Tate McRae does Pussycat Pop, Selena Gomez does The Shins

Two musical touch points of this low vibrational February.

I prefer waiting until I’m gripped by inspiration before I start banging in the text editor to draft my monthly post, but February is nearly over, and I’m trying to keep to a once-a-month schedule here. I’m sitting in the kitchen in our new apartment roasting eggplant to make pasta alla norma, and I’m listening to the new Tate McRae album, So Close to What, the third studio album from the Canadian "triple threat” (Spotify’s words, not mine)!

So Close to What is pretty good. Or, its beats are at least giving me the energy I need to get into a writing flow. I just typed up “Tate McRae has iconic legs; she can really dance!” and then deleted it because I didn’t want to sound like I was objectifying her, even though she obviously has a sick bod, and was a So You Can Think You Can Dance finalist in Canada. But then I was like, isn’t objectification a tool for her, a part of her project?

The album art for So Close to What, which McRae briefly replaced for 24 hours with another image that fans complained was too similar to the cover of her last album, Think Later.

I’m navigating this new era of pop stars with open ears and open eyes, taking stock of the washing away of the Nü Taylors and the shoring up of what I’m calling Pussycat Pop.

What is that? It’s pop that sounds, feels, and looks like The Pussycat Dolls.

In Pussycat Pop, “famous” is a state of mind.

The Pussycat Dolls had massive hits like “Buttons,” “Dontcha,” and “When I Grow Up” in the mid-2000s, awarding them a rightful space in the canon of Y2K maximalist pop. But PCD actually started out as a burlesque act founded by choreographer Robin Antin in 1995.

The dance troupe performed at places like The Viper Room in LA, occasionally inviting big names to guest star (see here Christina Aguilera and Gwen Stefani both performing “Big Spender”—also, Carmen Electra was a regular). The only Pussycat Doll you probably remember is Nicole Scherzinger—who is currently selling out Sunset Boulevard on Broadway even though people uncovered she might be MAGA. Nicole didn’t step out on the sceeeeene until Antin decided to transition PCD into a recording act, and held auditions for a lead singer. I think of Fergie and her taunting playground-flow before I think of the Pussycat Dolls as an influencer of the next pop gen. But when I first heard Tate McRae’s “Sports Car,” I thought it was overtly sampling or interpolating the “Buttons” beat. WhoSampled says no, but I beg to differ.

It makes complete sense to me that after the inundation of nail-on-the-head, Singer-Songwriter, true neutral pop that we’d be swinging back to the messy dance-pop stuffed with synths, snaps, vaguely Eastern-sounding instruments, loud drums, and breathy vocals à la the sounds you make when you’re cuddling your dog, or when someone is tickling you and you want them to stop. It’s a far cry from Olivia Rodrigo or even Chappell Roan, whose traditional melodic songwriting is accessible, timeless, and hinges on one empowered first person (empowered by heartbreak, sometimes by love). In Pussycat Pop, emotional pain is antithetical; pain is silence. You must dance! And no worries if you don’t sing.

One might suggest a link between Pussycat Pop and the “desire for the club” that has emerged post-COVID, assisted by Charli XCX and BRAT summer, but I think it’s more complicated than that— surveys show that actually, no one goes out. The anonymous yet sticky glamor of Tate McRae, the synth-y, lo-fi vibe of Addison Rae’s excellent new single “High Fashion” — it all seems to suggest we as consumers are dying for sublimation, oblivion, and Sex Symbols unburdened by POV.

So.. if that’s the case, why does the new Benny Blanco-assisted Selena Gomez music sound like…The Shins?

Well, I don’t know. Because it’s the mid-2000s again and people are singing “God Bless the USA” on planes? To use an 00s analogy: where there is (indie) sleaze, there is twee.

Selena Gomez’s new album is called I Said I Love You First. It is a collaboration with her new fiancé Benny Blanco, and this lead single, “Scared of Loving You,” was co-produced by Blanco and Finneas (Billie’s brother). Blanco is not the type of ugly guy who becomes hot when he opens his mouth— however, he’s not all bad. His laurels rest quietly on the pop pantheon thanks to co-writing bangers like Katy’s “Teenage Dream,” Kesha’s “TiK ToK,” and Britney’s “Circus.” This all happened under his mentorship with Dr. Luke, but I don’t think the Selenators have picked up on that yet.

But this song… is not it. It’s nothing, actually. It’s so extremely indoors. It will be in a Wells Fargo commercial sometime in the next three months. EXT: FRONT LAWN— DAY. A mixed boy and a white girl, elementary school aged, say goodbye to one another after biking home from school in front of a large white house. Their cheeks are flushed because butterflies + exercise. If I broke your heart/would you take me back? If I broke my arm/would you sign my cast?

This song will be on radio though, if anyone still listens to that, consistently. And millennials cleaning their kitchens or cooking two hour meals to avoid the news will not hit “skip” when it comes up on Spotify shuffle— because it will remind them of another time in their life, high school maybe, when they were smaller, but freer, but more insecure.