It was hard to tell Wednesday if McRae is going to be the next Britney Spears or the next Jennifer Lopez. She’s definitely not the next Sabrina or Charli, even though the 15,000 Tater Tots embraced her like she was.
Like Spears and J. Lo, McRae, who turned 22 last month, is a better dancer than singer. In fact, she’s a terrific dancer. Physical, expressive with articulate movements big and small, the shake of a shoulder, the twitch of an arm, the subtle roll of her hips, the glam strut of a runway model. More nuanced than Janet Jackson, more artful than Dua Lipa, sexier than Madonna, the OG of dancers-turned-singers.
Ultimately, though, it came back to Britney and J. Lo.
* McRae’s voice is breathy and girlish, with a propensity for elongated vowels in her phrasing. On recordings, her voice is often technically manipulated like Spears.’ McRae at least seemed to be singing live on some of the tunes — but not all — on Wednesday, notably on the belted “Siren Sounds”; can’t say that happened in Spears’ arena and Vegas shows.
* McRae favors outfits that show a lot of skin, and she loves provocative poses, especially in her videos. Well, she did don a gown Wednesday for a short set of ballads on a satellite stage.
* She has mastered the hair flip. That gesture worked for a couple of other Canadians — Celine Dion and Shania Twain — back in the day.
* McRae is a seriously trained dancer. She started classes at age 6, attended the School of Alberta Ballet, won national youth dance competitions in 2013 and ’15 and competed on TV’s “So You Think You Can Dance” in ’16. Since 2011, she has had a YouTube channel of her dance and music videos.
* On Wednesday, McRae surrounded herself with eight dancers doing challenging choreography on scaffolding, runways, chairs and other platforms. Despite a Spartan stage with only two musicians and plenty of pyro, the show was so flashy, energetic and visually arresting that sometimes you forgot she was singing. Or rather lip-synching. And she even went for a stripper pole in “Uh Oh.” In any case, this performance oozed a _joie de la danse_.
* Like J. Lo’s, McRae’s singing voice is not distinctive, and her material is generic — though an arena full of young women, mostly under the age of 30, were screaming along even to tunes McRae posted on YouTube when she was 13.
* Like Jenny from the Block, L.A.-based McRae has mastered the hair flip of her honey-hued mane, as mentioned. Swift and Beyoncé certainly perfected that flirty move. But McRae shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as those mega-icons.
* Like J. Lo, McRae has entered the TMZ zone. While Lopez has exited her high-profile marriage to Ben Affleck, McRae split just three weeks ago with Kid Laroi, the Australian singer/rapper whom she’d been dating for about a year. They did manage to record a duet together, “I Know Love.” Oddly, it was broadcast Wednesday after the encore as fans exited. For the record, his new single, “Hot Girl Problems,” was not broadcast between sets by McRae and opening act, Swedish electro-pop singer Zara Larsson, who captured the crowd with “Never Forget You” and “Symphony.”
* By the way, Tater Tots don’t call her T. Mac, but rather Tatey or Taters or simply T8.
McRae’s Miss Possessive Tour show was divided into four segments (with an outfit change for each), embracing material from her three albums as well as her new single from the “F1” film soundtrack, “Just Keep Watching.”
Highlights of her performance included her 2020 breakthrough ballad “You Broke Me First,” 2023’s vibrant “Exes,” the current dizzying “Revolving Doors” and the self-empowering “Blood on My Hands,” during which McRae and her dancers jumped into the pit in front of the stage and posed for selfies while miming blowing blood off their hands.
After 22 songs and countless hair flips in 95 minutes, the confetti-showered fans left Xcel Energy Center buzzing about Tatey as much as about the night’s monumental announcement of a new album by Tay Tay.