What pop stars are selling us and why I'm not buying it

every pop star is a product, a product I'm not buying

Is it just me, or does it feel like every new up-and-comer this year was created in a lab?

Listen, I was excited about Addison Rae’s album. The singles were good, even though she can’t sing and is stuck in the murmuring phase of singing. I believe her first album is the first step toward something great and better. She has a carefully crafted image (thanks to the marketing department), strong visuals because she herself says she needs the visuals to write a song. She, I believe, is slowly becoming an artist before our eyes, and yet the album doesn’t reveal anything about Addison. It seems to me like she was not ready for the album just yet. The singles are great, but the deep cuts are lackluster.

But the bigger problem with Addison is that I’m not buying what she’s selling. And it’s not personal.

Tate McRae is an artist I discovered this year because she’s not the kind of music I usually listen to, but she feels crafted out of a lab: a perfect dancer, a perfect singer, and nothing else. There’s no personality coming out of her music, the production sounds like back catalogues from producers, and the lyrics are boring and do not reveal anything specific. She feels like the American version of most K-pop.

One of the issues is that they’re both selling themselves as the new Britney.

There will never be another Britney, at least I hope so.

The other issue is that I’m tired of the grind of the pop landscape and what it does to female stars. One album every year or two, another year on tour and doing press, no rest. That’s the way these stars have been taught to view life, and I’m no longer buying this.

2024 gave us something unique with Charli XCX’s brat, completely unexpected (by most people), something that was close to pop music but not entirely, a project that came from the heart and soul of the artist, it had a clear identity and vision.

Now it seems that every single pop girl is trying to recreate brat summer with sub-par albums, less identity, and vision. To me, it seems that Charli broke the current atmosphere of pop music (and so did Chappell in her own way), where the pop star is always supposed to be on top and be everywhere all at once all the time.

These artists take breaks to write, to reflect, because they’re artists. For the first time in I don’t know how many years, 2024 was dominated by artists and Sabrina Carpenter for some reason, and I loved it. And this year we’re kinda back to the same radio-friendly pop music again, as if 2024 didn’t happen, and we’re supposed to be okay with that?

Pop stars are products, they’re images, intellectual properties, whatever you wanna call them, and it bores me because I can see clearly that they’re relying on Gen Z nostalgia for the early 00s to create new pop stars like Tate, and I’m tired.

Music and its artists are chosen by the shareholders of a label, not by actual fans of music, and it’s starting to show that they’re following market trends instead of letting true artistry shine.

This is why I’m bored with the current pop landscape, and would rather go back to oldies but goodies, instead of listening to anything more current. I hope more hyperpop breaks into the mainstream because at least the production is interesting and the lyrics are satirical.

From Marseille with Love,

*vapes away*