Dubbed the “song of the summer” by one TikTok user, Leave Me Alone kicked off Reneé Rapp’s sophomore album and biggest project yet: Bite Me. Released on Friday, Aug. 1, Bite Me is a camp, catchy yet vulnerable album reminiscent of club vibes — both of the flashing disco lights and lipstick-stained bathroom regrets — as well as the hangover aftermath the next morning. With 12 tracks, Bite Me leans into Rapp’s well-known cheeky personality and balances snappy one-liners with deliciously vulnerable tracks.
Bite Me is happier than her debut album, Snow Angel. While Snow Angel was rich with emotional ballads and belting that showcased Rapp’s extensive Broadway experience, Bite Me emphasizes her honed acting skills from the Mean Girls reboot and TV show The Sex Lives of College Girls. Rapp has always been skilled at expressing emotions through music, and Bite Me is no different. The album, however, is more than a journey through Rapp’s emotions; it’s breaking the mold in the queer pop space. Most mainstream sapphic artists are pushed into the “sad girl indie” genre to remain marketable, but Rapp has chosen to enter her “brat” era, fully embracing her non-media trained personality as she balances upbeat music, clever lyrics, and candid discussion of her life.
The “sad girl indie” genre leans into feelings of sadness, yearning, depression, breakups, religious trauma, womanhood, loneliness, pain, and anger. Devoid of intimacy or lighthearted outlooks, many sapphic tracks that rise to stardom lean more mellow — both lyrically and instrumentally — so artists can fit into the coveted “sad girl”. Official Spotify editors also incentivize this, consistently updating editorial playlists such as “Sad Girl Mix” and “sad girl starter pack”. However, mainstream sapphic artists don’t lean toward this vibe simply for the love of the game. Branding themselves as a “sad girl” keeps them marketable and on the charts longer.
In their playlist description, Spotify describes sad girl music as “sapphic songs” with “yearning”, featuring songs like Picture You by Chappell Roan, Ankles by Lucy Dacus, and Sailor Song by Gigi Perez. A system wrought with capitalism, the music industry is no stranger to boxing artists within a specific sound. Artists like Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers, and Julien Baker produce more mellow music, often with deep topics and meaningful discussion. However, the issue does not lie within the music labeled as “sad girl indie”; it lies in the classification and commodification of this music, bringing the discussion to the overwhelming number of sapphic artists who have experienced this expectation — and how Rapp has been able to escape the box.
For two years, fans expected an album of gut-wrenching ballads reminiscent of Snow Angel and her EP, Everything to Everyone. But in classic Rapp fashion, she subverted expectations by channeling her authentic personality through Bite Me. The album breaks boundaries with a dozen tracks of her internal, emotional monologue, told through cheeky lyrics and an upbeat vibe. The songs are exciting, upbeat, and unique, not shying away from using guitar, bass, keyboards, and loud drums to amplify the sound. Although a few tracks are on the quieter side, the topics conveyed through the lyrics deviate from the norm, portraying messages of acceptance and moving on from relationships — a far cry from the yearning that sapphic music and artists are reduced to.
With tracks such as Leave Me Alone, Mad, and Kiss It Kiss It, the album is a contender for the definition of camp. Leave Me Alone immediately drew listeners in with its first lyric: “I’m a real bad girl but a real good kisser”. Embracing the unserious vibe, the corresponding music video features an interesting yet confusing amalgamation of feathers, beds, queer artists, sleepover essentials, and blood. Rapp goes as far to make a playful jab to her stint on the hit TV show The Sex Lives of College Girls while feathers are flying around her in the music video. What truly drove her new musical persona home was likely one of the final lines, “My ex walked in and my other ex with her”, going on to sing “Put the three of us together, that’s a real tongue twister”. Leave Me Alone was first released as a single while Rapp built hype for the album; the uniqueness and playfulness of the track was a key part in defining the marketing, promotion, and personality of her new album.
Written in Malibu, Florida, Mad’s cheeky lyrics perfectly represent the city in which it was written in. Addressing a failed romance, Mad strayed from the typical sad and painful angle that many sapphic pop artists take when discussing past relationships. Instead, Rapp embraces her natural playfulness and brazen in lines such as “All of the time you wasted being mad / We could’ve been cute and we could’ve been stupid”. She continues to discuss her intimacy with her past partner — something that many sapphic artists are afraid to do. Bite Me makes it clear that it is exactly what Rapp once told iHeartRadio in an interview about the production of Mad: “50% attitude, 50% vocals”.
Mad perfectly encompasses what stands out about this sophomore album. Rapp’s unhindered authenticity is a slap in the face to everyone who was looking to add her Bite Me tracks to their “sad girl vibes” playlist like many of the tracks off her debut album Snow Angel. Capitalistic influence has long pressured rising artists, especially in the realm of queer music, to fit into homonormative categories. The yearning trope present in sapphic artists is a product of trying to remain marketable and earn a living; women are often delegated to weaker roles associated with femininity, and although these artists are queer, they are still victims of capitalism, which adheres to age-old norms. Similarly, gay artists such as Lil Nas X and Todrick Hall are often lauded for their loud, upfront, clubbing music with their more vulnerable music going unrecognized. Many queer artists are reduced to homonormative expectations, assigning them gender roles to fit into rigid boxes. Rapp, however, has created a new brand for herself — whether that is a result of good management or lack of subtlety in her lyrics is yet to be seen.
While Rapp is certainly an outlier, other musicians in similar realms have attempted to differentiate themselves similarly. Roan’s most popular upbeat track HOT TO GO! rose in recognition last year, propelling Roan into the charts — and into a limiting genre. Many of Roan’s upbeat music subtly discusses being queer, a fact that goes over listeners’ heads. On the other hand, her more explicitly queer songs are boxed into the “sad girl” yearning genre, exemplified by tracks such as Picture You and Kaleidoscope. While Roan seems intent on bringing a fun aspect to her music, its queer messaging is typically either ignored or reduced to the “sad girl” genre.
A prime example of both fans and brands ignoring artists’ requests for individuality is Dacus. While she is regularly described as the poster girl for queer pining and longing, some fans have reduced her to just those traits. Upset, Dacus took to Twitter on Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021 to say, “sadness can be meaningful but I got a bone to pick with the ‘sad girl indie’ genre, not the music that gets labeled as that, but the classification and commodification and perpetual expectation of women’s pain, also I don’t think my songs are sad”.
Unlike Dacus and Roan, Rapp has been able to deviate from the public’s expectations. Through her music, she demonstrates how sapphic love is just like any other love, thus cultivating a culture of acceptance among the broader population. Sapphic relationships include yearning, but it can also be silly, cheeky, and lighthearted, paralleling the way many straight women display love in their music.
In addition to clever lyrics and musicality, Bite Me contains tracks that, for the first time, seem to fit Rapp’s authentic personality. In interviews, she often cracks PG-13 jokes, publicly expresses her dislike for people and systems, and celebrates her unfiltered honesty. Her individuality shines through both the tracks and her new approach to marketing: the direct album title, star motifs, raunchy music videos, and thick black eyeliner on the cover of the digital album’s live version. With Bite Me, her marketing team appears to have caught on to one of Rapp’s main selling points: her natural persona online. Whether it’s a look into her personal life on her spam Instagram account or snappy one-liners during interviews, leaning into this brand seems to have worked for Rapp, shown by how her top 10 songs on Spotify are all tracks from Bite Me — a surprising feat, given the massive success of Snow Angel. Even more impressive, her most popular track, Leave Me Alone, has racked up over 34 million plays on Spotify. Rapp has also climbed into the top five on Billboard’s Artist 100, surpassing heavyweights like Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Kendrick Lamar.
Subverting the deep-seated expectations of sapphic artists, Rapp addresses numerous topics in her music that deviate from typical points of discussion. Leave Me Alone is a lesbian pop anthem, but rather than focusing on her identity, Rapp chose to make the song a direct message to the enormous pressure she experienced to go back to recording music during her two-year break from music, telling fans and her labels to leave [her] alone. On the other hand, Why Is She Still Here? is a standout ballad that delves into the emotional aftermath of non-monogamous relationships. As a prolific partier living in a big city, Rapp has witnessed her fair share of open relationships, and delves into this in the song. Displaying her true flexibility in music, Shy is notable for its cheeky and unapologetically provocative one-liners and allusions to previous relationships. Rapp has always been candid about her intimate life online, and this song perfectly showcases that.
Since coming out as lesbian, Bite Me is Rapp’s first album and first time writing personal music. While many queer artists struggle to find their niche in the music industry, Rapp has settled comfortably into her role, singing her heart out to not just tell stories but to empower younger and older LGBTQA+ audiences alike. In an interview with 103.5 KTU, beating the “everywhere but on tour” comments, the Bite Me tour begins on Tuesday, Sept. 23 in Morrison, Colorado. Rapp will also take her talents to Austin, Texas at the Moody Amphitheater at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 22. On its surface, Bite Me is simply a catchy and wildly successful album from a rising pop artist. Looking past the veneer, it reveals a musical experience that floods the senses and stimulates the mind. Rapp has embraced the cheeky personality that she has previously been told to tone down, and her authenticity shines through her personality, the way fans see her, and her incorporation of acting into music.
Big corporations may attempt to flatten sapphic artists into one-dimensional figures of sad yearning girls, yet Rapp breaks the invisible systemic barrier that aims to fit queer artists into a homonormative box. In spite of her two-year long hiatus, she shot to stardom almost immediately following the release of the album. Bite Me is more than just music: it’s a celebration of sapphic love, humanizing queer individuals across the world and providing a sense of solace for those whose rights are under attack. By emphasizing authenticity rather than categorization, listeners and businesses can aid sapphic artists in creating better and richer experiences through music — and Bite Me is the first step toward that change.
