McRae thought her pop smash was “either going to be a song I throw away or something that is the main single and the main thing on the album.”

Tate McRae performs in Los Angeles on July 11. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

Tate McRae didn’t always see herself as an artist who’d be releasing bangers. But in September 2023, she dropped her single “Greedy” and took the music world by storm.

Debuting a more confident, mature sound compared to her more bedroom-pop adjacent tracks like “You Broke Me First” and “Rubberband,” the hit climbed up the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 3. The song mesmerized fans, as did her accompanying music video, which showed off her dance skills.

“I was actually really scared of ‘Greedy’ when I first wrote it,” she told Yahoo Entertainment. “[My team and the songwriters I work with] were like, ‘What is this genre?’ When we first made it, it sounded so foreign to the other music I’ve made. I was like, ‘I don’t know how to label this song.’ I always would tell my team, ‘This is either going to be a song I throw away or something that is the main single and the main thing on the album.’”

Pop stars are constantly evolving. The sound and image they debut with are seldom the sound and image they maintain as their career reaches new heights.

“I think a lot of people expect a whole rebrand every time, especially [when] a pop girl enters the scene or is starting a new project,” she said. “I always want to be inspired and excited to create a whole new world.”

McRae, 21, thinks about how her music translates visually and what each performance looks like onstage. She told Yahoo that her competitive dance background (McRae made it to the Season 13 finals of So You Think You Can Dance at age 13) largely influenced her gravitation toward a more upbeat sound.

“I was just really focused on writing dance songs because I wanted to make sick [music] videos,” she said of working on her sophomore album, Think Later, which was released in December 2023. “I was just like, ‘Why have I trained for 12 years in competitive dance and haven’t done a sick dance music video yet?’ So I was like, ‘Let’s make a song that’s super fun to move to.’”

Tate McRae during her Los Angeles show on July 11. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
Since kicking off her “Think Later” tour in April, McRae has put her prowess as a dancer on display. With her choreographed numbers and explosive dance breaks, the Canadian star seems to have effectively captured the nostalgia of the late ’90s/early aughts pop stars that came before her, like Britney Spears.

“Britney’s an icon and I adore her. I’ve been inspired by her for so long,” she said. “I think that’s just a very natural thing that everybody does any time a girl releases music. They try to find someone to pinpoint her to or compare her to. Obviously I’m like, ‘Sure. Great comparison.’”

Like Spears, McRae is no stranger to criticism. Some have dismissed her success, attributing her hard work to a boardroom of executives that supposedly crafted her entire persona from scratch. (That didn’t happen, by the way.) But this criticism hasn’t affected McRae. If anything, it’s made her more sure of who she is and the type of artist she wants to be.

Whether she’s writing lyrics that are authentic to her lived experiences or expressing her emotions through dance, McRae, who recently partnered with Invisalign, prioritizes staying true to herself as an artist. But she didn’t always feel confident. She told Yahoo she used to have “horrible teeth” that made her self-conscious about taking the stage.

“I also just never wanted to go through braces because I was dancing and singing on camera all the time. I just wanted something that was really easy and comfortable to use,” she said of the aligners. “Nothing makes me happier than performing onstage and getting to put on a show. It’s my favorite thing on planet Earth.”