{"id":39327,"date":"2025-08-02T06:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T06:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39327\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T06:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T06:09:07","slug":"renee-rapp-bite-me-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39327\/","title":{"rendered":"Rene\u00e9 Rapp: BITE ME Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch Rene\u00e9 Rapp<\/a> talk about herself in interviews, and two things quickly become clear: that she fucks, and that she gives none. Through her stints in youth theater (say hello to your 2018 Jimmy Awards winner<\/a>), Broadway, Hollywood, and aspirant pop stardom, the 25-year-old singer from Huntersville, North Carolina has maintained a sharp-edged aversion to media training of any sort; \u201cpeople have tried,\u201d she recently told<\/a> Vanity Fair. During a memorable press junket appearance promoting the 2024 Mean Girls movie musical, Rapp took the \u201casshole\u201d owner of a tour bus company to task while her co-star buried his head in his hands: \u201cIf you\u2019re watching this, I can\u2019t stand you and I hope your business burns.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stunts around Rapp\u2019s 2023 studio debut, Snow Angel\u2014like an advertisement for a power ballad called \u201cI Hate Boston\u201d on a billboard<\/a> in Boston\u2019s North End\u2014frequently outmatched the personality of the songs themselves. Her new album, BITE ME, wants to change that. \u201cMy ex walked in and my other ex with her,\u201d Rapp deadpans on \u201cLeave Me Alone,\u201d the buzzy, bratty lead single. \u201cThe three of us together, that\u2019s a real tongue twister!\u201d<\/p>\n

Surprising no queer person, queer love and dating are fertile ground for the kind of sticky situations that thrive in pop songwriting. To the coffeeshop strums of \u201cI Can\u2019t Have You Around Me Anymore,\u201d Rapp details a series of compromising encounters with a not-quite-friend, not-quite-lover: \u201cSomehow we always end up naked\/Nothing ever happens, but it still feels real good.\u201d Caught between blas\u00e9 indifference and emotional undressing, she\u2019s the type who can knot a cherry stem with her tongue but often ends up in a tangle.<\/p>\n

Rapp is a vocal powerhouse, but BITE ME tends to waste her talents on its most maudlin ballads. Her remarkable belting in the extended final chorus of \u201cThat\u2019s So Funny\u201d is set against a piano refrain that sounds like it was plinked out by a middle schooler on the family baby grand. \u201cWhy Is She Still Here?\u201d is a Winehouse<\/a>-lite torch song of the sort that landed RAYE<\/a> on the awards show circuit, and proof that raw talent is not always a substitute for taste. Better are the tracks where Rapp can flex her acting chops: On \u201cMad,\u201d she can barely hold back a smirk, and her breathy confession that \u201cI think we almost made a baby\/I mean we can\u2019t, but we came so close\u201d drags \u201cKiss It Kiss It\u201d just beyond the blander side of disco-country. Only the generic \u201980s synth-pop of \u201cGood Girl\u201d wholly resists Rapp\u2019s charms; since when would she promise to have one drink then call it a night?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch Rene\u00e9 Rapp talk about herself in interviews, and two things quickly become clear: that she fucks, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[12327,64,63,134,427,1672],"class_list":{"0":"post-39327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}