Tate McRae’s Take: Britney Spears Comparisons Feel ‘Flattering Yet Scary’

Tate McRae captivates audiences during her performance at the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards held at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartRadio.

The 21-year-old Canadian pop star, who initially rose to fame as a tween contestant on So You Think You Can Dance’s 2016 season, has skillfully refined her dance-pop allure with videos such as the one accompanying her sultry new single “Sports Car.” In this clip, McRae delivers a series of alluring outfits and high-energy dances that bear an unmistakable resemblance to Britney Spears.

Promoting her recently released third album, So Close to What, McRae is not backing away from comparisons to the Queen of Pop. While speaking with the U.K.’s Independent magazine, she also shared that she feels “so much more confident in my taste and the way I am as a person.” Reflecting on how it all started when she was just 16 years old with no prior knowledge about music production, McRae acknowledges that her debut album from 2022, titled I Used to Think I Could Fly, feels like an eternity ago.

Thanks to the perfect blend of her high-pitched vocals and enticing choreography in hits such as “Greedy,” which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023, McRae finds comparisons to a younger Britney Spears flattering yet slightly intimidating. She explained, “I find that flattering and scary… It’s like comparing someone to Michael Jackson! That’s the blueprint.”

For her new album, So Close to What, McRae collaborates with singer The Kid Laroi—a relationship she describes as unexpectedly delightful. Speaking at a Q&A Spotify listening party in Los Angeles earlier this month, McRae shared that working together was “a really funny process.” She humorously noted that they had never taken each other seriously before their musical endeavors but admitted it was “stressful being in the studio singing and writing” with him around.