Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s life as a pop superstar extends back just a little over five years, to early 2021 when her debut single, \u201cDrivers License,\u201d became a colossal hit. But she\u2019s approached her career with such patience and a high standard of quality that she is, in some respects, already an old soul at age 23. Her most significant controversy involved a couple of songs from her first album, \u201cSour,\u201d that sounded close enough to music by other artists that they warranted a writing credit. She\u2019s earned a reputation for putting on entertaining sold-out shows and released a strong follow-up LP\u2014\u201cGuts\u201d in 2023\u2014that won critical raves and a Grammy nomination for album of the year. While her success has been outsize, it has never seemed out of her control\u2014she has a professional athlete\u2019s focus and keeps her eyes trained on the next milestone.<\/p>\n
Ms. Rodrigo\u2019s third album, \u201cYou Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love\u201d (Geffen), out now, is extremely well-crafted and carefully expands her sound for a second time. Working again with producer Dan Nigro (Chappell Roan, Caroline Polachek), the singer-songwriter has created a song cycle about a relationship whose arc runs from the flush of infatuation through happy times to\u2014spoiler alert\u2014a devastating breakup. It\u2019s another confident step forward that doesn\u2019t take serious risks because it doesn\u2019t have to\u2014Ms. Rodrigo is still in the early days of her creative life, after all, building a foundation.<\/p>\n
One of Ms. Rodrigo\u2019s most endearing qualities is her desire to honor the music of her parents\u2019 generation, which she heard when growing up early in this century. She\u2019s brought the Breeders on tour as an opening act, and she has frequently name-checked Riot Grrrl acts such as Bikini Kill. While she\u2019s often mentioned bands from the \u201990s as inspiration, on \u201cYou Seem Pretty Sad\u201d she looks back a decade earlier. The first track, \u201cDrop Dead,\u201d begins with synth pulses and synthetic drums in a way that immediately evokes the \u201980s. The song details the initial encounter that launches the romance that is the record\u2019s primary storyline. Ms. Rodrigo is drawn to her crush because he knows all the words to the Cure\u2019s \u201cJust Like Heaven,\u201d and the swooning keyboard line running through the cut recalls the goth-rock band\u2019s 1985 single \u201cIn Between Days.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Ms. Rodrigo draws from rock and pop\u2019s past for arrangements, her melodies always have a post-2010s shape. They alternate among softer cooing, silent breakdowns, half-rapped bridges, and multitracked vocals designed to encourage stadium singalongs. The variety comes from lyrical nuance and instrumental change-ups, while the construction of her songs has been consistent. On the ballad \u201cHoneybee,\u201d a simple expression of affection, her voice is layered into a choir and mixed with a stately piano and strings\u2014it has a chamber-pop air and unfolds with little tension or emotional weight. \u201cMaggots for Brains,\u201d which was partly inspired by a storyline in \u201cSex and the City,\u201d has a pulsing bassline that traces directly to New Order, while the explosive radio-ready chorus is something beyond that band\u2019s remit. And \u201cMy Way,\u201d about a backstabbing girl who crossed a line with Ms. Rodrigo\u2019s boyfriend, is pop-punk with a new-wave sheen, a combination of sounds that brings to mind Paramore.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a92026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s life as a pop superstar extends back just a little over five years, to early 2021…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[437,228725,25200,80314,80312,5147,80309,146,80313,122,11161,85,58216,46,409,6674,27747,544,92545,228727,46760,228726,19806,91999],"class_list":["post-496760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-arts","tag-arts-in-review","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-ce-industry-news-filter","tag-content-types","tag-corporate","tag-corporate-industrial-news","tag-entertainment","tag-factiva-filters","tag-general-news","tag-government-policy","tag-il","tag-industrial-news","tag-israel","tag-music","tag-political","tag-political-general-news","tag-regulation","tag-regulation-government-policy","tag-standardization","tag-standards","tag-standards-standardization","tag-synd","tag-wsj-pro-wsj-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}