Is Addison Asking for Too Much?
She doesn’t need your drugs. She doesn’t want cheap love. She’d rather get high fashion. Americas rising star, Addison, has arrived. From the first line, she makes her intentions clear: she is not here for small lives or small dreams. Her record announces, references and quotes itself into pop culture. Every lyric, every video, every look is deliberate — a masterclass in knowing exactly what you’re doing. And that is precisely why it works.
What strikes me most about her is how meticulously her rebrand has been calculated — and how authentic that calculation actually is. Critics like to moan that she isn’t “genuine.” But is any serious artist ever just “genuine”? Every era, from Madonna’s Ray of Light to Lady Gaga’s The Fame, was a concept. Addison is doing exactly what great artists have always done: building a world where every track, image, and pose communicates a larger vision. The calculation is the authenticity.
In her opening track, New York, she sets the tone of her journey: “LA is home, but I’m ready to go.” That lyric is as valid as it is brave. We never stop acknowledging where we come from — home will always be home — but sometimes you must fly out of the nest to achieve the life you seek.
Diet Pepsi follows, Addison teases with restraint, turning lightness into allure. It’s flirtation without desperation, proof that she knows how to hold attention by not giving everything away at once. The lyric “Untouched XO, young lust, let’s go” is deceptively simple, but its provocation is perfect. “Untouched” paired with “XO” toys with the cultural fascination around innocence, that tension between purity and desire. I see sex as one of the most intimate acts in human nature — it’s the closest we come to our souls touching. By pairing “untouched” with the warmth of XO, Addison makes intimacy feel both provocative and tender, while “young lust, let’s go” brings in the rush of teenage love.
Then comes Money Is Everything, where she indulges in materialism with a wink. The track feels almost like a 2016 Tumblr anthem — carefree, vibrant, alive, as if you were on a yacht with friends under the sun drinking pornstar martinis. Addison leans into the materialistic persona we all secretly possess. Why shouldn’t youth allow itself a shopping spree, a taste of Prada? And then the lyrical references: “DJ play Madonna, wanna roll one with Lana, get high with Gaga.” It’s brilliant not only for the names it drops, but because the girl who once dreamed of being them is now singing alongside them — even sharing a stage with Lana at Wembley stadium.
The wave swells with Aquamarine. A siren anthem that transforms and realigns you entirely. The opening scale feels like water sliding across skin, like scales forming, like lungs filling with salt and then realizing you can breathe. It’s immersive, oceanic, mythic. The world is her oyster, and we all want to touch the pearl.
High Fashion is Addison’s manifesto. “Have you ever dreamt of being seen, not by someone, more like in a magazine?”. Addison appears drenched in white powder, a reference to the cocaine-laced fashion culture of the 1990s. And the timing is divine: the day after Dario Vitales debuted his first Versace collection, Addison appeared in head-to-toe Versace, styled by Dara. She declared she wanted high fashion, and the world delivered. The song itself is hypnotic, filled with intoxicating synths. She listens to revolutionary artists like Arca, and you can feel that experimental spirit in the edges of her work. But beyond the instrumental, it validates a desire most people hide. There is, as I know myself, no high better than the high that fashion gives you.
Fame is a Gun is a straight up confession: she wants more, and it will never be enough. She admits she might crash, she might burn, but she will swallow it dry. The track itself is a promise. She is willing to sacrifice, to risk, to do whatever it takes, because nothing intoxicates her like being loved by us. And she couldn’t have said it better, love is a drug that cannot be denied.
Yet the record isn’t all about high fashion and weaponized fame. There’s also unexpected intimacy. In Times Like These, she shocks with the lyric: “Am I too young to be this mad? Am I too old to blame my dad?” Here the glamour folds into something raw, almost uncomfortably real. It asks: when do we stop blaming the past? When do daddy issues expire as an excuse? There comes a point where you cannot explain away cruelty or self-destruction with old wounds. The lyric stings because it’s true: we’ve all asked ourselves when healing must finally begin. She voices that generational moment. Where healing, not blame, must define you.
Headphones On ends the record with a statement of simplicity: the power of music itself. Sometimes it doesn’t take much — just sound. A melody in your ears can shield, transport, and remind you of why you endure. Queen of Pop, Madonna, once said, “Music makes the people come together.” Addison places herself in that radar, treating music not as background but as essence.
So why do some still cling to calling her a TikTok star? The inability to outgrow that label says more about the critic than about herself. People evolve. The man I was a month ago is not the man I am today. To refuse someone the right to grow is to confess your own lack of imagination. Addison has changed, and she will keep changing. That is what artists do. What makes Addison even more fascinating is that she doesn’t center her work around men. In a landscape where so many women are encouraged to frame their narratives through love interests or heartbreak, she stands apart. Her songs aren’t built on desire for someone else — they’re built on desire for herself: for power, for ambition, for beauty, for success. Self-containment is rare.
Therefore, is Addison asking for too much? No — she has proved she is not simply a starlet with a lucky break, and ambition is not excess; it’s the fuel of every artist who ever mattered. Fame is a gun, sympathy is a knife and high fashion is a drug. She has armed herself with all three. And for better or worse, the world is watching.
WRITTEN BY FREDDY ESPINAL