On August 18, one of Broadway’s brightest young vocalists released her first full-length pop album. The album, titled Snow Angel, is Reneé Rapp’s follow-up to her debut EP, Everything to Everyone. Rapp described the album as being created in response to a traumatic experience she had had the year before. While working on new music, Rapp realized that she had to write about that experience, and after finishing the title track in one night, Rapp and her producer decided to scrap the previously finished first single of the album and start fresh. In addition to her run as Regina George in the Broadway adaptation of Mean Girls, Rapp has also starred in an HBO series and is set to appear as Regina George once again in the movie musical adaptation of Mean Girls.
Rapp, known for her soaring soprano belt, doesn’t hold back vocally on this project. The title track, Snow Angel, is an emotional rollercoaster of a song, much like the album named after it. Opening with delicate piano and featherlight vocals from Rapp, Snow Angel eventually takes a rock-like turn with the incorporation of percussion and electric guitar. The bridge of the song showcases her sky-high, emotive vocals at their most impressive on the album.
The more upbeat pop numbers are contrasted well with several moving, predominantly piano-backed tracks. On Gemini Moon and The Wedding Song, Reneé’s anguish-filled vocals are palpable. While Rapp’s Broadway-trained vocals shine particularly on these slower, moodier tracks, Rapp’s truest strength lies in her more upbeat tracks. One of my favorite types of pop songs, a song with sad lyrics but an upbeat melody, makes it onto this album in the form of Pretty Girls. Pretty Girls, a buoyant, dance-like track about Rapp’s experience as a bisexual woman, combines her signature wit with her knack for pop music.
Snow Angel closes with Willow and 23. Both of these songs feature more relaxed vocals from Rapp, showcasing her versatility in sound. In Willow, Rapp refers to a loved one as a weeping willow in a hazy, guitar-heavy number. And lastly, in 23, Rapp shares some of her deepest anxieties about social life and mortality.
Snow Angel, a record with many emotional highs and lows, is an excellent full-length debut from Reneé Rapp. The record showcases both her vocal versatility and her witty pop writing style, in addition to demonstrating the many different kinds of sounds and production styles that can work with her voice. It will be exciting to see where Rapp’s powerhouse voice takes her next.
