everything", or the beat behind "Headphones On", which sounds like what you would get if you punched "'90s, Trip-hop, 'Tom's Diner', Dido" into an AI prompt.

Outside of that, there's lots of glossy, washed-out, pillowy, dreamy bits of 2000s-era dance pop, which, again, are listenable and might be enough for some listeners. But – fuck! We live in a golden age of pop music right now. Some of the best and most thrilling pop music we're going to hear in our lives is coming out right the fuck now. And because of that, there's no need to subject yourself to this. There are far more talented artists writing far more personal songs on albums coming out every day, which just bring a lot more to the table than this.

Now, look, the purpose of this video is not to entirely write off Addison's efforts here. Certainly coming out with your own album is an achievement in and of itself. And I'm also not here coming on to say Addison should never make music again. She's the worst thing that ever happened to music, so on and so forth. Sure, there is great potential that the album we've heard right here is laying the groundwork for what could be a really great and impressive career, and hopefully a lot of creative growth into the future.

But that is not the album we are being faced with right now. The album we are being faced with right now has a lot of growth and change to undergo before it gets to that point. Because from the production choices to the lyricism to the singing, it sounds like nearly everything about this record is just in the incubator stage at the moment.

I'm not going to come on here and pretend otherwise just to be in line with the pop elite and fans pushing this record right now who for sure have been making a lot of great calls lately. I just don't think this album is one of them, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 4 on this record.

Anthony Fantano, Addison Rae, Forever.