Which, like, maybe I'm not the person to be saying that, probably not,
but Well, that's the other tagline of this episode, is maybe we're
not the person to be saying that.
You know what I mean?
So don't fact check us.
Don't fact check us.
And we're not probably the right person to be saying it.
So let's get some microphones.
But we're going to say it anyway.
We're definitely going to say it and we're going to make you listen to it.
So this, you said, was your second most played album of 2023?
Sure was.
And was, I think there were a couple songs on my top five songs.
Yeah, tell me the tracks.
Pretty Girls, number one.
Okay.
Production wise, I think that's the most impressive song on the whole album.
And then I don't know that one.
I think I hate Boston might have been the second one.
I absolutely love that one I'm so basic.
I just like the the first one talk too much and that's a really good one.
It's great Would you like to introduce yourself by any name that you would
like folks to know you as my friend?
Sure.
Hey Hey ladies gents gays and they's my name's drew drew car.
You can find me on instagram at A Drew Carr named Desire,
if you feel so inclined.
Wait, that's your Instagram handle.
I know, I'm literary, I'm a literary girl.
I love to pay homage to the greats, the greats of American theater.
And my name's Drew Carr, so it kind of just happened.
The first, and I, what I hope to be a heavily repeat guest,
feature on this channel.
Everybody say hello to Drew.
Drew and I had a little chat, a little moment in LA where we both somehow moved
here at the same time had never met before Worked at this company together and we're
like, wait, are you down the street?
Literally.
You were like, wait, did you move to Venice this week?
And I said, yes, and you said I moved to Santa Monica this week.
Wait, did I just dox us?
Want to get a margarita on the beach?
I'll take that out, I just doxed us.
Let me post your address.
Absolutely.
Well, I'm not there anymore, so it's fine actually.
You couldn't find me there.
I want to be a part of the zeitgeist.
I like to, uh, have opinions on things.
It's kind of what I do.
Speaking of the zeitgeist, my friend, we're today we're talking about
someone first off, you pitched this topic and I couldn't have said yes
harder or faster because this girl I'm very excited about, but I also
feel like everyone's excited about her, so now I don't feel very special.
But, you know, always me trying to say I was there first, that's like,
you know, part of my brand, you know.
I do feel I was sort of on this girl first, just because of my
proximity to how she got started, so.
We were talking about Renee Rap, Miss Renee Rap, who just last night,
performed SNL, was featured in a skit.
I'm happy for what it means.
culturally to be a musical guest on SNL like for her.
I think that's hell.
Yeah, huge.
Hell.
Yeah, it always is.
So SNL has launched careers.
Adele hit and ended them because well, I mean, and then the Lana Del Rey's of it
all like semi ended and then crawled back.
And wasn't it didn't Ashley Simpson isn't that where she did the whole.
Let's do an entire episode on just flop live performances and
that'll be like the capstone.
Oh, we could be here for days.
We would.
We will be here for days.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Um, okay, Renee Rapp is of the moment right now.
She's currently Regina George in the movie adaptation of the musical
adaptation of the movie Mean Girls, which was also based on the book, right?
Good luck figuring that out.
That's right.
Um, I just saw the film, uh, not 48 hours ago and I thought she was amazing.
But what I think she came into my consciousness, not through Mean Girls.
I believe I heard her pop music and it was probably served to me on Spotify.
Um, but what was, what was your gate?
How did the gate open to Renee for you?
You, I will tell everyone you are in the theater community much more than I am.
So I can imagine that being a part of it.
I am in the theater, the New York musical theater specifically community.
Um, was pretty heavily pre COVID less.
Less heavily now, and that's kind of by design.
But for those who don't know, and maybe many of the people who are fans of Renee
will know this, is that she was a Jimmy Award winner, which is the National
High School Musical Theater Award show.
I don't think I knew this.
Oh, well, allow me to educate you on the Jimmy Awards, which are, for all of the
ways that it is sort of, I guess, as the kids would say, choogy, maybe that word is
even out now, and don't at me, because I'm going to say what I want, and choogy is a
fun word, but for, for as, for as much of the National High School Musical Theater
Awards are a little bit embarrassing, they are also like, Remarkable and awesome
and I've been to the show a few times and it's an incredibly supportive environment.
It's so fun to watch These nerdy kids ultimately do the
thing they love the most.
It's like a spelling bee for singing.
It is it's a spelling bee for musical theater nerds and I love it.
Perfect way to describe it.
And she, I can't remember the year, but she won, so it's always a female
and a male winner, and she won for the entire, she won the whole thing.
And nowadays what happens to a winner of the Jimmy Awards is they kind
of immediately get signed by CAA.
Um.
And which is like, uh, an agency, right?
It is the biggest, largest, like conglomerate agency in the world.
Every major star you can think of is represented either by them or UTA
or sometimes like right paradigm or something like three major agencies.
And at play for really big stars.
So huge, huge opportunity for these kids, these literal 18 year olds who
are like going to go to school for musical theater to win this competition.
So from there, she was immediately a replacement for the mean girls musical,
which at the time was running on Broadway.
She was the first Regina, first full time Regina replacement, right?
So she did that at 18 drew.
I don't think I knew that she was that young.
Yeah, 18, 19 probably.
So didn't go to college.
Did not go to college.
And Certainly made the right choice as we are now, um, sort of
witness to college is still there.
She can go.
She can do whatever she wants.
Um, but so she replaced an actress named Taylor Louderman, who was
the original Regina George, right?
And went in to.
Critical acclaim is, you know, built this incredible fan base and usually a Jimmy
Award winner is already acquiring this like really large, younger fan base and
Mean Girls, the zeitgeist around that at the time was really, really strong.
Um, it sort of did first with the new movie attempted at the
very least to achieve, which was presenting this story for a new
generation and for a new audience.
Right.
While the musical wasn't nearly as inclusive or progressive in the sense
of, like, gender representation, um, queer representation, et cetera, as
the film is, um, I think it definitely resonated differently with the audience
that was going to see it, which were contemporaries of Rene's age at the time.
Yeah, it was like the, it was like the early, or like the elder Gen Zs who,
like, couldn't, like, weren't driving yet, and their parents were taking
them to the show kind of thing, right?
Totally.
I wasn't in the area at the time to know if Millennials
were interested in the show.
Like, we're You're you're a younger millennial, right?
I am a younger millennial.
Yeah, sort of on the cusp if you will But I think it was it was it's difficult
for me because I had a lot of very good friends that were in the show Ah, so
that was my way in was really I didn't have strong buy in to the fact that
it was the mean girls musical aside from loving the movie and Remembering
when the movie came out and yeah being interested in the very least of sort
of how Tina Fey would adapt this Um, cultural phenomenon of a film into a
musical, I'm not always a huge proponent of that being done and I don't think
it's typically done very successfully.
Perhaps I need to unpack what that means for my like,
relationship to musical theater.
Well, and every time that happens, no, I don't, I mean, maybe, but I think
every time that happens it's also like one fewer original screen, uh, script
that is getting shelved because they're, they're adapting something, right?
So like there's this whole other world of creatives that are like, oh great,
we're doing another movie musical, right?
Yeah.
It always begs the question, why, right?
Why?
Um, there's some wonderful music for folks that are into theater
soundtracks or like show tunes.
There's some phenomenal.
There's a song at the very beginning of the show called It
Roars that I will always listen to.
It is Vocally, um, Erika Hennigsen, who plays, um, the Katie role,
phenomenal singer, incredible.
The production's great.
I mean, it's just, it's very wonderful music, I think.
But, to bring Renee back into it, from what she has very explicitly divulged
from her time at that show, which kind of was the beginning, the catapult of
her career as an actor, and especially as a pop star, as a pop singer.
Was that it was not at all a safe environment for her to be in.
I think that she has been on record saying she was like in the L.
A.
Times or the New York Times.
There was a lot of shaming of her body.
And she is an incredibly gorgeous young woman, which really is just
like a call to action, more so for the way we talk about women's bodies and
the way that we shouldn't talk about women's bodies, especially young women.
She had a terrible time in that show, and I think vowed at that
moment kind of never to do.
theater again, not that that was even really her passion or her main focus.
So, but before that, she had, I believe another interview of
hers, I forget where it was from.
She had been asked first before pre Broadway to join the tour
that was already happening.
And she, I think fully said no and she did was unconcerned, was
unbothered because she was like, well, this is not really what I'm trying
to like plant my flag in anyway.
And then I think they.
Her talent speaks for itself.
They liked her enough that they were like, okay, a few months later,
however long it was, they needed a replacement for Taylor on Broadway.
And they said, will you do it on Broadway?
And I think she was like, Yes.
Begrudgingly, yes.
Right.
And like, and that really speaks to both like the power you achieve immediately
if you're like a Jimmy award winner, like you are able to leverage these decisions.
I see.
These very, like, and you know, these, these long running shows, Mean Girls
is closed and is, isn't considered, I think, like a long running show.
It ran decently.
Couple years.
But, you know, these casting teams, these creative teams, will try you
out, essentially, on the road, before they're willing to bring you into,
like, the established Broadway.
Cast.
I see.
Um, they do it all the time with Wicked.
It's like you, you're never gonna be an Elphaba or a Glinda in Wicked unless
you've done it on the tour first.
Essentially, there's like real, this very prescribed pipeline
for how you're going to become.
I don't think I knew that.
Yeah, it's interesting for sure.
Um, it's a little bit irritating, especially when people have
Pretty established careers.
And so I think people probably were frustrated with someone like Renee Rapp,
who had no professional theater credits at the time, regardless of that, like
she ate the fucking house down and like the clips of her singing in that show are
some of the best that exist currently.
A hundred percent.
Just amazing.
But wait, here's a little bit of, this is a three year ago clip.
I saw this sometime in the early.
The early part of my awareness of her and I was like, oh, I didn't realize
this pop album was this girl This is now three or four years old And this isn't so
they give Regina some like serious songs like I my reaction to the movie musical
and I don't know if this would be the musical too because I haven't seen it is
like Katie's not the lead character like Regina's the lead character and maybe
specifically Renee as Regina she sucks the air out of the room not in a negative
way, but like Everyone's just waiting for her to compete with her and Janice
like the the Janice songs are really big as well But especially in the movie,
I think because she is the most cachet They trimmed the track list down and
they like left Regina's belters in they majorly trimmed it down for they did not
leave the one That you mentioned earlier.
I don't think Andy makes sense It doesn't need to be right and some
of the ones that did make it are shorter like they took intros out or
segments out but anyway, this was This is, uh, Someone Gets Hurt, which is
like Regina's, like, scream belter.
Yes, they do that.
This is performance.
This is all self defense.
I thought you had the sense.
She's good.
She's really good.
She's 19 years old.
Couldn't be more, really.
I don't think.
Come
on, piano.
Piano.
Jinx.
She like screams the ending, uh, she does.
She's that, that is a scrouty run.
I mean, I feel like when you're young and you're in that position, you just
scrouting is like the first instinct.
Uh, she seems very trained, but it's coming from, it seems like
a lot of it's coming from here.
And these days it sounds like she's mixing a lot more and it seems a little
bit healthier, but it's so powerful.
Like that's so much power coming out of a child.
It's a skill that she's always clearly had, is like to sing exceptionally well,
like better than anyone else in the room.
But of course if you're a lead on Broadway, especially the lead in like
a Tina Fey led musical, you have no, you have no resource spared for you.
Like you're seeing the best voice teachers, you're getting like lymphatic
drainage massages every single week, like you are able to perform at a higher level.
And it's also it's exceptionally difficult work to do an eight show a week schedule.
Um, so I think that's to have like four songs that are like in that
sound just that are at that, like that are in that sit there consistently.
And so I think it's often why people as good as Renee are, and as acclaimed as
her and who have the kind of fame that she does don't really want to go back to
Broadway because it is so difficult to do.
Drew, do you want to send your, your cash app or your Venmo to the listeners?
Absolutely.
Drew dash car.
Who ares?
He said yes.
I got to make, I got to make some money back.
That was expensive.
This meeting has been upgraded.
Did you see that?
I literally.
I am so proud.
I, uh, Capitalism.
Girl!
I just extended this content live.
That's a funny way I didn't expect a tech career to serve me.
I can do anything during a meeting.
For those folks that know of Rene just through the movie musical, which I think
is going to be a lot of people and makes complete sense if you aren't like deeply
in the theater world or for some reason on to the pop album on the early side.
What's cool, I kind of realized this when I was comparing the soundtracks of the
movie musical to the theatrical musical.
I forgot.
She didn't get to record any of the mean girls music at all.
Like the couple of the thing we just played was from like a broadway dot com
video of like, Oh, look at our new star.
But now she actually gets some recordings through the movie, which is cool.
Have you seen the film yet?
Drew, do you intend to?
I have not.
And I Frankly don't think I will.
Um, yeah, that's fair.
Yeah.
May, if it comes to streaming, I'll, I'll watch it on like Netflix or whatever.
Well, these days they come to streaming like two weeks later.
Yeah.
They're still in the theater.
It's like it should there today probably.
I'll check.
Yeah.
, I will say I was laughing and giggling so much.
And I looked around and I was like, this is the millennial nursing
home is like this movie theater.
Like we're all out to pasture.
And I was like, Oh no, maybe we can segue to like vocal technique
a little bit, because I know that, you know, so much about it.
Wait, that's my degree in vocal performance.
Everyone.
Hi, she's educated.
Does everyone see that?
Right there.
So we listened to the recording of Someone Gets Hurt, which is old.
Maybe we can like, put a little bit in of the new one from the movie musical.
Oh yeah.
Let me pull that up, just a quick sec.
She has a very natural vibrato.
Mhmm.
Like a husky vibrato.
It's meaty.
I Remember in the movie, that's a pop song.
It's a pop song exactly She took out in the three year ago video that we played
she was doing more trails more She was doing the most so to speak and in them
and in this she took Out a lot of things and just left like one or two little
little things in and it was like, oh, like razor sharp The payoff is strong.
I had the same reaction What do you hear when you hear her sing
like these theatrical songs?
Like what what kind of vocalist does she like present as to you?
Like this is a score of exclusively pop music.
Like it lends itself to theatricality more than like a normal pop album would.
But like, you have to be able to sing pop music very well to sing
the score of Mean Girls well.
You know, I saw Renee do this live.
Renee can sing anything and like the way she navigates like the
different parts of her voice, like her sort of chesty belt versus her
registers, falsetto and her head voice.
indicates to even like an uneducated listener, she can sing anything.
Um, and, and she also has that thing.
And she had this live too, where you never worry about whether
or not she will make it through.
Oh my God.
I'm so glad you said that.
I've never really put words to that, but she is that singer.
Yeah.
You have no anxiety about her, her ability to perform something that might
sound difficult to sing or execute.
Can I look at the visual cues of how they sing and understand that there's like a
technique there because it is a visual thing to a certain extent you have someone
literally like watching the way that they're yeah watching the way that they're
like where their tension lies you know not to say that it Needs to be perfect
and not to say that like someone needs to have Uh an irritating degree from like
nyu to be able to like sing on broadway.
That's certainly not true In fact often not true right often not true
in fact I think there's a lot of harm that this big expensive piece of paper
did to me as a singer but I think, yeah, like, it's, it's the thing my
friends and I talk about the most.
Like, I have a friend on tour right now, and we talk all the time about, you know,
she covers some different roles in this particular show, and they're both, like,
her ensemble track is very dance heavy.
She's like a remarkable dancer, but she's also an incredible singer.
So she has to, you know, sort of hop into these different ideas and these
different like mentalities around how she's going to perform that particular
role that she's like swinging into or understudies, which are like way more
singer heavy than they are dance heavy.
And yeah, it's like you have to know how to be able to do that
if you want to do your job well and do it eight times a week.
Totally.
I think the like knowing how to do your job well is, is the, to me, fundamentally.
generally net positive training of being in the theater world.
Like you have to become athletic about whatever it is you're doing.
And like you're saying, it's just, it's often just a mindset switch.
Being able to like pull those levers.
That's the stuff that I think creatives in just the music industry don't always know.
They don't understand their capabilities.
They, it just billows out of them.
And like, oftentimes like steamrolls them.
They don't know what to do with it.
And yeah, they oftentimes like have really difficult lifestyles and are really hard
to get along with because they like.
Don't have that sort of like internal self knowledge of like, now I'm
doing this, now I'm doing this.
And this is what I need to do if I need to get in gear for this.
So I see that as like, just being able to start the car or like change the
gears in all of the ways you're talking about as such an asset, even if Renee
did it for like, I don't know, however many accumulated years she's done.
Maybe she'll never do it again.
I think that's going to serve her in touring as a musician, which is anyone
that's just a musician in a way, or just goes to recording artistry.
They're at the mercy of their creativity.
They don't necessarily know how to, how to like, turn on, off or shift, you know?
So I think like the, the sense that I like the way you said, you,
you trust Renee, like, you know, she's going to hit it or whatever.
That is like a byproduct of anyone that is trained enough to know how to like
kick it into high gear, so to speak.
Like, if I may kind of put a look, offer a critique on another sort of contemporary
of us Renee's in this way is Miss Ariana Grande, whom obviously began her before
her professional performing career.
in musical theater.
And it's really interesting, you know, having a lot of mutual friends with her.
Like I, I do not know her.
What I find interesting about Ariana's recorded music.
And I'm so, so interested to see how, and if this changes with
the release of wicked, the film is that is my, that's my biggest
gripe with Ariana's recorded music.
And it's why I think that I, uh, I find this real respite
as a singer myself in Renee's.
album is that Renee is never hiding the fact that she is a singer with
this unbelievable instrument that can do all of these impressive things.
And she was able to work with producers, work with co songwriters
for this particular album that that ability in a way that doesn't feel
derivative of pop music or harkens towards theatrical music too much.
I couldn't agree more.
It is.
It is the rarest of rare, like fine lines that does often not get executed well.
It is that.
So now we're on RenÃ©e's 2023 album, Snow Angel, which I think she, one of the songs
from SNL last night promoted this, right?
Yeah.
This is Talk Too Much.
Like she has the presence of a singer already.
She's possessing, but then she's like, but I have the range though.
Come on, layer those vocals, girl.
Sing high and loud.
I hear so much and talk too much, especially when those
like upper harmonies come in.
She's so masky and facey in a very trained way, but she's
loud, like loud in the best way.
I love a loud singer.
This is I Hate Boston, which is, I believe, not about Boston.
It's just an avatar for a place that an ex lived.
Just the melodies as well as the songs are so beautiful.
They really are captivating.
And that is going to be a signature for her, that That like registration change.
She does it a lot.
It's yummy.
It's really yummy.
It is yummy.
Mixed belt, ladies and gentlemen.
That's how you do it.
That's a mixed belt.
It's coming from throat, it's coming from face, and she can do that all day.
She can do that in her sleep.
Yeah.
Damn.
That's so good.
It also sounds like the other song that had Boston in it that
was a very, very millennial song.
Um, this may predate you, Drew.
Uh, Let's see.
You probably, you hear this, if you need to just find this in the
wild, just go fill a prescription at a Duane Reade or a CVS.
Amazing.
You know what I mean?
It's on the prescription sound fray from the very first notes it's Very fray.
It's very fray.
All these bands wrote in the same key for some reason.
This is the fray.
It is pre fray.
This has to be the fray.
This is pre fray.
Okay, so fray pirated this.
Augustana walked so that the fray could do whatever they did.
I don't, you could call it run.
Maybe a jog.
It's a little light jog for me.
Maybe I did actually always think that was the fray, so.
Sorry you guys, now I know.
And then maybe the last piece of, like, recorded vocal technique
of Rene that I pulled up.
Have you seen this?
Her singing with Jennifer Hudson on the Jennifer Hudson talk show?
Of course I have.
Okay, I know.
But of course.
I didn't mean for that to be an offensive homosexual question, you know what I mean?
Oh my god, I get to sing with her!
Like, these two powerhouse singers together is so fun.
Singing D.
I.
L.
In a way, Jennifer's voice is like too big for this.
This is not the It is.
She sounds amazing, but this isn't right for her.
But then Renee just like, She kind of eats her up in a way.
She does.
People are cheering.
I love that girl.
Girl!
They're both seated, also, it's so funny.
They're just so casual.
Piano player did not learn the right chord there.
Ah, yeah, ah!
God, I love her.
She's got meat in her voice.
I will say, in that clip, in the chorus specifically, I mean, she's obviously
just like going off on a talk show, and who knows if she even warmed up.
She sounds amazing.
I would never say she doesn't sound amazing, but it is a little over the
line of it seems like she's overpowering the song, but that's kind of it.
Definitely.
The listen to it is like, there's a little bit of push there.
I would imagine that she's, you know, see, she seated, she's probably nervous
to be singing with Jennifer Hudson.
Like there's a lot of elements there.
And probably that was so early in the day or like after multiple different
talk show appearances she'd been on.
Which like obviously to us as like trained listeners to the way people sing like you
can hear that and you also can hear like a real like formant difference between
her and Jennifer's voice like Jennifer sits like a little bit further back in
her throat and she like her vowels are a little bit flatter and a little bit
wider and I think that probably comes from like where she started singing and
like the nature by which she started singing which like definitely was like
gospel music and like in the church and That's also what her voice does so well.
Um, and like Renee's is like pitched a little bit more forward.
Like her vowels are a little bit more closed, which also is like indicative.
Both cases are indicative of like well trained singers.
It's like knowing how to sort of manipulate words, manipulate.
Words on notes and vowels on particular notes that are higher
that you're able to, like, actually get out and make sound good.
And for Renee to hold her own with her is like, it's cool.
That's amazing.
As a pop singer.
Do you?
So I hear Renee's lane thinking less about her voice and just more about like
the genre and like what, what it's what it sounded like as packaged towards.
To me, it sounded like, okay, we have Olivia out there.
Olivia Rodrigo killing it in this like pop.
Pop punk punk pop, like I don't know what I'll pop rock resurgence in a
way like doing the like Kelly Clarkson Atlanta's Morrisette thing that every
20 years like we get excited about a girl with a guitar, which I'm raising
my hand I love that genre It's my literally probably one of my favorite
pop genres And it seems like every time someone hits it super big like that.
They need another one.
They need a Not an enemy, just like someone else, like an alternate.
Like the NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys.
When I heard Renee, I was like, Oh, word!
Like, now we have like, someone who's like a muscular singer
gonna take this genre on.
Olivia can sing her ass off, she's a great singer, but like, Renee
is a different kind of singer.
That's how it stands to me.
But hearing, like her, her Conversation with Jennifer Hudson.
She talked a lot about wanting to make an R& B album and that R& B She cites
all of her references of her inspirations are like Jasmine Sullivan and she talks
about J Hud as being an inspiration Like do you think that that's where she's
going and would you want her to go there?
I think that would likely be a sophomore album pitch for her would be to go still
pop but like much more R& B influenced because I think what would there
would be based solely off of Renee's capabilities and also the way she talks
about music I think that there would be like the respect and homage paid to
that genre of music in the same way that I think You know, Christina Aguilera
was able to do pretty well, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.
She's also had the stamp of approval of like Aretha and Patti LaBelle,
like, they, like these women who are, you know, powerhouses of the
genre, think that she belongs there.
My only hesitation with a RenÃ©e, like RenÃ©e at this point just being an avatar
of like a young white woman who's like an absolutely extraordinarily talented
singer Making an R& B album like choosing to make an R& B album Um, I just have this
instinct that every for every RenÃ©e that gets to actually commercially release What
will probably succeed no matter what it is uh an R& B album there's like Dozens and
dozens of equally as if not differently or more talented Females of color that
are like here we go again Like another christina aguilera for the 2020s kind of
thing read a book that actually touches on this And uses it's like a book of
essays and it uses christina aguilera's back to basics essentially that That
particular album and that particular moment of her career is like a really
cut and dry example of what so many white artists do, which is sort of usurp and
take the art of black singers, the art of black artists, the historical art,
all that comes with that, particularly R& B and soul music in particular, and use
it for their benefit and then ultimately shed that And have a return to basics,
as is like very explicitly demonstrated in the, albeit very good, incredible
album, Back to Basics by Christina.
Where she, you know, takes on this sort of like, pin up 1950s,
um, desirable white woman.
So I think, yeah, and I think another like, a modern example that I'm constantly
in discussion with my friends about now is like, the Victoria Monet of it all.
Oh my god.
Um.
And just because of the, the sheer nature of the industry, the racism of the
industry, the, the, the, just the phobias that the industry has baked into it.
Like you can't break in until someone like decides to make on
my mama go viral on tick tock.
I learned because, uh, when Ariana was promoting briefly the 10th
anniversary of her first album.
During her filming of Wicked, she did like live sessions of
a few songs from yours truly.
And then, I don't know how, because at the time I had no social media, I found that
many of those songs were demoed, written by, demoed for, and like constructed
for Jordan Sparks third or fourth album.
And then it's, you read the comments and then you realize
like it's yet another example.
No, no shade to anyone involved.
It's just like, it's yet another example of Extraordinarily talented black woman.
This woman won American Idol.
She like and is an Exceptional fucking song like her career looks nothing
like Arianna's and this would have been her fourth album I think and instead
whoever the powers that be and maybe she didn't want it I don't know but
like the it just moved over to this like little cupcake dress wearing white
girls a little infantilized woman this little white girl who can sing really
well, but Renee getting into R& B and talking about R& B references, I want
her to do what she is so inspired by and talented at, but at the same time, it
just feels like we've been here before.
There's so many women trying to do that same thing right now, and like, she'll,
she's gonna be the one that's like, Not just the one, but a one that's just
able to do it because of who she is.
Do you think Renee is positioned to, like, do you, is what you hear from
Renee, a woman, like a young woman that is singing with her voice and
like is unaffected comparatively?
Yes.
Yes, I think, and I think that's why I loved it so much.
And what I was also the most worried about from her moving into a pop
space, like, I mean, we got her EP, her, Rene's EP before, which is also
like, I think it's five songs, right?
Which are also wonderful, wonderful songs.
The first one being, um, I can't be.
Uh, what?
Oh, God, everything to everyone.
Yeah, everything to everyone.
And there's an she also released an extended version of that because
that one is like acapella on the EP, which it's like, that I think is a
really good example of Renee singing pop music, quote unquote, affected
with still her beautiful voice.
Kind of has that like 80s synth sound.
This is very pretty and at the same time I'm glad this is not the predominant
style of her album because I think this, to an untrained listener,
gets lost in the genre shuffle.
I think this sounds more like radio music in a way.
This is so beautiful but The like, sad girl of it all.
Like, not that it's not legit, but It has that Billie Eilish
effect of like, you know, she ages herself explicitly in her album.
She has a song called 23, um, and it's about her Jordan year, her being 23,
and it's like, me listening to that at my big age, I'm like, oh my god, this
girl is like I've got four years on you.
Girl, I know, but that's okay.
It's okay.
We're still so young, too.
I know, we're young.
We're so young.
I know, it does kind of, like, beg the reality that, like, there's kind
of only so much hyper criticism and, like, editorializing that can be
done about someone that's this age.
Yeah.
Because she is, uh, she's so young that she is as much just a product of All
the things that raised her and taught her and the environments that she's been
in like Who has their, I mean, I'm not saying no one, but who has their own
voice, their own everything at, at 22, 23, like we shouldn't expect anything.
Yeah.
And I hope that she doesn't because like, then what, what do we have
to look forward to from her?
Like grow into it for sure.
For sure.
I see her as already having successfully crossed over from
theatrical music into pop music.
I think the mean girls.
movie is helping her do it.
Like you said, it was already like a pop music musical, so it's not a huge stretch.
In the canon though, of theater singers trying to have pop careers, there's
fewer successes than there are like middling or, or just like failures.
And yeah.
How do you think she stands up against some of the ones we've seen more recently?
Like, I mean, I'm not in this world like you are, but like Ben Platt obviously
made a huge turn into pop music.
He's toward it.
Idina is trying to be a house house girl.
He's trying some, she's really trying.
I saw her at WeHo Pride.
Yeah.
The gays were really there to support her.
And like Cynthia, Cynthia Erivo very much.
I think China has already made an album that.
As a diehard fan of her voice as I am, I haven't listened to this album.
So like, what, what is it about this that generally doesn't work?
And do you think it's going to work differently or better for Renee?
I mean, I think it's probably just using those three examples you gave.
I think it will and already has worked better for her.
I also think with the exception of Cynthia, like what I think about
Cynthia is that she's actually making more of a career and has made more
of a conscious pivot into being.
Like a, as a movie star, she's in Hollywood, like she is like a two
time Oscar nominated like once for a performance and also that same
exact year for best song, but like, speaking more, it's like, I guess the
Ben Platt's the Idina Menzel's, um, and I'll exclude Ariana from this,
I think just because like, she is so much, she's at a much higher place in
her pop career than either of them.
Yeah.
I think Renee just simply has the package that works a little bit
better from a marketing perspective.
And that is maybe unfortunate, but I think is also a very
clear reality of the industry.
It's like she's young, she's hot, she's blonde.
She actually can saying and she's also funny and she's queer like she has a lot
of interesting fan bases yeah and as sort of like queer celebrities are having queer
celebrities are having a moment um we'll see how long it lasts every every like
10 years they're sort of like oh yeah gay people what's what's going on with gay
people let's see and then they're like too much we look bring the straights back
in oh I think that, like, she checks all the boxes in the perfect amount of ways.
I think, I mean, Ben Platt, I, I'm not a huge fan of his, of
the music that he's released.
There are a couple songs that I think are really great.
And I think that he is so talented and also king of nepo babies.
So rock on Lord of the nepo dominion.
I mean, he's just own it and move on.
I mean, yeah, I think Yeah, I, I think Renee will have a successful
transitive career into pop music.
The only other one obviously being Ariana.
And I think people need to be a little bit more afraid.
Like I say this as a joke mostly, but I also find it to be funny.
I'm like, whenever she's released her EP, I was talking to my good
friend Jenna, who I hope will listen to this and watch and get a kick.
Hi Jenna.
She, um, I was like, people need to be more scared of Renee.
This is a hot queer.
Uber talented girl, new girl on the scene.
And she can sing circles around everybody else.
Like, I, if I were a girl, if I, it's like Kelly Clarkson covering someone's song.
Yeah, you're like, If I released a song, I'd say have, have fun with it.
If you're Kelly Clarkson, don't fucking touch this.
Because it's going to be better than anything I've Yeah, it's lights for us.
Like, it's just what she does.
Renee is un Bothered like completely the interview affect whether we believe it to
be real like she's just going off script saying things that she shouldn't like
She's kind of making I hate saying like making a brand out of her But her like
what she's kind of building her brand on is that she'll just say whatever Yeah,
like she's playful like she's like I said no to mean girls and they at they
called me again And then I was like, yes like I kind of, I kind of love it.
I do too.
That's the part of Gen Z that I'm like, there is something there.
She's like seemingly successfully unbothered.
They've like figured it out.
She doesn't care.
We can learn something from that.
I loved the way, I like the way she talks about her music.
And I think that it's, Same.
Having watched her from an 18 year old dancing on the Minskoff stage
for the Jimmy Awards up until now.
Like, the evolution is, like, for all intents, in the grand scheme of
things, very, very short amount of time.
Like, this has happened in five years.
Comparing her to Ariana is interesting.
I am so out of that world in a way that I've never thought
of Ariana as a theater person.
Or maybe just because she was there so briefly or so young.
But, like, it does seem in your formula, like, that the two of them
might be, like, the ones that got out into their pop career successfully.
Do you think it's like the less time you spend in theater, the better?
Like every additional show you do, like pulls you more into the show
world and away from the, the pop world?
Absolutely.
And I think that that's exactly what I think that she used the formula
that Ariana unknowingly created.
I did one Broadway show.
People really liked me in it.
People heard I did really well and it gave me the opportunity.
I was able then to leverage the opportunities that came my way because
I had that one singular credit.
And luckily there were people like Tina Fey attached.
And so I think that five years later, five years down the line from now, we
will culturally have forgotten that she was ever in a musical at all.
Totally.
She, I don't know.
It was, it must've been in one of the interviews for Mean
Girls that I saw recently.
And she, I don't think Renee is playing Coachella, but a lot of her
contemporaries in the pop world are.
I could be wrong about this.
I think she is playing Coachella.
Maybe she's playing it.
But they were asking her, they, she must be because they were asking her,
um, Are you excited for Coachella?
And she was like, I'm so excited to see, like, my girls are there.
And she named Sabrina Carpenter and Chapel Roan.
And I, I'm not trying to stir anything.
Also, I'm small fish.
Who the fuck cares?
But Sabrina being like the nemesis of Or the anti hero of Olivia.
And Olivia being my original, like, counterpart to Rene.
I'm like, oh, are there sides?
But then Chaperone, do you know who Chaperone is?
Of fucking course.
Okay, well Chaperone is like the original muse of Olivia's producer Dan
Nigro's, like, self Uh, he made a label literally just for Olivia, I think.
But his, like, Aesthetic muse to like become then the producer that was ready
for Olivia was Chapel Roan, and I'm wondering like does Olivia acknowledge
or hate or like Chapel and like is Chapel on Olivia's side or Sabrina's are there
sides and now I'm like, oh no because I'm still Toxically or otherwise like
in Olivia's camp for whatever reason and now I'm like, oh, I hope I hope I don't
have to like forget this in order to continue to enjoy These women's music.
I'm not a sabrina carpenter fan.
So that's like not I have paid absolutely zero attention to
anything she's ever done, and I hardly know what she looks like.
And I think I'll keep it that way, but what I will say that's interesting
about what you mentioned is that Olivia Rodrigo did say that her favorite
album of last year was Snow Angel.
No shit!
Oh my god!
I didn't know that!
She said the album she was listening to and couldn't stop
listening to was Snow Angel.
Drew, you just made my day.
I have a feeling that the majority of this beef is fully orchestrated by the psycho
PR people, and it ultimately has zero to very little to zero basis in reality.
I'm not even joking that I can sleep easier knowing that Olivia has handed
some flowers to Renee because I don't care about the Sabrina Carpenter
beef at all, but I did care about the prospect of this being a beef.
And I'm glad that at least she's not a dog.
I just want all these young women who are making exceptional music to
get along and hopefully collab with each other to make even better music
because that's all I want to see.
I just want to keep listening to really fucking good music.
I just want everyone to get along.
Literally.
And like bake a cake with rainbows.
Say bye Drew!
See you next time!
Bye everyone!