The second coming of Addison Rae was first sown last summer, when Charli xcx featured the former TikTok dancer on the remix of her Brat single Von Dutch. Rae’s vocals are fluttery and sugar-sweet, making her an odd fit for such an abrasive song. But there was symbolic significance to Rae’s presence in a track about sticking it to the haters.

“Got a lot to say about my debut,” Rae trills, “while you’re sitting in your dad’s basement!” The 25-year-old star was referring to the backlash that followed her first single, 2021’s generic Obsessed. Back then, she was widely known as one of TikTok’s original young stars, famous for her viral choreography. Her attempts to translate that fame off-platform – that much-maligned single, a role in a dud Netflix film – had only led to widespread derision. But this time, things seemed different. Her proximity to xcx and her alt-pop cool swiftly washed away the sticky juvenilia of Rae’s TikTok fame.

Then came a stream of Rae’s own distinct new singles, each a delight. They recalled the glamour of Ray of Light-era Madonna, the insouciance of Britney, the misty nostalgia of Lana Del Rey; Diet Pepsi sounded like a true Lana homage, a breathy synth-pop track about lost innocence, fast cars, and the cherry-cola romance of being an American girl. Aquamarine turned up the tempo in a Europop-style banger straight out of a glitter-strewn 90s nightclub, while still infused with Rae’s girlish effervescence – a quality that was swiftly becoming her brand. Fame Is a Gun was another statement of purpose from someone intent on becoming a bona fide star: “When you shame me, it makes me want it more,” Rae sang. “I got a taste for the glamorous life!”

Her debut album, Addison, was co-produced and co-written by Max Martin proteges Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser – also twentysomethings who grew up with a love for 2000s pop. (To have a major-label pop debut helmed by three women is pretty much unheard of.) It was a culmination of all that the singles had teased: dreamy synth-pop that was weirder and more interesting than expected. Opener New York begins sounding floaty and fizzy, but ends in a pummelling explosion of chaos; High Fashion and Times Like These were an experimental hallucination of trip-hop and R&B. The fact that Arca remixed Aquamarine says it all.

The pleasures Rae sang about, however, were far simpler. The gauzy, romantic Summer Forever distils the vibe: how fun it is, to be “young, dumb and cute / Nothing to lose”; elsewhere, she sings about the frothy delights of materialism and the sugar rush of love. In the Rain gives a brief glimpse of what lies under the mask (“I cry only in the rain”) before she shrugs it off with a savvy ingenue’s smile: “Turning my tears into gold.” The record’s mix of hedonism and nostalgia, its proud anti-lore depthlessness and hunger for sensation, feel like very 2025 techniques for survival via distraction. Rae takes up the showgirl’s allergy to dwelling on sadness in favour of, as she put it in her album’s mood board, delivering “glitter”, “intensity”, “dance”. (The year’s other banner showgirl album is absent from our Top 50, its more conventional sound and embittered axe-grinding failing to draw a single vote.)

Rarely has a rebrand been so swift and so successful; Rae’s debut tour this year sold out in seconds. As an opener to Lana Del Rey’s show at Wembley stadium this summer, she seemed stunned to be performing to such a vast crowd: I’ve never seen a stadium so full for a support act so early, nor heard screeching as loud as when Del Rey welcomed Rae on to perform Diet Pepsi with her. Few would have seen this coming. And yet Addison has emerged as a rare bright spot in a long year, delivering a much-needed cavalcade of glitter and glamour.