Today Olivia Rodrigo releases her third album, ‘you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’, preceded by two global number 1s, ‘drop dead’ and ‘the cure’. Both were top 1 on Spotify Global even if it was only for one day; ‘drop dead’ was number 1 in both the UK and the USA, and ‘the cure’ has been in the top 2 in the UK and the top 5 in the US.
The album, again built with her right-hand man Dan Nigro, returns to the pop-rock sound of other Olivia Rodrigo releases, although expanding the palette to other sounds. If ‘stupid song’ is gradually approaching the most danceable part of Haim, two other songs dive into eighties territories, ‘my way’ and especially ‘expectations’.
When it seems that at the end of the album only ballads like ‘less’ or the orchestrated ‘cigarette smoke’, lasting 6 minutes, will fit, ‘expectations’ is a breath of fresh air that even reminds us of Human League. Also worth noting as a new favorite is ‘maggots for brains’, made with a delicious, very lo-fi drum machine.
The album alternates acoustic pieces like ‘begged’ or ‘honeybee’ – the latter with choruses by Conan Gray – with other more indie pop ones like ‘u+me=our forum by Olivia Rodrigo, ‘what’s wrong with me’ with none other than Robert Smith, which has lost some strength compared to what was seen on Primavera Sound. Either that, or it was the shock of the unexpected. Robert Smith is not co-author of the song but he is credited as “backup vocalist”, guitarist, pianist, bassist and engineer.
In any case, the “focus track” and our Song of the Day is ‘stupid song’, another of his crescendo compositions. The song begins on piano, not without toxicity (“they say that true love is a cage that makes you feel free”). Then he hits the ground running when Olivia “walks through the park with her head held high, leaving the college girls and drunk boys behind.”
She is in love, although it does not seem to be so reciprocated (“you should feel the way I feel when someone says your name”) and ends up unhinged in a pre-chorus in which she admits to being “going crazy.” The title of the song comes from the great phrase: “I am a car that goes at full speed, down the boulevard without brakes / And I want you more than any stupid song could express.”
The video in this case is quite literal: a sad walk with a very affected Olivia Rodrigo, who ends up accompanied by some ballet dancers, also some cats, and a fake rain like the little house in the ‘the cure’ video. And the album “of sad love songs,” according to Billboard, could have ended up portraying or anticipating her breakup with her boyfriend of two years, Louis Partridge.
Charging …
