Unlocking the Allure of Tate McRae

Culture Study Podcast

Anne Helen Petersen

Fashion & Beauty, Society & Culture, Arts

4.6 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tate McRae is one of the most popular artists in the world — but millions of my peers have only the faintest idea of who she is. Alternately, they’re baffled by her. Is she Britney rebooted? Is she talented? What does she mean? Does it matter? After listening to Reanna Cruz guide listeners through McRae’s sound on Switched on Pop, I knew I wanted them to come on the show and work through more of McRae’s image. We talk about her sound, of course, but also consider her through the lens of her Canadianness, her Gen-Z-ness, her ‘organic’ songwriting success on YouTube, and her popular girl vibes.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Anne. Once a month, we pick an episode to make free for everyone. You'll get the whole show, including the Ask An Anything segment, which is usually just for paid subscribers.
0:09.5	Today's question is about how some people seem to have a million cool hobbies, and others can't find time for one.
0:16.3	Other perks for paid subscribers include the discussion threads for each episode, which are really fun and
0:20.8	sometimes kind of spicy, and an ad-free experience. So if you want to support the show and always
0:26.8	get the full episode, head to culturestudypod.substack.com and become a paid subscriber. And if you're
0:33.7	already a paid subscriber, you'll see the ad-free version of this episode show up in your feed separately, the result of some quirks in the publishing process that we're still trying to figure out.
0:42.9	The ad-free version is also where the discussion thread will be.
0:46.2	Okay, thanks, everyone. Enjoy the show.
0:50.6	The artists that we're talking about today on Culture Study Podcast is currently one of the top 50 most listened to artists in the world on Spotify, has not one but two songs in the Spotify Billion Streams Club.
1:05.6	Debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, sold out a headlining tour off of her debut EP and has had 21 songs chart
1:14.9	on the Billboard Hot 100.
1:17.2	21.
1:18.7	21.
1:20.0	So we're not talking about Olivia Rodriguez.
1:23.1	We're not talking about Billy Elish.
1:25.3	We're not talking about Taylor Swift.
1:27.5	No. Who are we talking about? We are talking about Canada's own Tate McCray.
1:38.6	This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. And I'm Rihanna Cruz, producer of Switched on Pop and Freelands Music and Culture Journalists.
1:47.8	Okay, so this is a little bit of a false like open because I'm trying to take the position
1:52.9	of Melody who when I came up with this idea, she's like, who is Tate McCray?
1:58.4	You kind of had that position a little bit before.
2:01.2	Like you knew who she was, but not, you weren't like, oh, she's that interesting.
	...

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