Reneé Rapp Breaks Down Her Favorite Pop Songs

Instyle

Singer-songwriter Reneé Rapp takes us on a personal journey through 30 years of pop music, sharing her favorite tracks and how they’ve shaped her artistry. Starting with The Cranberries’ 1993 hit ‘Linger,’ Reneé reflects on the songs that have defined each era, from Lauryn Hill’s soulful ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ to Missy Elliott’s iconic ‘Work It.’ Through fun and heartfelt anecdotes shared for each track, Reneé reveals the deep emotional connection she has with artists like Beyoncé, Frank Ocean, The Veronicas, Mk.gee and more!

Transcript

00:00The month was June.

00:01Summer was hot.

00:03The air polluted.

00:05Mosquitoes everywhere.

00:07My hope was dwindling.

00:09I was working a lot and I was so excited

00:13for Brad to come out.

00:14And I was like waiting, like on my knees.

00:17It's all I listened to.

00:21She's just the shit and she knows that she is.

00:25That's cool.

00:26She's also like such a insane songwriter.

00:29Like such an insane songwriter.

00:31Like she wrote like heaters for other people.

00:33Like Charlie XCX, let's be clear, wrote Senorita.

00:37Yeah.

00:40What's up, my name is Renee Rapp

00:42and these are some of my favorite moments

00:45in pop music from the last 30 years.

00:48We're in 1994 with the Cranberries Linger.

00:51The Cranberries was like a group

00:52that I had listened to passively until very recently.

00:57And they had like kind of like a moment on the internet

00:59which like typically is so annoying.

01:02But I actually was like, oh, this just put me back on.

01:05I like love the tone in all of their songs.

01:07I think like vocally, she's so like specific.

01:16Like that sound is really, really, really cool.

01:18We're moving to 1998 with Lauryn Hill.

01:21Can't take my eyes off of you.

01:23I love Lauryn Hill.

01:29There are a lot of people who can sing.

01:31Like I think pretty much everybody can sing

01:33at the end of the day.

01:34However, there's like such a specific gift in somebody

01:37like Lauryn Hill.

01:38It's like there's like a level of like emotion

01:40that you can't really explain or quantify.

01:44Like it is just, she's just for me like one of those voices

01:47that is so technical, but not out of like training,

01:52just out of like raw like soul.

01:54I love her.

01:55She's so cute too.

01:57She's just such a cute little thing.

01:59I wasn't alive in the nineties,

02:00but like all of the music now is like so reminiscent,

02:06or at least like in my brain,

02:07like pulls from so much like nineties hip hop.

02:11And I think just in general,

02:12black artists have been so influential.

02:16They've essentially just kind of like created what's cool,

02:19which is typically how it goes,

02:21but like really, really heavily in music.

02:23We're moving to 1999,

02:25which was Destiny's Childs by My Name.

02:26If you want to like talk about like influential musicians

02:30over the course of the last like 30 years,

02:33you can't argue.

02:33Like I think to me,

02:35I do believe that everyone has an opinion

02:38and like, you know, your opinion is your own.

02:40And like your opinion is not fact.

02:41However, when it comes to Destiny's Child

02:44or when it comes to Beyonce,

02:46you are capable of being wrong if you say the wrong thing.

02:50And there's one correct answer

02:51and it's that it's amazing.

02:53And if you say that it's not,

02:56you have no taste and are a hater and should look inward.

03:00Cause that's ridiculous.

03:01I get on Twitter every now and again.

03:03Well, actually not anymore, but I used to.

03:05And I would always see this like conversation around like

03:08like Beyonce being like overrated or whatever.

03:11And I was like, wow, people are really just bored.

03:13I digress.

03:14Destiny's Child shaped my whole childhood.

03:17My mom would always sing bootylicious to me

03:20when I would feel badly about myself.

03:22Cause I like got to, you know, grow up.

03:24And I was like, you know, had like boobs pretty quickly.

03:28And like, you know, had a little ass and a small waist.

03:30What can I say?

03:31It's so hard to exist like that and be me.

03:34But my mom would always make me sing bootylicious to myself

03:38whenever I would get like a little insecure about it.

03:40And that's the closest I ever got to religion.

03:43She was singing it with me.

03:43She would like start me and I'd be like crying.

03:45And she'd be like, come on, come on.

03:47You can do it.

03:48Cause my body's too.

03:50And I'd be like doing like the riff poorly, but.

03:57We're moving to 2002, Work It by Missy Elliott.

04:01Missy Elliott is just like goaded.

04:03She's just goaded.

04:04Like basically like everything she did and does became cool.

04:10There's this like little like grit in her voice.

04:16That's so inherently sexy without even trying to be sexy.

04:23It's just like, so in your face.

04:25And like, if you listen to like anything like Missy Elliott

04:28in like your like headphones where, you know,

04:31the like AirPods or whatever have like the noise canceling.

04:33It's similar to meditation.

04:36I listened to a sound bowl every now and again,

04:38but nothing's gonna do it the same way that Missy Elliott does.

04:42So I don't really think it's for meditative purposes,

04:45but it does make me feel good as about myself.

04:47We're now in 2007 with Untouched by the Veronica's.

04:51I have like damn near played the song out

04:55over the course of the last couple months.

04:57I was seven when this came out.

04:58So I don't really remember like actively listening to music at that time.

05:02I digress.

05:04I was a child, but I cannot tell you how many times I've listened to Untouched.

05:09Like, it'll probably be my most like streamed song of the year.

05:12I feel so untouched and I want you so much.

05:18Like insane is all I listened to.

05:21It's all I want to run to on the treadmill.

05:24It's also like in a very specific part of my voice when I'm like running on the treadmill and singing,

05:30which I do genuinely love to do because it's so good for my mental health,

05:34but also it's very good for my lungs, I guess.

05:36And it's like a hard song to sing on the treadmill.

05:39And they're also so hot. They've aged so well.

05:43It's ridiculous.

05:45They're so fine.

05:47I like was stalking them on Instagram the other day.

05:49I was like, wow, like that's incredible.

05:52Like a round of applause.

05:53I also just didn't like actively listen to a lot of pop music as a kid.

05:57Like I was only listening to the music that was played for me, right?

06:00Which was just like a lot of like R&B, a lot of hip hop,

06:04and then a lot of like really heavy like rock stuff that like my dad really loved.

06:08But nobody was like playing pop for me, which is strange because it's what I make.

06:13But I don't know.

06:14We're moving on to Beyonce again.

06:172008, If I Were A Boy.

06:19It's a masterpiece.

06:21Like what are we doing?

06:22Like literally what are we doing?

06:24It's like not again up for debate, up for discussion.

06:28Keep your opinions to yourself.

06:29I genuinely couldn't give less of a .

06:31That song is so money.

06:34It is so money.

06:35It is beautifully written.

06:38The vocal performance is crazy.

06:41I remember like when I was younger having the first moment of like when it flips at the very end

06:46and being like, but you're just a boy.

06:47Like you don't understand.

06:49But you're just a boy.

06:52I don't date men anymore, but I really understand that song.

07:01And if I did at this point in my life, I'm sure I would feel that way because y'all have

07:05no respect.

07:06That song is amazing.

07:08It's so amazing.

07:09And she's one of one.

07:12She's one of one.

07:13I'm like, there's like nothing else to say.

07:16Anything else to say would be redundant.

07:17She's one of one.

07:18Everything.

07:19It's brilliant.

07:20The only thing that my mom would listen to or play for me when I was a kid was Beyonce.

07:24And I didn't really take vocal lessons or things like that.

07:27But what I did do, which I do feel like is a vocal lesson in and of itself, was just like

07:31obsessively listen to every single song in her discography.

07:36And I would just like listen and try so hard to mimic the way that she says and pronounces

07:42her bees when she sings.

07:44It's like a very specific, I don't even know how to explain it.

07:47But I like sometimes inherently do it now.

07:50But yeah, I like always tell people that I learned to sing by listening to Beyonce.

07:54We're moving to 2010, Backstabber by Kesha.

07:59This song has influenced songs of mine that I've written.

08:02There's a song on my first album called Poison Poison that is so influenced by Backstabber.

08:08I would like to say that if not done wrong, I'm quite graceful.

08:15And if done wrong, I'm not.

08:17And I thought it was so cool that Backstabber was a song that was basically just like a girl

08:22being like, this other bitch has done me so wrong.

08:26And I'm not going to sit over here and be like, oh, but like, it's okay.

08:29Like, you know, we're girls.

08:30We need to play nice.

08:31And like, I shouldn't be too aggressive because like the men are supposed to be aggressive.

08:35I don't feel that way.

08:45And I've never felt that way.

08:46And I don't plan.

08:47I'm feeling that way.

08:48So I loved Backstabber.

08:502011, Frank Ocean, Novocaine.

08:52Frank Ocean is my favorite writer.

08:56You know, I'm like a massive fan of so many people, but I didn't really understand like

09:11true like fan culture until I saw him at Coachella.

09:14And I think I cried for the like entirety of the set.

09:17That's another one where I'm like, I don't care about your opinion if your opinion is wrong.

09:24I don't care.

09:25I love that man.

09:26I will defend that man until my dying breath.

09:29You want to talk about an influential artist?

09:30He's one of the most influential artists of like my generation.

09:34I find it really intriguing that he's kind of a recluse and is like mysterious and is so

09:40careful and thoughtful because I think there's so much pressure, at least I feel, to like

09:45constantly be producing things and constantly putting things out and constantly like literally

09:50putting like your tits out on the internet, which by the way, I love to do that.

09:54But I mean that more of a metaphor.

09:56I don't know if he like feels that pressure or not.

09:58However, I do think it's really cool that he seemingly stays to himself.

10:05In 2016, Godspeed came out because Godspeed was on Blonde, which is my like goaded album

10:12of all time.

10:12I like have a blonde tattoo.

10:13Like I'm like that deep in the lore.

10:16I have the duration of the album on my arm.

10:18And Godspeed is just like so beautiful and so heartbreaking.

10:30And all of the like sonics in that song and in that album period are just like second to

10:36none.

10:37They're so emotional.

10:38I used to be pretty specific about my tattoos and then I just started kind of being like,

10:43okay, things started to go rogue when I got, I got a dollar sign on my wedding finger

10:48so that no matter who I married, I'd be married to the game.

10:51Once I like started referring to myself as a lesbian, I got like a scissoring tattoo.

10:55Yeah.

10:56So we've kind of lost the plot a little like this.

10:59This is a little person like flipping somebody off.

11:02So now I just don't really care.

11:03I just get whatever I think is cute.

11:052017, Control came out.

11:09This is an album.

11:10Drew Barrymore is still my favorite scissor song.

11:13I have like a very specific memory of driving home in North Carolina in the like pouring rain,

11:22listening to Control.

11:24And I had just gotten out of a relationship with such a shitty, shitty person.

11:29And so I was really, really down bad.

11:31And I remember driving home and I was listening to Drew Barrymore

11:34and it was like pouring rain and I was like, wow.

11:42I love this song and I love this album so much.

11:45And it was like,

11:46it wasn't even really anything specifically that I was thinking other than just like,

11:50this is such a down bad time in my life.

11:53And this album is so important to me right now.

11:55And so now it's like one of my like goaded favorite albums.

11:58We're now in 2022.

12:00The EP that Remy Wolf released called Juno is so like batshit crazy.

12:09Love Remy so much.

12:10Like as a person, I love her to death and think she's so talented,

12:14but also just seems like such a fan of her music and her artist project.

12:18It's like so crazy.

12:20There's a song on Juno called Cake.

12:22I was listening to Cake and I was running and I was trying to sing it and I was very humbled.

12:29It is such a bitch to sing.

12:31It is so high.

12:38She's another one of those writers.

12:40It's just different.

12:42So different.

12:43She's so smart and like so sure of herself.

12:47Oh, she's good.

12:49She's good.

12:50Her new album is amazing too.

12:512024 McGee's album.

12:55I've been so obsessed with it.

12:59I've been so obsessed with it.

13:00Like I love it so much.

13:02I think Candy is one of the best songs in the last couple of years.

13:08It's so good and he's so talented and he's such an incredible singer.

13:12Also a nasty guitar player.

13:14He's so good and so underrated.

13:27I love making music so much.

13:29I'm also just so obsessive and like so hard on myself.

13:32So I love it and it also drives me crazy.

13:36Like making this album, I love it so much and I'm like so excited.

13:41But like it is all I can think about and it consumes every second and waking moment of my life.

13:49And every conscious and subconscious thought that I have.

13:53I guess that's just kind of what like making an album is like being in the thick of it.

13:57I'm like so addicted to it.

13:59It just it genuinely feels like an addiction.

14:01Like I feel like so addicted to it.

14:03Like I'm about to leave and like go and work.

14:10I auditioned for like every reality singing show that you could possibly think of.

14:15And every single time they were like, nah.

14:18And I was like.

14:20My hamster had just died before I auditioned for America's Got Talent.

14:24So I was mourning, but it's okay.

14:27I'm pretty sure I sang my off nonetheless.

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