RENEÉ RAPP: Bite Me (Polydor)
Verdict: Brash and catchy
When it comes to female singer-songwriters with catchy tunes and bags of attitude, music fans are currently spoilt for choice. This year has seen UK tours by Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, with Chappell Roan flying in for the Reading and Leeds festivals in three weeks’ time. Homegrown stars Lola Young and Pinkpantheress have impressed on record.
The latest young pretender to join the party is Reneé Rapp, a brash 25-year-old from a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, who got her first big break in musical theatre and is now hell-bent on solidifying her pop career.
Rapp, who initially built a bond with fans by posting music online, has yet to secure a UK Top 40 single, but such is her surging popularity that she’s already booked into arenas for a British tour next spring.
Her second album, Bite Me, is crammed with state-of-the-art modern pop, combining punky anthems in the style of Rodrigo with racy lyrics that echo Carpenter’s playful, suggestive style.
A handful of ballads show off her impressive vocal range, while the whole thing is held together by her forceful personality and the studio skills of such experienced hit-makers as Julian Bunetta and Ryan Tedder.
‘I’m a real bad girl, but a real good kisser,’ she teases on Leave Me Alone, a classic cheerleader chant, with added grunge guitars, pitched somewhere between Toni Basil’s 1982 single Mickey and Roan’s Hot To Go! ‘Sign a hundred NDAs, but I’ll still say something,’ she adds, playing on her reputation as an artist who speaks her mind.
Mean girl: Renee Rapp played Regina George in Tina Fey’s Broadway musical. Now, with the release of her second album, she shows she can mix it with the best of today’s young stars
If there’s a sense, on the upbeat numbers at least, that she’s an actress making records — she starred in teen comedy Mean Girls on Broadway and in its 2024 screen adaptation — she counteracts that with her candid, emotionally messy lyrics. ‘I wish I could take that pretty little face, and shake some sense into you’, she laments on Mad. Kiss It Kiss It taps into her southern roots. ‘I’m from Carolina,’ she tells us. ‘I know a thing or two about rodeos.’
She often finds herself at the centre of a love triangle. On husky soul ballad Why Is She Still Here?, she scolds a romantic partner still pining for a previous lover (‘you can tell me you don’t love her, but you should probably tell her too’), while Rapp herself is the one being tempted to stray on I Can’t Have You Around Me.
Great expectations: Despite not having had a single song in the UK Top 40 yet, Rapp has already been booked into arenas for her UK tour next spring
The singer, who has dated men and women, is currently in a same-sex relationship with British musician Towa Bird, and she recalls how she became tongue-tied when the pair toured together in 2023. ‘I’m really not scared, I’m just a little bit shy,’ she admits, on Shy.
Beneath her rebellious streak, there’s the sense of a more traditional star waiting to break out. Co-written by Rodrigo’s producer Dan Nigro, That’s So Funny is a more mature ballad which suggests Rapp has a sensitive side, too.
On the evidence of Bite Me, she’s making light work of the potentially tricky move from stage to studio.
MADONNA: Veronica Electronica (Warner)
Verdict: Revamp of a classic
As she was making Ray Of Light with producer William Orbit in 1998, Madonna gave herself the nickname Veronica Electronica — a reference to her Catholic confirmation name of Veronica and her growing fascination with synthesisers. The brilliant album that ensued, an emotionally-charged fusion of pop, dance and trip-hop, remains a career high-point.
The plan at the time was to release a sister LP that would propel Ray Of Light even further into clubland. Fresh mixes of several tracks were delivered, with many of them featuring as B-Sides to singles, but the promised album — Veronica Electronica — was shelved, largely because Ray Of Light became a much bigger hit than even Madonna had anticipated, selling 16 million, winning four Grammys and holding centre stage for over a year.
Ray of Light: Madonna performs her hit single during the 1988 MTV Music Awards.
With the queen of pop now trawling through her back catalogue via an ongoing series of digital and vinyl reissues, the companion album is finally being released in its own right, 27 years later than intended, as part of the singer’s silver collection, following new vinyl pressings of True Blue in 2023 and Like A Prayer in 2024.
With remixers such as DJ Sasha, producer Victor Calderone and original collaborator Orbit on board, there’s no doubt as to the club-friendly credentials of the eight revamps, although the impact of Veronica Electronica is dulled by the fact that almost everything here has already trickled out before. There are minor tweaks and edits, but only one previously unheard track in the Ray Of Light out-take Gone, Gone, Gone.
Among the highlights are two mixes by Sasha, with the Welsh DJ upping the rhythmic punch of the title track and reworking the Drowned World / Substitute For Love medley as a trance-like house banger.
Frozen, a haunting ballad, is now even more hypnotic, with Orbit supplying atmospheric, widescreen effects.
Then there’s Gone, Gone, Gone, a heartbreak anthem written by Madonna and Rick Nowels that inexplicably failed to make the final cut in 1998. ‘It’s so sad what we had is gone, gone, gone,’ sings Madonna, her lyrics chiming with Ray Of Light’s reflective mood.
Veronica Electronica isn’t as essential as it might have been in 1998, but it’s still an intriguing postscript to Madonna’s masterpiece.
Both albums are out now. Reneé Rapp plays AO Arena, Manchester, on March 18 and Wembley Arena on March 19, 2026 (livenation.co.uk).
BEST OF THE NEW RELEASES… BY ADRIAN THRILLS
DENNIS BOVELL: Wise Music In Dub (Wise)
As the writer and producer of Janet Kay’s 1979 lover’s rock hit Silly Games, Dennis Bovell is British reggae royalty, and he reiterates his subtle finesse on an album drawing on song publisher Wise Music’s vast catalogue.
With guest singers putting a reggae spin on tracks from different genres — The Stylistics’ You’re A Big Girl Now; Musical Youth’s Pass The Dutchie; The Zombies’ Time Of The Season — its eclectic spirit recalls UB40’s Labour Of Love series.
BRUCE DICKINSON: More Balls To Picasso (BMG)
Never truly happy with his second solo album, the Iron Maiden singer shelved two complete versions before settling on a final mix in 1994. He’s now revisiting the whole thing, adding a ‘more’ to the title and beefing up the arrangements with indigenous Amazon drums, orchestral strings and a funky brass section from the Berklee College Of Music. Dickinson’s rock fans won’t be disappointed, but he also shows the scope of his vision on a theatrical, big-budget makeover.
MORGAN WADE: The Party Is Over (Sony)
Hot on the heels of 2024’s Obsessed, the Virginia-born singer returns with another album of heartland country and ballads. ‘I ain’t your Ring Of Fire, babe, but for you I’d Walk The Line,’ she sings on Stay, giving us two Johnny Cash hits in one song. Sounding like a cross between Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks, Wade doesn’t shy away from the nitty-gritty, admitting to her battle between ‘the Bible and the bottle’ on East Coast, and pining for motherhood on Hardwood Floor.
JADE BIRD: Who Wants To Talk About Love (Glassnote)
In mixing country and pop, Jade Bird has always looked to Nashville as much as her native Northumberland. Written while she was trying to make sense of broken relationships, her third album has a familiar Stateside ring, with L.A. producer Andrew Wells adding a shimmering veneer. Touching on her split from fellow musician Luke Prosser, she balances heartache with a desire for ‘some well-earned clarity’ on Nobody and embraces sun-kissed Californian pop on Dreams.
