Why does Tate McRae sing like that? Let's talk cursive singing

Tate McRae has a new single, Housewife, and a voice that comes with its own vocabulary. If you've ever tried to describe the way she sings, you've probably landed somewhere around “breathy”, “drawly” or, increasingly, “cursive”.

That last one is useful. It's a loose name for a singing style where vowels stretch or change shape, consonants become less prominent and words flow into each other. Switched on Pop's investigation explores how those choices became such a recognisable part of pop.

Here's the new video. Try following one short phrase and listening to how the words join up.

Tate McRae's official Housewife video, released in October 2026. Directed by Pierre-Ange Carlotti. Watch on the artist's official YouTube channel.

Watch the original Housewife video. The song contains explicit language.

So, what does “singing in cursive” mean?

Think about cursive handwriting: the letters join up, with a little more flourish than neat block capitals. The nickname does a similar job for a voice.

A singer might linger on a vowel, move through it in an unusual way or let a word ending fade into the next phrase. You still recognise the word, but its edges feel different. That can make a line feel intimate, playful or deliberately slippery.

The term is broad, though. In a January 2026 Rolling Stone profile, McRae's vocals are associated with the cursive style. That doesn't mean every note she sings uses the same technique, or that every singer given the label sounds alike.

The “indie girl voice” nickname is narrower than the music itself. Switched on Pop's examples include Shawn Mendes as well as Halsey and Jorja Smith. The style has travelled well beyond one type of performer.

Is that her Canadian accent?

McRae is from Calgary, but “Canadian” alone won't explain a performance voice.

There's your everyday way of speaking, and then there are the choices a song asks you to make: which vowel to hold, where to put a consonant and how closely one phrase follows another. Musical influences can shape those choices too.

Researchers Colin Jones, Murray Schellenberg and Bryan Gick explored this in a 2017 study of indie-pop voice. They compared sung vowels with spoken interviews across eight artists and reported preliminary acoustic patterns consistent with a different vocal-tract setting.

That study wasn't an analysis of McRae or Housewife. Its useful point here is that a performance style can affect pronunciation across a voice, beyond stretching the occasional word.

So if you're trying to copy the sound, “do a Canadian accent” gives you a very incomplete set of instructions.

Accent, pronunciation and vocal style give you different things to listen for. Original Accentify illustration.

Why does it sound so recognisable?

For an actor learning an accent, this is the interesting bit. A recognisable voice comes from patterns across whole phrases as well as individual sounds.

You can hear that question differently when you listen to a singer. What keeps drawing your ear: the vowel, the texture, the timing, or the way a phrase seems to trail into the next one?

Start with one short phrase from the video. Listen to the vowel in its most prominent word. Then listen again for the word endings. On a third pass, follow the rhythm of the whole thought.

If you're borrowing a singer as a character reference, compare several recordings. A chorus gives you one version of that voice; a conversation may give you quite another.

Tate McRae at the Fonda Theatre 03/14/2022

Tate McRae @ Fonda Theatre 14th March 2022 Shot for Pass The Aux. Photo: Justin Higuchi / Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-2.0

Housewife has a personality before you get to the title

Sony's release announcement describes the song around independence, fame and relationships. That independence angle has landed with listeners: @talxax jokes that McRae is motivating them to earn more money.

Another listener, @Trend-Wirez, puts it neatly: “Housewife sounds like the title of a job, but Tate made it sound like a whole personality.”

That's one listener's reaction, but it's a good way into the voice question. Delivery contributes to who we imagine is speaking. An actor does something similar when a line starts to sound like it belongs to a character.

If that makes you curious about building a voice of your own, our guide to choosing a reference voice is a useful next step. You can also explore Accentify for structured accent practice.

Next time someone calls a singer “cursive”, ask them which bit they mean. Chances are you'll end up replaying the same three seconds and disagreeing about it. At least you'll have something more specific to argue over.