Travis Graves

Tate McRae explains why her early pop influences are Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, and Taylor Swift rather than Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera: “I was born in 2003, so those eras were happening when I was like age zero… I mean, I was literally a baby.” The clip stems from an interview with Australian radio station triple j, published around November 15, 2024, during the promotional rollout for her album So Close to What. When asked by the interviewer to recall the first major pop-girl music video, album cover, or awards show moment that truly stuck with her, McRae gave a strictly chronological, age-based answer. Because she was born in 2003, the absolute peak commercial eras of Y2K juggernauts like Britney Spears (...Baby One More Time through In the Zone) and Christina Aguilera (Stripped) occurred when she was an infant. Instead, her first conscious memories of media consumption line up perfectly with the early-to-mid 2010s. She explicitly highlighted milestones from her own formative years, such as witnessing Arianas viral a cappella rendition of "Dangerous Woman" and seeing Selenas stark Revival album artwork. While McRae’s earliest memories belong to the 2010s, her structural execution as a performer relies heavily on the blueprint perfected by Britney Spears.