Tate McRae: “TOO YOUNG TO BE SAD” Review
If you haven’t heard of Tate McRae yet, you’ve missed a lot. No stranger to viral hits, Tate McRae has garnered a huge fan based via YouTube and TikTok. Tate was a finalist on So You Think You Can Dance a few years back, and started a YouTube channel shortly after. From there, she gained a small following through vlogs and dance videos, but what really jump started her career was the viral video “i wrote a song...”. At just 14 years old, her video got her a lot of social media attention. Shortly thereafter, she released “One Day” as her first single, and it ended up on Today’s Top Hits on Spotify. As an independent artist, securing a spot on Today’s Top Hits will definitely get you attention from labels. For Tate, that meant 11 different record deal offers.Â
Tate continued to post on YouTube for multiple years, and her best performing videos were her “relatable” original songs. The release of her first EP “all the things i never said”, where she collaborated with Billie Eilish and FINNEAS, set her apart from a lot of current pop artists, and her sound continued to develop from there.Â
The single that truly secured Tate’s spot as one of the biggest pop stars in the world was “you broke me first”. “you broke me first” was released during the initial lockdowns for the pandemic, and did not take off until months after. Somehow, “you broke me first” skyrocketed after users started posting TikTok videos to it, but this only happened months after its release. As we know, TikTok is a powerhouse for the music industry, and “you broken me first” taking off like it did was really no surprise.Â
Following the success of “you broke me first”, Tate went on to release many, many singles. 7, to be exact, in the span of just a few months. The rapid release of these singles was clearly in response to the success of “you broke me first”, but none of them were able to top it.Â
“slower”, one of these singles, caught my eye quickly. It was posted on Tate’s YouTube channel about 2 years ago but only released this year. The reason was simple. “you broke me first” had a very specific vibe that resonated with a lot of fans, and in hopes of trying to replicate its success, she/her team tried to replicate the song itself. The YouTube version of “slower” is fairly different from the official version, and the production seems to mimic that of “you broke me first”. Unfortunately, “slower” has yet to take off like “you broke me first” did, but maybe it just needs time.
“TOO YOUNG TO BE SAD” was released in late March 2021. It features four previously released singles and two new tracks. By the time this EP was released, Tate had found her unique sound. She’s an expert at songwriting, and usually writes about personal yet relatable topics, which continues through her career and is prevalent in this EP. Her sound could be described as this: pop songs sang over a trap beat. All of her songs have a synth, often a beat drop of sorts, and aren’t as vocally challenging as a lot of other pop music today. Although her sound is very much pop, its even pushing alternative, and could be compared to Sasha Sloan’s “Lie”(great song btw). Though this EP is great and shows a lot of maturity in finding her sound, I do prefer the songs on “all the things i never said”. Her first EP is more on the pop side, so maybe I’ve yet to accept the change, but this second EP is completely separate from anything you hear on the charts today.
“TOO YOUNG TO BE SAD” is worth the listen, and I’m excited to see what Tate has in store. Hopefully an album and less singles rolling out every other day.