Album Review: Think Later | Tate McRae
TikTok's rising star finds tries to find her footing.
(We know you were desperately awaiting our Pink Friday 2 review. It’s coming. Nicki said she’s dropping more songs so we’re holding off till all songs are out, try us next week)
Tate McRae has found herself split between two worlds. As a teenager, she was a final contestant on So You Think You Can Dance, and now has turned a full pop-star. However, her early music was positioned as a Billie Eilish clone from her label. Some of her early singles are direct rejects and even written by Eilish (Tear Myself Apart). Her biggest hit was kind of a sleeper, a slow-burn hit on Spotify in you broke me first (1.2 billion streams). Follow-up singles range from the somewhat well-known pop-rock she’s all I wanna be which came hot off the heels of the Machine Gun Kelly and Willow-led pop-punk revival, Tate taps back into this sound on the new track we’re not alike.
Her second record, Think Later showcases this duality of the popstar caught between two worlds. What she was originally marketed as (this Billie-esque singer-songwriter sad girl) and her potential as a fully-fledged pop star making dance and club hits.
Tate teamed up with legend Ryan Tedder (you should know who that is at this point, but OneRepublic’s frontman who has penned countless hits for Adele, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift) to get this record together. Let us just come out and say it: Thank you, Ryan, for the work you put on this record. The production is sleek and crisp.
Highlights from the album include lead single Greedy which is essentially 2023’s version of Timbaland & Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous. The sound on this record is a really smart way of paying homage to the sound that defined the early 00s. Follow up single Exes, is also a highlight that leans into the dance-pop. As with any popstar album, there are songs on here uniquely designed to be hits. Take stay done, which is a rehash of Nobody Gets Me by SZA. Frequently, the slow songs on this record fall flat. If you’re more interested in the Billie-like songs of her past try out Grave, Plastic Palm Trees, Want That Too, and Calgary.
Tate McRae’s quick announcement of her album right after the success of Greedy is a great success story of the label doing something right for once and rushing to release an album. So often, artists get sabotaged by their label because they keep holding back the release date until they know the album will be successful. We expect Tate will get right back into the studio to fully commit to the Greedy and Exes sound for her next record. In a recent interview, she mentioned how those two tracks were added at a later date in the album-making process so it’s interesting how those two songs are sonically different from everything else.
The highs are fairly high and the lows are…low. Overall, Think Later has some duds and misfires, but is clearly her big ticket into pop stardom.
Check out our favorite tracks, listen to the album, and see our scores below:
Can’t Miss: Greedy, Exes, Run For The Hills
You Can Skip: Grave, Want That Too
BY THE NUMBERS
Bennett’s Score: 6.1
Carson’s Score: 6.6
Album Score: 12.6
Notes from Bennett:
I’m pretty wishy-washy on this album. I think there are some highlights, maybe. I can’t deny good clean pop production. Greedy, Exes, Were not alike, are good clean pop songs. I don’t feel they doing anything extraordinary or groundbreaking for McRae but we’ll see how they land.
I guess I’m just not sold on the Tate train, I don’t see the songwriting or the vision for what her music sounds & feels like. To be honest, I feel like this album is really solid mediocre pop.
stay done is interesting, It’s pretty much cut + paste SZA’s nobody gets me with listenable lyrics for choruses and verses.
Where this album DOES land is on the bridge of want that too, one of the more original Tate McRae-sounding songs on the album.
I feel like this record is more of a product of RCA, McRae’s label than the artist herself. RCA through all of the hot pop producers and writers her way in an attempt to get a few hits and hopefully it worked for them, as for the album THINK LATER will stay bubbling under the top 40 for me.
In a current music scene with so many talented emerging female artists, (Sabrina Carpenter, Renee Rapp, Claire Rosencrantz, Blu DeTiger, Remi Wolf) I struggle to see McRae staying relevant.
Notes from Carson:
Researching her for this article was really interesting. Had no idea about the literal Billie co-write and that she was on So You Think You Can Dance. Definitely always kind of thought of her as a label trying to recreate the success of Billie tho so it’s exciting to see her kind try to break out of that.
Greedy is easily one of the best pop songs of recent years. Short, catchy, nasty instrumental, fun lyrics, it’s such a winner!
Google what her fandom name is, you can officially consider me a Tater-Tot. Tater-Thot is funnier tho. I’m rooting for her.
Some of these songs are vocally grating. She sounds like Camila Cabello on the ballads. That is not a complement.
The ballads on here are not good. The upbeat songs are miles better with Greedy, Run For The Hills, and Exes leading the pack. Think Later is also a bop too.
The “crack” in this album is on both Greedy and Exes where they have the splicing vocal effect “You keep ta- (ta-ta-) talkin',…Yeah, you're loo- (loo-loo-) lookin' at me like I'm some sweet escape” and “K-k-Kisses, kisses to the next ones who think they can live without me”
Are you Lobsessed with Pop Lobster? Hit subscribe below or share with a friend!
Here are our all-time top albums featured on Pop Lobster.
Funk Wav Bounces, Vol 1 | Calvin Harris | Score: 16.60
GUTS | Olivia Rodrigo | Score: 16.33
Speak Now | Taylor Swift | Score: 15.68
1989 | Taylor Swift | Score 15.67
Heaven knows | PinkPantheress | Score: 14.85
the record | boygenius | Score: 14.48
Lover | Taylor Swift | Score: 14.42
AUSTIN | Post Malone | Score: 14.41
Sunburn | Dominic Fike | Score: 14.33
Zach Bryan / Zach Bryan | Score: 14.19
Midnights | Taylor Swift | Score 14.09
Endless Summer Vacation | Miley Cyrus | Score: 14.00
Unreal Unearth | Hozier | Score: 14.00
In The End It Always Does | The Japanese House | Score: 13.92
Barbie: The Album | Various Artists | Score: 13.88
Gag Order | Kesha | Score: 13.77
Snow Angel | Reneé Rapp | Score: 13.00
UTOPIA | Travis Scott | Score: 12.79
The Album | Jonas Brothers | Score: 12.67
I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet | Del Water Gap | Score: 12.58
Bewitched | Laufey | Score: 12.50
THE FIRST TIME | The Kid Laroi | Score: 12.47
Stick Season | Noah Kahan | Score: 12.43
The Show | Niall Horan | Score: 11.42
For All The Dogs | Drake | Score: 11.35
Scarlet | Doja Cat | Score: 11.24