Is Tate McRae a main pop girl yet? Let’s consider the evidence: She has an onstage alter ego (Tatiana) and a cheeky moniker for her fan base (“Tater Tots”). She got name dropped by Drake. Her latest album leaked at the beginning of the year. Stans are shaking their fists at the sky declaring they were here first, and will wait patiently until the rest of the world finally catches up. But even with her 12.9 billion streams (and counting), extensive world tours, and co-signs from pop’s new guard, the Canadian performer’s onstage starpower consistently seems misaligned with her unprovocative take on pop. On her third album, So Close to What, the pop star amps up the 2000s pop-inspired tracks, dials up the sex, and sprinkles in the ballads, as a small treat. And while the result is more enjoyable than its predecessors, its nostalgic rush still can’t make up for its lack of originality.
McRae’s second album, THINK LATER, traded bedroom-pop ditties for club-ready bangers—a deliberate about-face that aimed to position the dancer and singer as the next Britney Spears (see her sweaty music videos and red carpet references). If that album felt transitional, overloaded with the teenage sentiments of her debut album, So Close to What represents her most mature record yet. Even her contemplations of returning to toxic exes, for the most part, feel more considered than the naive callouts of the past. “Revolving door” drives forward with a pulsing bass and finds McRae returning to an ex-lover time and time again. “I confess, I’m not that versatile,” she sings, knowing that even though the wound finally healed, she’ll willingly be maimed again. “Say I’m good, but I might be in denial.”
The pursuit of perfection usually leads to sterilized artistry—just ask any hardworking dancer who’s been given the cliché advice to loosen up and get messy—and So Close to What finds McRae mostly embracing life’s rough edges instead of skirting around them (it’s hard to imagine THINK LATER-era Tate listing all the places she’d like to get freaky with her new beau as she does here, on the Ying Yang Twins homage “Sports car”). So Close to What is chock full of danceable bops, including the standout “2 hands,” whose tinny, pitched-up refrain sounds like Calvin Harris’ “Slide”—another reminder, however catchy, of the album’s dependency on callbacks. The breakup track “bloodonmyhands,” meanwhile, is competent, but featured artist Flo Milli outshines McRae, plus the Miami-bass embellishments might have fared better if it wasn’t following in the footsteps of several others who embraced the rollicking 808s more impressively last year.
