54 minutes ago, collin said:

Same with Gracie tbh

The Gracie bashing is so odd and random to me. She's one of the most inoffensive artists to ever exist, it's difficult to imagine having strong opinions on her either positive or negative.

But tbh with Olivia Dean catching heat recently, and Sombr, Alex, Tyla, Benson regularly getting lashed i've realised that every new genZ artist with major success gets an unreasonable amount of hate. Apart from Olivia and Billie, the only genz acts that are well-liked are the ones who aren't successful or struggled for years to become successful but even they eventually get hate after their breakout eras e.g Sabrina, Zara, Chappel .

55 minutes ago, Sharon Stone said:

The Gracie bashing is so odd and random to me. She's one of the most inoffensive artists to ever exist, it's difficult to imagine having strong opinions on her either positive or negative.

But tbh with Olivia Dean catching heat recently, and Sombr, Alex, Tyla, Benson regularly getting lashed i've realised that every new genZ artist with major success gets an unreasonable amount of hate. Apart from Olivia and Billie, the only genz acts that are well-liked are the ones who aren't successful or struggled for years to become successful but even they eventually get hate after their breakout eras e.g Sabrina, Zara, Chappel .

i think some of it comes down to authenticity policing, esp in the press: billie and chappell have always coded very alt and olivia is very singer-songwriter and works in the kind of styles (solo at the piano, guitar rock, etc) that the media look kindly on. sabrina sits a little more awkwardly but - esp with the new era - has the kind of appreciation of pop history that goes down well. i think that, of the male acts, sombr - who does everything himself - tends to do best too.

as far as fans go, male artists are rarely well served but in all fairness this is not a great line up atm, tho i think all of them have had their moments. but people like olivia dean and tyla - esp olivia - are more essentially girly than is fashionable online, even post taylor (esp post taylor?), and gracie's girl-coded acoustic pop (and tate's generally more emotional vibe?) also falls into the same trap: the gays fandoms tend to be louder and less self contained, and are merciless about anything that's a bit more soft and doesn't look/sound enough like gaga lmao

i wonder how much of this is just dragging stuff that goes outside their lane - discourse around pop music is orders of magnitude more vicious than for any other styles - but i do see misogyny in it too - it's hard not to if you log onto ATRL every day and see hoards of men lining up to drag women for what essentially amounts to "b*tch eating crackers" - and wrt to olivia dean and tyla possibly race? i'm v outside my lane on this but there's a definite tendency twds coming after styles (soul, afrobeats) that they really aren't across in a meaningful way.

Edited February 12Feb 12 by makeawish

was having a look at the tate tag on tumbr and there's a hockey gossip blog that's obsessed with whether or not she's still in milan or not, this is sending me nnn

I feel like being an NFL or NBA WAG is one thing, but hockey is just so unglamorous for a pop girl. She really is Canada down lol.

I love her cool, sporty, chic aesthetic. I hope she never changes it.

gosh... luv this. Baby Tate

She made the top 20 IFPI singles chart with greedy at 18 last year and now the albums chart this year with SCTW at 13 Very good result.

She just needs to aim for both a smash single and album next time. Also I think her pure sales can be so much higher if she had more variants.

47 minutes ago, Sharon Stone said:

She made the top 20 IFPI singles chart with greedy at 18 last year and now the albums chart this year with SCTW at 13 Very good result.

She just needs to aim for both a smash single and album next time. Also I think her pure sales can be so much higher if she had more variants.

every so often i load the site and i see some troll thread saying she didn't make the chart, never change ATRL lmao

i feel like vinyl is an afterthought for tate, she's never bought records or CDs herself and i guess that most of her audience is much the same which is why the physical editions are always so half-assed (the new deluxe is the first vinyl i've thought was worth buying)

7" singles would be really cute for the big hits, the UO purple lace bra vinyl looked really nice but i wasn't going to spend £25 on it, sports car would have really gone off on 7"

Edited February 28Feb 28 by makeawish

Tate is headlining Osheaga. I wonder if she'll do any other festivals or what this means for new music.

Oh wow! I never thought I'd come across such an excellent and accurate pop culture analysis in a thread about Tate McRae of all people. Damn!

I genuinely had to log back in to this hellsite just to give you two your kudos @Sharon Stone @makeawish

Everything you said about Gracie and Addison(her especially) in particular is very true. I've only just started to like Tate, and I'm not even that big a fan of hers. I simply see the clear effort and training she's putting into her art, and I'm impressed. I definitley think stan twitter and atrl dont like people like Tate being so good at what they do and still not feeling connected to them so they lash out, as hive this is something ive noticed. It's a combination of envy and misogyny because their favorite either doesn't have Tate's performance talent or the strong audience/fan base that allows her to sell out arenas and, soon, maybe stadiums. Gracie doesn't do anything for me. Some of her songs are catchy, but nothing about her does it for me, as you can see from the artists in my signature. However, the strong hatred for her on Stan Twitter signals a clear disdain for artists with female-dominated fan bases. So many gay men who follow pop artists feel entitled to performative approval from them and expect them to pander to them. So, when an artist comes along who clearly knows their audience, they lash out. See Olivia Dean or Harry or even Bruno. This is why they are so obsessed with Addison, who is another artist that does nothing for me. Their performative staning for her, despite her lack of vocal or performance abilities, shows how much stan spaces value the look and narrative of a pop star over actual artistry and skills. I don't ever see Addison improving her skills, but the narrative and marketing she's constructed for herself is convincing enough for those who take this stanning stuff way too seriously.

38 minutes ago, Babymomo said:

However, the strong hatred for her on Stan Twitter signals a clear disdain for artists with female-dominated fan bases. So many gay men who follow pop artists feel entitled to performative approval from them and expect them to pander to them. So, when an artist comes along who clearly knows their audience, they lash out. See Olivia Dean or Harry or even Bruno.

This is so spot on. There's this incessant need to pretend that artists with female-dominated or even straight male fan bases that are successful are somehow frauds or have no fans, and it's clearly from a sense of bitterness that stan twitter or gay men's seal of approval is becoming increasingly less relevant for an artist to succeed. I saw a popheads thread recently about artists with no fanbases and people had the nerve to name Tate, as if it's possible debut at no 1 or sell out 78 arenas without a fanbase. Meanwhile, in their minds, someone like Charli has a bigger fanbase than Tate but is somehow magically selling less units and tour tickets. The BNA discourse around Olivia/Addison was so insane. Olivia cleared on all possible metrics, and it was essays and essays about how she somehow didn't deserve to win.

59 minutes ago, Babymomo said:

Their performative staning for her, despite her lack of vocal or performance abilities, shows how much stan spaces value the look and narrative of a pop star over actual artistry and skills. I don't ever see Addison improving her skills, but the narrative and marketing she's constructed for herself is convincing enough for those who take this stanning stuff way too seriously.

The way they bend over backwards to account for her lack of abilities is so funny to me. Calling something camp or saying she embodies the spirit of a popstar, What about the skill, talent, success, or star quality of a pop star? Comparing her to icons and legends who actually had the chops, hits, success, and legacy based on vibes. The stanning is fine but it's the pretending that she's doing something innovative or special that's laughable to me.

1 hour ago, Sharon Stone said:

The BNA discourse around Olivia/Addison was so insane. Olivia cleared on all possible metrics, and it was essays and essays about how she somehow didn't deserve to win

i felt like there was a real insecurity to that response which cuts to the way fandoms use awards and critic scores to stand in for success in their stan wars. i remember putting up a thread for the popbase songs of the year a couple years back as a bit of fun and was astonished by how snarky people were about it, going on like this stuff actually mattered ("lack of prestige" was mentioned, like getting #19 in paste's AOTY is a big deal).

and the thing is, if you take away the critical discourse around addison then all you've got is a couple of minor hits which are pretty good but not amazing and there's not much to work with there in the way stans do this stuff, so actually olivia dean must be talentless, an "industry plant", a OHW, etc

Edited February 28Feb 28 by makeawish

28 minutes ago, makeawish said:

and the thing is, if you take away the critical discourse around addison then all you've got is a couple of minor hits which are pretty good but not amazing and there's not much to work with there in the way stans do this stuff, so actually olivia dean must be talentless, an "industry plant", a ONW, etc

Exactly. IMO even the critical acclaim is questionable because opinions about her are mixed. She's not universally acclaimed. Her stans do far too much about critical acclaim for an album that's in the 70s. It's not like she's getting 90s or getting showered with awards like a H.E.R, Jon Batiste type.

56 minutes ago, makeawish said:

i felt like there was a real insecurity to that response which cuts to the way fandoms use awards and critic scores to stand in for success in their stan wars. i remember putting up a thread for the popbase songs of the year a couple years back as a bit of fun and was astonished by how snarky people were about it, going on like this stuff actually mattered ("lack of prestige" was mentioned, like getting #19 in paste's AOTY is a big deal).

I think her stans are the most deeply insecure fanbase of the recent crop of girls because her career is built on very shaky ground. She was able to orchestrate her way into being grouped as a cult pop star by association but she doesn't really have the cult following or the ingenuity to sustain that kind of career. Right now all she has is the illusion of acclaim without commercial success or a loyal fanbase. She's also not shifting culture in any way, and doesn't seem to have much to say. So it seems very hollow. By trying to sell her as this great artiste instead of just a pretty girl that can do a quick two-step and has cute songs, her team has backed themselves into a corner because she actually has to live up to the greatness.

18 hours ago, Babymomo said:

I never thought I'd come across such an excellent and accurate pop culture analysis in a thread about Tate McRae of all people

the tate mcrae base is where you go to find the scholars, everyone knows that smdh

19 hours ago, Sharon Stone said:

Tate is headlining Osheaga. I wonder if she'll do any other festivals or what this means for new music.

last year in December there were rumors that she will do Sziget Festival in Budapest in 2026 so could be true that she's having a festival tour this year

So much tea and praise. LONG LIVE TATE MCRAE.

17 hours ago, kellebrity98 said:

last year in December there were rumors that she will do Sziget Festival in Budapest in 2026 so could be true that she's having a festival tour this year

I figured she might follow Oliva's lead of a festival tour after her first arena tour. It's a shame Glastonbury is not happening this year. She's really long overdue for a Coachella and Glastonbury debut.

I think this whole right-wing affiliation thing will become a much greater issue if she/her team don't nip it in the bud. I don't think she's MAGA but she's also very comfortable publicly associating with right-wing people. Most people IRL will work or have friendships with people who don't share their views if it benefits them, but being so brazen about it in the current climate is another trademark dumb decision from Team Tate.

3 hours ago, Sharon Stone said:

I think this whole right-wing affiliation thing will become a much greater issue if she/her team don't nip it in the bud. I don't think she's MAGA but she's also very comfortable publicly associating with right-wing people. Most people IRL will work or have friendships with people who don't share their views if it benefits them, but being so brazen about it in the current climate is another trademark dumb decision from Team Tate.

Yeah, one of the things I thought about the wallen thing is how different it was from "i had some help" a few months before and the whole of that was because of the re-election of trump, it just poisons the discourse so that anything not ostentatiously left becomes notionally right for a certain kind of very online bad faith actor (like most standoms basically). but idk if she has it in her to cut loose from Ryan Tedder yet and that surely is going to get more embarrassing as time goes on.

Edited February 26Feb 26 by makeawish

and also, i remember feeling a bit like she'd picked a side as well, probably not intentionally but at a moment like that it felt very "YOU REALLY OUGHT TO UNDERSTAND WHY THIS IS BAD!" and while i understand why it didn't really occur to her, i do think it should be occurring to someone

i'm looking into the new boyfriend now (i think his name's been hanging around for a while) and he just sounds a bit travis kelce doesn't he? quite normie and not very political (like that's going to save either him or tate lmao)

Mail Online

US hockey hero Jack Hughes on women's team rejecting Trum...

The men's team has faced backlash for speaking with Trump in the locker room after their stunning 2-1 overtime victory over Canada on Sunday, in which Hughes scored the winning goal.

I agree. No one would bat an eye at some of these things a couple of years ago, but in the context of a Trump reelection and how charged everything feels, anything that is neutral or permissive towards the right feels like a glaring endorsement. In fact, anything other than loudly denouncing the right doesn't look great. And although they seem like minor issues, the way they stack up together doesn't paint a pretty picture. I know silence is typically her policy but it's at the point where she has to now publicly choose sides or accept that not choosing means choosing right. But one thing is clear, she's not the kind of artist that can withstand this kind of controversy. She could easily get the Camila treatment if she's not careful.

7 hours ago, Sharon Stone said:

I think this whole right-wing affiliation thing will become a much greater issue if she/her team don't nip it in the bud. I don't think she's MAGA but she's also very comfortable publicly associating with right-wing people. Most people IRL will work or have friendships with people who don't share their views if it benefits them, but being so brazen about it in the current climate is another trademark dumb decision from Team Tate.

I agree. but keep in mind her rebound isnt maga.

1 minute ago, makeawish said:

i'm looking into the new boyfriend now (i think his name's been hanging around for a while) and he just sounds a bit travis kelce doesn't he? quite normie and not very political (like that's going to save either him or tate lmao)

Mail Online

US hockey hero Jack Hughes on women's team rejecting Trum...

The men's team has faced backlash for speaking with Trump in the locker room after their stunning 2-1 overtime victory over Canada on Sunday, in which Hughes scored the winning goal.

I haven't even looked into him fully, but I agree he seems like someone like Tate who doesn't really care strongly about politics and does dumb **** without thinking or caring about the optics, rather than a loud and proud MAGA. The difference is a hockey bro being MAGA doesn't really mean anything, but it very much does for a pop girl.

I still can't believe the absurdity of it, but getting dragged for doing a US ad and being accused of being a far right Canadian separatist, and her boyfriend getting dragged for a trump call then choosing to like a picture with her boyfriend and the US flag just seems like an extremely ridiculous and thoughtless thing to do, unless the intention was to come out as a Maple MAGA. I wonder what she's thinking.

Olivia please have a sit down with your girl to discuss politics. i get being a-political while still supporting things she cares about like woman/trans/gay rights. but it's a sensitive time she needs to think a bit more deeply and educate herself.

also drop this guy. He's an uglier Laroi.