Addison Rae finds peace on “Headphones On”

Graphic by Charlotte Heintz

by Bennett Himmel

Ever since rising left-field pop superstar and former TikToker Addison Rae dropped the snippet for her delightful, wistful new single “Headphones On,” my Twitter timeline has been overrun with people bemoaning her supposed lack of authenticity. It insists upon itself, cried the legion of stans, demanding relatability and honesty in their pop music. I’ve been an avowed SunRae since the moment I heard the snippet of her then unreleased song “I Got It Bad” on my timeline back in 2022. A cursory scroll through her Spotify profile at this time immediately revealed better taste than one would expect from a TikToker who once uttered the words “You don’t know if she’s Asian, she could be Korean!” in earnest. Her playlists were marked by quick switch-ups, from EP era FKA twigs to Kate Bush to 2004 Britney deep cuts. She name-dropped future collaborator Arca in interviews. It didn’t seem to make sense at the time, but as the years have gone by, Addison has shown herself to possess an incredibly intense love and deep knowledge of pop music. I don’t care if this new, 2010s revivalist aesthetic is all lifted from her creative director Lexee Smith; her pop worship has never been reflected more than in “Headphones On.”

Over thumping, trip-hopish strings that recall Janet Jackson’s sensual pop opus janet.or Madonna’s much overlooked silk sheets R&B collection Bedtime Stories, Rae utters incredibly simple, empowering affirmations as though she’s the first to come up with them. “You can’t fix what’s already been broken / You just have to surrender to the moment,” she sighs. Make no mistake, Addison Rae is not a technically talented vocalist. Her voice, much like Janet or Britney, finds its power in its softness. Rae’s control over her breathy coos mean that she can sound sad and sexy and elated all at once: all the feelings pop music should make you feel. Rae’s reference points for this song aren’t being found anywhere else in pop music right now. Sure, ‘90s and 2000s revivalism is all the rage, but the approach towards it has mostly been blown-outelectronicsleaze. While most of these artists’ visual language has been rooted in blinding strobe lights and horned up American-Apparel-Terry-Richardson-Cobra-Snake-flickr worship, there stands Addison Rae in the music video, cross-dissolved over the Icelandic open road in a fluorescent pink cigarette smoke haze, showing that softness can be ten times more effective.