As the single that Addison Rae pointedly chose to release on the same day as her debut album, Addison, “Times Like These” is loaded with intention. Weight. Meaning. Not just in terms of describing how the acceleration of Rae’s image into the spotlight is only further amplifying as she delves headfirst into a music career (pivoting away from the less glam moniker of mere TikTok “star”), but also in terms of being contextualized within the narrative framework of the album. An album that kicks off with a love letter to New York (which, believe it or not, is vexing to some who don’t buy into that oft-overhyped cult), called, naturally, “New York.” Thus, “Times Like These,” directed by photographer Ethan James Green (and, as for this being his first music video, think of it like Herb Ritts transitioning into that medium with Madonna’s “Cherish”), is set in none other than NYC. Or the place that Rae unabashedly refers to as “the Big Apple,” seemingly without the slightest trace of irony in her voice.
And that setting is made almost immediately clear after the initial shot of soothing ocean water pans upward to a tilted view of the New York skyline as the Staten Island Ferry floats away from it. From there, Green takes us inside the ferry to see Addison looking out the window while positioned beside her presumed “special someone” (or maybe he’s just “a” someone she encountered along the way). Considering that Madonna had a significant influence on Addison, it also wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to say that perhaps Rae pulled the “Papa Don’t Preach” video out of her hat before filming this. A video that takes place, during many scenes, on the Staten Island Ferry, with Madonna relishing her own young love scenario (made far more romantic by being soundtracked to the miraculous presence of a violinist, a cellist and a flautist on her ferry).
Except that, in Rae’s case, most of the “young love” being shown is toward herself as she rubs against her own reflection (perhaps hoping that no one will think, while watching, how gross and germ-laden every inch of the ferry is) before then going to the outdoor part of the boat where she can pull a Jack Dawson by getting up on the railing and stretching her arms out. (On a side note, Rae seems to be channeling Jack, yet again, on “Money Is Everything” when she screams, “I’m the richest girl in the world!”)
When she’s done soaking up the sun on the ferry, Addison disembarks, sans the guy she was with. Which certainly says something about how interested she really was in him, whoever he might have been. In fact, it seems that an underlying message of both the video and song is that, more than anything, Addison wants to just keep focusing on her burgeoning career, feeding it with all she has so that it will keep growing and growing. After all, “fame is a gun” and she has no problem “pointing it blind” for the sake of continuing to secure “the glamorous life.” An ambition that also shines through when we see that her destination turns out to be a backstage area (which tracks for a reason to go to Staten Island, apart from checking out Pete Davidson’s basement) where three “director’s chairs” with the words “Addison,” “Freedom” and “Control” written on the back somewhat cheesily indicate the career path Addison wants to take.
After primping in the mirror a bit with a few of her fellow dancers (mainly for the sake of “subtly” promoting an Armani Beauty “cheek tint”), Addison then offers up a scene of choreo (as is usually expected of her) that is very Britney—specifically, in the video for “3.” As she and her backup dancers are giving their everything, Addison sings, “Head out the window, my song on the radio/Head out the window, let’s see how far I go.” This “surrender to whatever life brings” philosophy being in line with an earlier verse in the song that goes, “My life moves faster than me/Can’t feel the ground beneath my feet/No matter what I try to do/In times like these, it’s/It’s how it has to be/It’s not my fate in the end/Let go of all that could’ve been.” More than anything, this sentiment applies to her fame (and yes, her parents’ divorce/generally fraught relationship), and not, say, the insanity of the world at this moment in time. That simply wouldn’t be in keeping with Rae’s hyper-fixation on the personal in her songwriting. Even in something as “general” as “Diet Pepsi,” the single that inaugurated the Addison era. And one that Rae fought to have as the lead for the album, as well as shooting the video for it in black and white (and, like “TLT,” it also has its “in color” period).
Evidently, after wearing the execs down that time, it must have been easy enough to convince them for “Times Like These,” which shifts to black and white at the two-minute-twenty-second mark, just in time for some more choreo for the musical breakdown. And yes, once again, Rae is serving Britney and Madonna, channeling the latter with those vogueing arm movements (and the fact that the video is now in black and white, like the David Fincher-directed “Vogue”). Giving “good face,” as it is said in “Vogue,” while she’s at it. This also done for her first live performance of it at The Box.
As the video comes to a close, Rae has her hair done up “real big, beauty queen-style” while posing in profile against the white photo backdrop. After all, Green is still a photographer above all else, so how could he help taking advantage of such a photo studio setup? Or the final mise-en-scène opportunity that shows Rae “decompressing” after a whirlwind day by lying her head down on the concrete of a rooftop (this, too, conjuring the image of early-era Madonna posing for Richard Corman’s photos on an East Village roof). After all, she has to mentally prepare for tomorrow’s round of exhausting-but-exhilarating events. Hell, maybe even tonight’s.
[…] Addison Rae Goes With the Flow in “Times Like These” Video […]