Tate McRae and the Return of the Y2K Pop Star

Wallen remains, by any standard, incredibly popular. “When his last album released in 2023, One Thing at a Time, it held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for 16 weeks,” Sherman says. “That’s just over 30 percent of the year,” in addition to the three weeks of 2024 when the album again landed atop the chart. “McRae fans online may be upset with her decision to perform with him, but this will likely get her name and music in front of a huge audience of music listeners who might not otherwise spend time with her records.” 

McRae has yet to address the controversy publicly. But it has, as Sherman suggested it would, kept her front and center—even if it's repositioned her vis-à-vis contemporaries like Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Olivia Rodrigo, all of whom are politically outspoken.  

“I like how generic she is,” says Claire, a fan from Brooklyn. “If I have to care about one generic pop girlie, she should be able to do a half-cartwheel into a backbend.” Claire, a one-time competitive dancer who, critically, does not identify as a Tater Tot, became aware of McRae through So You Think You Can Dance. “Maybe this is capital-P problematic to say, but if you’re making music for TikTok, then I like the idea that you don’t think of yourself and your project as anything greater than it is.” 

In the age of Y2K revivalism, that neutral exterior may benefit McRae. Sherman sees McRae as a “total repurposing” of a 2000s-era pop star: brand new for one generation and nostalgic for those who remember grinding to the Pussycat Dolls at high school dances. (“Sports Car,” she points out, sounds a lot like the Dolls’ hit “Buttons.”) And as jean rises sink, belts widen, Ugg boots return as statement footwear, and the world free-falls into fascism, the yearning for something simpler makes sense.

McRae’s latest album goes all in on the hallmarks of Y2K pop—breathy, baby-voice vocals and songs made for dancing at the club. Switched on Pop’s February “Learning to Love: Tate McRae” episode summarized McRae’s music as “the last decade of pop in a blender,” which feels like the perfect description. Still, McRae herself is harder to peg. “In some ways, I sense that McRae is a throwback artist—not just in her musical references, but in her public image,” Sherman says. “Pop music fans know her songs; they’re viral and ubiquitous to that listenership. But we don’t know much about her, which allows for a kind of carte-blanche reading of McRae.” 

What we do know about McRae owes to the interviews she’s given for this album rollout, including a great Las Culturistas episode in which comes off as sweet and charming but also says she’s not that into pop culture. The interview suggests McRae might still be figuring out exactly what kind of artist she is when she tells co-hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang that it took time for her to reconcile her initial sad-girl songwriting and her love of dance. 

With its echoes of Billie Eilish and Halsey, I Used to Think I Could Fly, McRae’s 2022 studio album, sounds nothing like the recent “Bloodonmyhands,” which has her first rap feature, from Flo Milli, or the whisper chorus of “Sports Car,” which was inspired by the Ying Yang Twins. 

She spoke to the shift in her songwriting style in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar in February. “I am a sad-girl ballad-writer at heart,” she said. “[But] what I’ve been forcing myself to do is write over beats or write over things that the dancer side of me would be triggered to feel, so I can have fun performing it on tour, because those are my favorite[s]. Those are the records that really come to life and my dancers just eat up, and it just feels like a totally different energy.” 

It helps that McRae has an incredible team behind her. So Close to What features producer Ryan Tedder, who has worked Taylor Swift and Adele, and who co-wrote Beyoncé’s “Halo.” She also worked with songwriters Julia Michaels and Amy Allen, whom she shouts out in interviews. She told Variety: “I love writing with females because there’s no other person that can grasp the feeling, this energy. You don’t have to say anything—the girls just know.” It's all culminated in a catchy pop confection (“Revolving Door” has wormed its way into my heart) that might claim to have more substance than it actually does. But is there a problem with that? 

A recent Defector post has writers Sabrina Imbler and Kelsey McKinney chatting about their unabashed love of McRae—going back and forth about the music and its appeal. “‘Sports Car’—the current No. 16 song in America—makes me feel insane. It’s like if a Pussycat Dolls song got really, really dizzy. It feels like a fever dream,” McKinney writes. 

The conversation about McRae always seems to return to her stature as an artist and, now, the tension between her carefree music and the politics encroaching on it. “In the last few years, audiences have asked their performers to take a stance, to reflect their morals,” says Sherman, the author. “But it wasn’t so long ago that the pop music audience demanded its stars remain apolitical. I think it is interesting that so much of McRae’s music pulls from Y2K-era pop sonic signatures and she’s taking a Y2K-era approach to politics by not taking a stance.” 

After the Wallen collaboration was announced, Tater Tots voiced their dismay over her working with the country artist. Suddenly, to some, McRae’s neutrality felt offensive, especially as she remained mum on the pairing. “It’s deeply disappointing, and this has been echoed through her fan base via TikTok—in a time when politics are so divisive and important,” says Valentina, another fan from New York. “It definitely takes away her cool factor, because not having a backbone politically and trying to appeal to too many people is boring and sad. It’s a major miss for her and her team when she claims to be for the girls, gays, and theys.” 

Sherman thinks the Wallen song could help McRae—an artist with big hits but not total name recognition. “As McRae continues to find her niche in pop music, a kind of apoliticism may benefit her,” Sherman says. “It’s a return to a kind of ’00s approach to celebrity, in some way, where the hope is ‘if I don’t say anything, I won’t upset anyone.’ She may be trying to make herself open and accessible to everyone: Wallen fans and gay-bar patrons and everyone in between.”