Addison Rae’s 2024 began with a bang: screaming excessive of mentor-slash-bestie Charli XCX’s viral “Von Dutch” remix and letting free a brief, fiendishly easy earworm into A.G. Prepare dinner’s Britpop spotlight “Lucifer.” Rae’s first solo monitor of the yr, the shimmery Lanacore ballad “Weight loss program Pepsi,” turned her first Billboard hit, having acquired a tidy profile increase from its triumphant reside debut on the Sweat tour’s MSG cease; her follow-up, the ridiculous-but-enchanting “Aquamarine,” performed like a Ray of Mild deep minimize sung by Nomi Malone. And each singles arrived with elegant, humorous movies directed by Sean Worth Williams—cinematographer of Good Time, director of edgelord fairytale The Candy East—and creative-directed by Interview magazine impresario Mel Ottenberg, for that further little bit of cool-kid clout.
So a remix of “Aquamarine” by Rae’s dream collaborator, Arca—titled, clearly, “Arcamarine”—needs to be one other straightforward win. In reality, it’s in all probability Rae’s first actual miss this yr, a inventive misalignment that doesn’t make significantly canny use of both musician’s expertise. There’s nothing offensive or unlistenable about “Arcamarine,” however that’s its first mistake: Each Rae and Arca have used their music to rage towards the bounds of excellent style, and “Arcamarine” sounds a little bit just like the type of secure, nameless dembow remixes that main labels use to juice chart numbers. (Arca’s greatest collaborations, like “KLK” and “Watch,” drive vocalists to suit themselves into her mutant engineering; on a remix like this, she’s restricted to working with pre-existing vocals.) The slower pulse saps “Aquamarine,” one of many yr’s higher pop singles, of its thriller and drama; when it ends, you’ll be able to’t assist however really feel type of blue.
