NEW YORK (AP) — Reneé Rapp was clear on her intentions for her sophomore album, “Bite Me,” from the beginning.
“I wanted to love this,” Rapp says. “I wanted to be able to walk away from this and be so proud of myself and impressed, no matter what anybody else thought.” Her first album, 2023’s “Snow Angel, ” had been an experiment in determining her sound (a mixture of pop, R&B and heart-wrenching ballads), and assembling a set of songs that labored collectively. This album, out Friday, supplied the prospect to do it once more, with a watch towards the best way her life had modified within the intervening years.
“That intention, and also wanting to prove it to myself, was really grueling,” Rapp instructed The Related Press. “And also really fun.”
The writing course of gave Rapp, 25, an outlet to work via the burnout-inducing whirlwind that was her profession in these two years. Uncharacteristically restrained in its vocal styling, the album’s lead single, “Leave Me Alone,” is strikingly open — intelligent zingers allude to her departure from HBO’s “Sex Lives of College Girls,” the media frenzy that surrounded her flip as Regina within the 2024 remake of “Mean Girls,” and the exterior stress she felt to place out extra music after the optimistic reception of “Snow Angel.” Principally, something that is been stated about her in the previous few years? She reframes it, poking enjoyable at her popularity and the trade.
“Leave Me Alone” felt like a correct introduction to the album, Rapp says, and “Bite Me” — each a warning and a tease — the suitable title. Paris Hilton and Monica Lewinsky had been among the many well-known faces that teased the album upon its announcement, donning merch emblazoned with the title in daring print. Rapp herself posed in entrance of a newsstand crammed with mock tabloids depicting her as a diva, hid behind huge sun shades and a fur coat, to advertise the second single, “Mad.” (“That’s a Rapp!” the headline learn.)
“It really feels just like a time capsule of those two years of my life, a lot having to do with the business and the industry and people’s expectations of me,” Rapp says of the album. “And then also me wanting things for myself and being confused where those two roads diverge.”
Rapp’s confidence and humor is clear throughout the album, simply as it’s on stage — “I write lyrics in the way that I talk,” she says. Lots of the tracks deal with the destabilizing feelings that accompany the start and finish of relationships, whether or not platonic or romantic, and the way her now-very public profession has amplified the challenges of making, and sustaining, these connections.
“I’m so surrounded all the time, but I feel so lonely, and it feels really heavy and isolating. And I think a lot of that is just being an artist. And I also think a lot of that is just like the nature of like the business, for better or for worse,” she says. The can’t-be-bothered attitude heard on “Leave Me Alone” is countered by the ache of “That’s So Funny,” which recounts the tip of a deeply affecting, however finally poisonous friendship in Rapp’s signature hovering vocals.
That does not imply Rapp is not additionally having enjoyable. The cheeky “At Least I’m Hot” options Rapp’s girlfriend, the singer and guitarist Towa Chicken. “I love when artists give you a clue into their lives, and the people who make their lives full,” Rapp stated. The observe, she says, can also be simply humorous: “Who better to put on that than like the funniest person alive?”
The album’s mixture of feelings — heartache adopted by the push of a brand new crush, the impostor syndrome that accompanies the joys of success — is one thing the AP Breakthrough Entertainer alum has been exploring since her 2022 EP, “Everything to Everyone.” She needs listeners to really feel the battle, too — and know that they don’t seem to be alone in experiencing it.
In June, Rapp served as a grand marshal of the World Delight parade in Washington, D.C., alongside Laverne Cox and Deacon Maccubbin. “It can be difficult to feel resilient and empowered as a queer person,” Rapp stated. “Because World Pride was in D.C., I was like, well, I can’t not be there.” She recalled a dialog with Cox, who dispelled a few of Rapp’s fears of coming off as self-important within the position by emphasizing the ability of exhibiting up, and exhibiting face. “Right now, when everything is so under attack, which it pretty much always is, it feels like that’s the time to be really loud.”
Rapp will launch the North American leg of her “Bite Me” tour on the iconic Pink Rocks Amphitheater in September earlier than making stops at New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard and as a headliner on the Toronto cease of the All Issues Go Pageant. She’ll tour Europe in March.
As she readies for followers to listen to the album, she hopes it gives them some reprieve. “I hope that the weight of the world doesn’t feel as massive,” she stated. “It’s really easy to obsess over everything and be constantly lost in your head.”
Giving them a glimpse into hers, she hopes, is empowering — and enjoyable: “It’s just, it feels like a big party that like everybody wants in on.”
