Will Tate McRae be a Main Pop Girl?
Examining her steps (and missteps) to pop stardom and what might be next
Tate McRae is both capping off her major 2025 and kicking off the new year on the cover of the January 2026 issue of Rolling Stone, following in the tradition of the pop girlies who came before her; from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez, they’ve all had their RS moments early in their career. Tate is also giving serious Y2K aesthetic in a vintage Moschino string bikini in front of a hot pink background reminiscent of Beyoncé and Mariah Carey’s famous shoots. This magazine profile is the latest movie in Tate’s rise to main pop girl, something that really started becoming a possibility this year.
She just released the deluxe edition to her Billboard 200 #1 album So Close to What after a year of back-to-back hits. She had some success in the early years of her music career, but it wasn’t until she incorporated dance into her act that the general public started to care. The dancing pop star may have been standard for the 90s and 2000s, but in the last decade or so it has taken a back seat. Sure there’s choreography incorporated in the live performances of most artists, but the days of Janet and Britney and the headset mic are all but gone, so when Tate blew up the charts with “Greedy” and started slaying stages around the world, the industry took notice. You would think it would be a no brainer given her dance background, but it actually wasn’t. She was releasing music for more than three years before she finally found her footing in the pop music landscape, further reinforcing that her stage presence comes from years of trial and error. She even admits to RS that she had to educate herself on iconic diva performances…
