On Addison Rae’s addictive “High Fashion,” she showcases her ability to make unforgettable pop music – building anticipation for her debut album.
Stream: “High Fashion” – Addison Rae
There was a time – just last year– when Addison Rae’s music career felt like a punchline, a side hustle to the real business of simply being Addison Rae.
But here we are in 2025, and the joke’s on us. On her addictive new single “High Fashion,” the singer proves that her viral hits were no fluke. She’s making serious pop music, and the whole world is listening.
It all started with a scream. Rae’s show-stopping yell on Charli xcx’s 2024 “Von Dutch” remix announced that she wasn’t just playing dress-up in the music industry – she was staking her claim. The track was so popular that Charli performed the Addison Rae remix on tour in lieu of the Grammy Award winning standard edition of “Von Dutch.”
But the puzzle of Addison Rae’s music career really came together with the release of her (sugarfree) bubblegum-pop single, “Diet Pepsi.” The track went on to reach a peak of 54 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was named as one of the best songs of 2024 by critics at Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Billboard, among others.
On her debut album’s third single “High Fashion,” Rae delivers her signature breathy, angelic vocals over a Lana Del Rey-esque melody, crafting what is easily one of the most intoxicating releases of the new year.
It’s the kind of song meant for a cinematic moment: When the car windows are down, the city lights are blurred in the distance, as the story’s protagonist makes a calculated, devastating glance to the camera as “High Fashion” plays in the background.
On first listen, “High Fashion” may sound lyrically repetitive and simplistic – the type of track that is written in an office room for any pop star who would take it. But as the song plays on, it quickly shows that this is the type of track that only makes sense in Addison Rae’s universe – one where headlining a Saint Laurent campaign feels easier than falling in love with a stranger:
“I don’t need your drugs
I’d rathеr get, rather get high fashion
I don’t want cheap love
I’d rather get high fashion”
At face value, “High Fashion” rejects the grime of hookup culture, and makes a drug-fueled bender seem simply pedestrian.
This is about Hermes over hedonism, Burberry over the Berghain. Here, ‘high fashion’ becomes a social status reserved for the rich and famous – an elite class that Addison Rae has worked hard to become a part of.
But just as quickly as Addison Rae builds this story, she breaks it. On the track’s bridge, we start to see her facade fall apart with lyrics like:
“Spiraling into you,
I’m into you, denial
You make it hard,
so hard to choose”
It’s in this tension – between desire and denial, vulnerability and veneer – that Rae becomes so much more than an influencer with a microphone.
“High Fashion” isn’t for the uninitiated; it’s less a song and more of a mood, a vibe, or an aesthetic.
If you were to strip it down to isolated vocals or read the lyrics like a poem, you’d miss it.
But through each release, Addison Rae is telling us a story, chapter by chapter, song by song. And I, for one, simply cannot put the book down.
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:: stream/purchase High Fashion here ::
:: connect with Addison Rae here ::
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Stream: “High Fashion” – Addison Rae
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