Tate McRae isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. There’s nothing you haven’t heard before on ‘Think Later’, from its nods to ‘Beauty Behind The Madness’-era The Weeknd and the darkly-lit vulnerability of Billie Eilish, or its embrace of PVRIS-style electro rock, but she does most of it really, really well.
McRae and her army of top tier pop songwriters and producers — including Ryan Tedder, Amy Allen, and Greg Kurstin — throw a lot at the wall here and, of course, not all of it sticks. Messier’s glimmering synths and silkily-strummed acoustics stray too deep into ‘X-Factor Semi-Finalist’ territory, while the title track trades in beats you’ve heard a billion times before.
But a lot of it does stick and across a tightly-wound 40 minutes of pop music that makes a real difference.
Where ‘Think Later’ really shines is in the way McRae melts life’s deeper problems into digestible songs that spin from club-ready basslines to slick country-pop.
You can tick all the themes off your pop bingo card, from getting lost in the moment to wanting something you can’t have, but her tongue-in-cheek takes on empowerment, the music industry being manipulative, and disillusionment with a glamorous lifestyle are messages we can all take into every aspect of our life. If last year’s ‘I Used To Think I Could Fly’ felt like freshers week, ‘Think Later’ is the sound of McRae graduating with flying colours.
Tate McRae Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed April 17 2024 - DUBLIN 3Olympia Theatre
Thu April 18 2024 - DUBLIN 3Olympia Theatre
Sat April 20 2024 - GLASGOW O2 Academy Glasgow
Mon April 22 2024 - LONDON Eventim Apollo
Tue April 23 2024 - LONDON Eventim Apollo
Wed April 24 2024 - MANCHESTER O2 Apollo
Fri April 26 2024 - WOLVERHAMPTON Civic at the Halls
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