by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

It’s been a big year for fake pop stars. From romance to horror, they’ve sung their hearts out on stage, fallen in love, and maybe even tried to help catch a serial killer. But the most important thing is their music. So I’ll be ranking this year’s fake pop stars’ music, from Lady Raven (Saleka) of M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap to Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) in Smile 2 (dir. Parker Finn) to August Moon from The Idea of You (dir. Michael Showalter).

3. August Moon from The Idea of You

In The Idea of You, August Moon performs at Coachella, where a member of the band, Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), meets Solène (Anne Hathaway), and they begin to fall in love. While the boys have some fun songs, I didn’t feel compelled to listen to their music after watching the film. I can see the One Direction inspiration, and since I was never that big of a Directioner, this one just didn’t hit for me. It does the job for the film though. The band consists of Hayes Campbell, the clear Harry Styles stand-in, and Adrian (Jaiden Anthony), Oliver (Raymond Cham Jr.), Simon (Vik White), and Rory (Dakota Adan).

Savan Kotecha produced the music for this film. He notably also worked on the music for Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (which I did enjoy quite a bit as well). A frequent collaborator with One Direction, he claimed that the music for The Idea of You wasn’t inspired by a specific band, though I find that a bit hard to believe. August Moon’s music is intended to show growth from their first to their third album, where they’ve matured, and especially Hayes’s growth over the course of the film. “Dance Before We Walk” is so bubblegum, clearly their first big single, then “Guard Down” is a bit more grown up. With the band’s big performance at Coachella, we get to see the various songs without the context, but Kotecha’s approach to using the music to illustrate August Moon’s career trajectory makes perfect sense.

2. Lady Raven from Trap

Lady Raven absolutely has some bangers, especially “Pieces,” which got stuck in my head every time I saw the trailer. Saleka put out an entire album as Lady Raven, and the film features a good number of the songs from it. Of the three films, Trap shows the most performance throughout, as we see Cooper (Josh Hartnett) trying to find his way out of the trap the concert’s become. Saleka had a lot of work to do in this film, including two duets and the big “Dreamer Girl” scene, and then she uses Instagram Live to try to find where one of the Butcher’s victims is being held. That’s using your fame for the greater good!

To get into more of the music itself, Saleka wrote Lady Raven’s songs to follow the beats of the film and to line up with the character’s backstory. Saleka, a singer and songwriter, has written music for her father’s work before, including Servant and Old, but this was a big showcase for her work. She has some standout songs, like “Pieces,” which I’d already mentioned, “Don’t Wanna Be Yours,” and “Where Did She Go.” Saleka really had to sell “Where Did She Go,” as it’s in close-up for most of the song, and the stakes are incredibly high at that point in the film. Overall, Saleka’s songs for the film are really good.

1. Skye Riley from Smile 2

Skye Riley has less music than August Moon or Lady Raven, but it’s undeniably the catchiest. I had “New Brain” on repeat for several weeks after seeing Smile 2, and her other big song in the film is “Blood on White Satin.” There are only a few performances in the film, as we see more of Skye writing and rehearsing than her actual concert (for perhaps obvious reasons, given the climax of the film). Her concert outfits and the marketing aesthetics we see throughout line up pretty well with what we’d expect to see from a pop star at Skye’s level. What we see of her concert features a bunch of backup dancers and a spaceship that lifts off the stage, so there’s definitely a big budget for the show.

In terms of the songwriting, Alexis Kesselman cowrote most of the songs with Naomi Scott. Paul Bogum is credited as a third writer for “New Brain,” and funnily enough, he also produced “Pieces” in Trap! “Grieving You” has the most cowriters, and Tate McRae is credited on it, along with Amy Allen (a frequent writer in pop music, she’s written for Sabrina Carpenter, Harry Styles, Justin Beiber, and Selena Gomez) and Take A Day Trip (a producing duo who has worked with many artists, including Kid Cudi, who appears in the film). Given how fun her music is, you can count me as part of Skye Riley Nation (a very clear Taylor Swift reference).

It’s pretty clear to me that Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour inspired Trap and Smile 2 at least in part, though I would also credit Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour, of course. In Trap, Lady Raven at one point talks about her own personal life, then sits down at a piano to sing about it, which had very clear inspiration from Taylor Swift, as does the Dreamer Girl sequence, though I can’t see Taylor Swift actually bringing fans on stage. Saleka even said, “I think in the world of Lady Raven, she’s not as big as Taylor Swift, but I think the idea of how connected her fans feel to her and how going to her concert is such a big moment in their lives and how they feel in the room surrounded by other girls that are loving her songs.”

Likewise, Skye Riley’s performances felt very Taylor Swift. Skye is a bit more fully formed, with a backstory about drug addiction and a catastrophic car accident. Given the film goes into Skye’s own struggles, it makes sense that she’s fleshed out as a character. Additionally, Naomi Scott mentioned Britney Spears as an inspiration for the character, which tracks in terms of the struggles Skye goes through with her family and the conflicts in her life behind the scenes.

August Moon, however, is a clear take on One Direction, no doubt because the book it’s based on was… Well, it wasn’t fanfiction, but there’s a clear link to Harry Styles that the author, Robinne Lee, doesn’t deny but does try to soften. And their performances in the film can be linked back to specific One Direction performances in their heyday.

As you can see, the fake pop stars have been very busy this year, and their music has been delightful. Skye Riley and Lady Raven will probably appear in my Apple Music Top 100 this year, and I’m just going to have to try not to be embarrassed about that.