{"id":498924,"date":"2026-06-14T08:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498924\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T08:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:02:09","slug":"is-olivia-rodrigo-covering-fontaines-dc-and-cmat-the-pop-artists-bid-to-garner-grown-up-cred-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498924\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Olivia Rodrigo covering Fontaines DC and CMAT the pop artist\u2019s bid to garner grown-up cred? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sun was setting over Marlay Park<\/a>, and somewhere beyond the horizon Olivia Rodrigo<\/a> seemed to have caught a glimpse of her future. \u201cYou guys have really incredible music here,\u201d she told the 40,000 people<\/a> attending her show at the south Dublin venue in June 2025. \u201cThere are so many incredible bands out of Dublin. Lately I\u2019ve been really obsessed with this band Fontaines DC<\/a>. I\u2019ve been playing this song alone in my room.\u201d <\/p>\n

As she said this she strapped on her guitar and strummed the first notes of I Love You, a mid-tempo scream into the void on which the Dublin band ruminate on their love\/hate relationship with Ireland. <\/p>\n

The tune addresses the scandal of the mother and baby homes and the dead hand of Civil War politics, and although Rodrigo didn\u2019t say as much at the time, it has since become apparent that she was addressing a love\/hate dynamic of her own. Not \u201cthe gall of Fine Gael and the fail of Fianna F\u00e1il\u201d but the demands of young stardom and the expectations of the teenage audience that has lapped up her meditations on youthful heartache and, in the process, made her one of the biggest names in pop.<\/p>\n

Twelve months later Rodrigo is still working through that tension as she prepares to release her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, her attempt to move beyond teen stardom and to find her place as a grown-up artist. <\/p>\n

But is this what her fans \u2013 those millions of self-described \u201cLivies\u201d around the world \u2013 want from her? Or might they react as many did when she covered Fontaines DC in Dublin: with a mix of confusion and impatience?<\/p>\n

The journey that Rodrigo began in Dublin has since had a few twists. At Glastonbury<\/a>, a few days later, she brought Robert Smith<\/a> of The Cure<\/a> onstage for a run-through of his anthem Just Like Heaven. She has covered the name-droppable indie band The Magnetic Fields for a charity record and cited the 1990s songwriter and critical darling Fiona Apple as an influence. How more explicitly could she articulate her desire to be taken seriously?<\/p>\n

\"CureCure anthem: Olivia Rodrigo performing Just Like Heaven with Robert Smith at Glastonbury. Photograph: Kevin Mazur\/Getty <\/p>\n

How about covering CMAT<\/a>? Which is what she did when she appeared on BBC Radio 1\u2019s Live Lounge recently, performing her version of the Irish singer\u2019s When a Good Man Cries. \u201cI woke up like 10 minutes ago, and I just heard Olivia Rodrigo sing the word \u2018Dunboyne\u2019 on live English radio \u2026 what phase of the simulation is this?\u201d CMAT said on social media the following morning, rendered all but speechless by the incongruity.<\/p>\n

The idea of Rodrigo getting into the weeds of Workmans Club punk-pop \u2013 which is to say covering Fontaines \u2013 or celebrating country-and-Irish-inflected indie music from Dunboyne would have seemed highly unlikely when Drivers License made her an overnight star in January 2021. <\/p>\n

But her embrace of left-field Irish punk was, in hindsight, the first clue of the new direction she has embarked on with You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, an album that boldly announces her desire to be taken seriously as an artist and regarded as something other than fodder for teenagers.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s CMAT cover is more than a brilliant excuse for pintsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with being fodder for teenagers, of course. That\u02bcs how some of the greatest musicians in history started out, singing to screaming girls while everyone else looked on in disapproval and suspicion. But from The Beatles to Taylor Swift, they eventually aspire to more than just popularity \u2013 and that\u2019s the point at which Rodrigo has seemingly arrived exactly a year on from covering Fontaines.<\/p>\n

Change is always risky in pop. From Ed Sheeran\u02bcs disastrous \u201cindie phase\u201d in 2025 to Miley Cyrus collaborations with The Flaming Lips, there are many cautionary tales of artists mistaking foolhardiness for ambition and burning through much of their audience\u2019s goodwill.<\/p>\n

But then maybe the biggest risk would be to continue to write songs about young love. Rodrigo will be well aware that teenage stars have a perceived best-by date. She is no longer an ingenue crooning about red lights and young heartache, and the fans who were 15 when she broke through are now entering their 20s, teenagers no longer. Do they still have anything in common with her?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the question Rodrigo circles warily on You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. Its arrival marks the beginning of a potentially risky transition for the singer, who started her career in a reboot of Disney\u2019s High School Musical and is now covering CMAT and hanging out with Robert Smith, the godfather of goth.<\/p>\n

An additional complication is the fact that \u201cdifficult third album\u201d syndrome is a genuine pitfall in pop music. For rock stars, record number two is where things typically fall apart. But in pop it\u2019s the third album that\u2019s especially fraught \u2013 just look at Lady Gaga\u02bcs divisive Artpop.<\/p>\n

Up to that point, she could seemingly walk on water. But then she went out on a limb and almost lost an arm and a leg. The misstep was a more experimental sound; the backlash was swift and terrible.<\/p>\n

Could Rodrigo be on the receiving end of a similar pushback? Seemingly aware that she\u2019s trying something new, she hasn\u2019t been shy about expressing her determination to move beyond early singles such as Good 4 U and Brutal. \u201cI love rock music and I have such a reverence for rock music, and that\u02bcs all that I really listen to,\u201d she told The New York Times recently. \u201cBut I think going into it, it didn\u02bct feel exciting to me \u2013 rock in the traditional sense of, like, power chords, distortion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boisterous rock was the perfect delivery mechanism for lyrics that fizzed with teenage rage. But, at 23, she is no longer interested in taking aim at terrible boyfriends via short, sharp shocks of vitriol.<\/p>\n

Hence the more understated tone set by the new LP, which she has revealed will trace the arc of a doomed relationship, from infatuation to codependency to heartache. (It is widely understood to be about her ex Louis Partridge, the English actor.) <\/p>\n

Her inspiration came from all over, from binge-watching Sex and the City and the sad fizzle of Carrie Bradshaw\u02bcs relationship with her sad, boring beau, Aidan, and from her friendship with Smith (who cameos with her on the new LP and with whom she reunited at the Primavera Sound festival, in Barcelona, last weekend).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something about the restraint of it that felt nice. I was just really obsessed with that type of music while I was making it. I did Glastonbury with Robert Smith, which was insane. And I\u02bcd always been a fan of The Cure, but since meeting him and, like, getting to hang out with him, I went back and listened to all those new wave bands,\u201d she said in her New York Times interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was living in England at the time so obviously you get a lot of English band inspo. For me, in songwriting, the sentiment always comes first. And so I knew that I wanted to write songs about how it felt to be in love. And love feels like that to me \u2013 that vibe, the emotional quality of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if Rodrigo is all-in on gothic break-up ballads, her audience is still coming around to the idea \u2013 and their misgivings were not assuaged by the angsty, minimalist tone of Drop Dead, the lead single from her new album, whose less-is-more energy has alarmed some of her fans. \u201cI don\u02bct super much understand the aesthetics of the album and I feel like the song felt a bit like a throwaway song,\u201d one said<\/a> on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrop Dead feels like such a bland song, and maybe my expectations were just too high, but it just feels very generic,\u201d another said. \u201cI don\u02bct hate the song, I just feel let down. Olivia is known for her incredible songwriting and deep lyrics, but Drop Dead feels so underdone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans\u2019 wariness towards You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love intensified with its second single, The Cure, a slow, grungy number notable for failing to go to number one in either the United States or the UK. \u201cIt kinda drags,\u201d one Livie wrote<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m super underwhelmed by Olivia\u2019s recent releases but that\u2019s ok, she\u2019s not making music just for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has also been controversy about her fashion choices \u2013 a depressingly predictable state of affairs for women working in pop, where female artists are still held to a different standard from men. <\/p>\n

The criticism has focused on her appropriation of \u201cbaby doll\u201d dresses, which some have deemed creepy and infantilising. The aesthetic harks back to the 1990s, in fact, and artists such as Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Courtney Love of Hole (who previously accused Rodrigo of lifting the \u201cdoomed cheerleader\u201d vibe from the cover of Live Through This, her 1994 LP).<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Rodrigo performs onstage at the 3Arena, Dublin, in 2024. Photograph: Tom Honan\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

Rodrigo has pushed back against comments about her look. \u201cWhat\u2019s really disturbing is I have worn outfits that are maybe revealing on stage. I\u02bcve been on stage in a sparkly bra and little shorts \u2013 which is my right: that\u02bcs fun,\u201d she told The New York Times. <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt cool and comfortable in that, and that wasn\u02bct inappropriate, but me fully covered up in a dress that people deemed to be childlike was inappropriate, and I think it shows how we really normalise paedophilia in our culture. It\u2019s just this rhetoric that we\u2019re fed as girls since we\u2019re so little, which is, like, don\u2019t wear that, because then a man is going to sexualise your body and it\u2019s your fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

The absurd criticisms people make about Rodrigo\u2019s look suggest that, after five years of nonstop success, the knives may be sharpening. There is a long tradition of fans and critics turning on artists perceived as having too much success too soon \u2013 see the backlash against Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. Could it happen to Rodrigo too?<\/p>\n

She seems aware of the risks she\u2019s taking by moving away from punk-pop and going in a more nuanced direction. The worry is that the fans who have watched her grow up in public may not be ready to see their favourite pop star morph into an artist who worships The Cure and covers Fontaines DC and CMAT. To paraphrase a line from one of her own hits, it really is brutal out there.<\/p>\n

You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is released via Polydor Records<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sun was setting over Marlay Park, and somewhere beyond the horizon Olivia Rodrigo seemed to have caught…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[893,93,3408,37893,61,60,2617,213688,278,15735,98871,6543,54807],"class_list":["post-498924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-cmat","tag-entertainment","tag-fontaines-dc","tag-glastonbury-festival","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katy-perry","tag-marlay-park","tag-music","tag-olivia-rodrigo","tag-robert-smith","tag-taylor-swift","tag-the-cure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}