You seem pretty upbeat for an album so sad
I've been an Olivia Rodrigo fan since her debut album in 2021. I was, by all accounts, not the target audience for Sour.
I was in my mid-twenties. A man. Far from heartbroken — in my first long-term relationship (which, I'm happy to report, is still going strong) — when I listened to one of the greatest heartbreak albums of the 21st century, on repeat, for a week straight.
Sour was therapeutic in many ways for me. It was an ode to all my previous (and clearly, failed) attempts at relationships. It also held up a mirror and showed me all the people I used to be, which kept me from experiencing the kind of romantic relationship I'd always longed for.
Her songwriting was blunt and direct. The lyrics and delivery in Sour is possibly the best version of teenage angst I've heard on wax. During my actual teenage years, it was the seething anger and edginess of Eminem and Odd Future that spoke to me. I'm quite proud that I've grown to be a more well-adjusted teenager, at least in my adult years.
Her sophomore effort, Guts, was a sister record to Sour: more of the same, but better in many ways, with higher highs and, yes, lower lows. The song structures, vocal performances, and lyrics in the singles Vampire and Get Him Back! were not groundbreaking by any stretch, but they were done so well, and with so much finesse, that it felt ridiculously fresh. It was pop perfection.
At nearly twice the runtime of her first album, Guts did feel stunted and bland in places. Like the deep cuts Lacy and Making the Bed, where the sparse production left the cracks in her strained voice and her laboured breathing exposed.
With that said, it was impossible not to recognize that Rodrigo was special. A pop savant who wore her inspirations on her sleeve, and wrote songs with catchy hooks that still, somehow, felt honest. I was cautiously waiting for her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl Who's So In Love, lapping up all the singles and late-night promo as they came.
You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl Who's So In Love
The album starts off with Drop Dead, a saccharine sweet song at first glance. It's only when you give the full album a spin, and then a second go around, you see the inevitable heartbreak coming from a mile away, and all its foreshadowing. The paranoia, anxieties dressed as butterflies, and her feminine intuition which betrays her. The production is rich and overwhelming, like any new, all-consuming love.
The opener leads into the upbeat Stupid Song, where Rodrigo takes the age-old cliche of "I might be good with words, but words don't do justice to you" and makes it her own. The chord progression is reminiscent of Lorde's Supercut, while the song's frantic pacing does a great job of painting even the most apocalyptic imagery with a brush of romance.
Honeybee is pure devotion, except for the breathy refrain of "here's to hoping..." which might go unnoticed in your first listen, but never again. Everything that was wrong with Rodrigo's piano ballads in Guts seem to be gone here. It's not that Rodrigo's voice has matured a whole lot in the three years since, or that her breath control's gotten infinitely better. But she seems to have learnt how to use these quirks to her strength.
Maggots For Brains is somewhat too direct. Rodrigo explores the empty feeling she's overcome by, whenever her partner is away from her. The song lacks the intricate layers of the earlier tracks, but that might just make it more accessible for people who don't listen to albums front to back. Something tells me we're soon going to see a lot of fan edits on Tiktok and Instagram with supercuts of Obsession Nikki's shenanigans set to this sound. It is, of course, quite fitting, and perhaps telling that two cultural mainstays of 2026 explore this common theme.
In My Way, Rodrigo throws away all the maturity she showed in Happier and Jealousy, Jealousy almost five years ago, where she was able to hold grace for The Other Woman whom her then-boyfriend chose over her. Now, she's asking for The Other Woman who's blowing up her man's phone to (in as many words) shut up and get out of her way. It's vulnerable, relatable, and might just have the most replay value in the whole album.
U + Me = <3 and Purple are both duds in an album with few duds. The former has ideas that are much better executed elsewhere in the record, and the latter is a brilliant concept that doesn't feel fleshed out enough.
Purple is supposed to be the emotional centrepiece where Rodrigo realizes that, with her own blue and his red coming together, the world has become purple. After momentarily enjoying the new light in which she's able to see the world, she seems to miss having her own world view. This track leads to the other side of the album, which is way less lovey-dovey and way more ragey-dagey. The production on the track, however, is bland, and lacks a big moment to signal such a drastic tone shift.
The Cure explores how her new-found love can't cure what's broken in her, despite the running motif of healing wounds in almost every track prior. A rather loud track considering the introspective material, but the contrast works to its benefit. As the instrumentation swells towards the end, you get a sense that Rodrigo is getting a part of herself back, a part that can see clearly, and this brings about a change in atmosphere that the previous track couldn't.
Begged sees a dozen haunting vocal layers coming together to start a dialogue with her lover, asking him to to stay, claiming that she's ready to take whatever he's ready to give. An internal monologue breaks out every now and then, hinting that she had to beg to get this. She knew that love is embarrassing, but does it have to be humiliating too?
In her first studio collaboration ever, well into her third album, Rodrigo and Robert Smith (of The Cure) pack a powerful punch in a controlled duet. She finally finds the courage to admit that the man she's with is not right for her. Or, in other words, he's what's wrong with her. The song is understated in its grief and lingering in its pain. The back and forth between Smith and Rodrigo's verses, and the hook where her soprano and his tenor come together, make this a far more dynamic track than her previous indie-pop outings.
Less feels like the night where you stay up and cry over your breakup, and when you regain your senses, only to learn that it's tomorrow night already. It's as raw as anything on Sour, and the performance is as polished as anything else on You Seem Pretty Sad.
Expectations is very nearly a jump scare. The groovy synth-line made me think my phone was on shuffle and a new song by Charli XCX came on by mistake. It's a new sound for Rodrigo, and it's an interesting song, where she claims explicitly that she's learnt from her mistakes and now has high expectations. While a pretty good track on its own right, it doesn't do the album any service. For one, when you play the whole album on repeat, sans Expectations, there's some poetry in the fact that her new love heals her old wounds only to give her new ones. The track feels like an unnecessary breaking of the fourth wall, and hurts an otherwise cohesive record.
Cigarette Smoke is a near-perfect closer to a near-perfect album. It's the letter you write to your ex which you know they'll never read. Because you know you'll never send it to them. The second verse where she alludes to begging and calls her ex honeybee for one last time, and the eerie outro, hurt like a Spielberg film ending. You know it was crafted to manipulate your emotions and make you feel that hurt, but damn it, is it successful in its mission.
Verdict
It's too early to say whether the highs of this album surpass the highs on Guts, or if it lends itself to more end-to-end replays than Sour, but overall, it's a worthy follow up and a solid addition to Olivia Rodrigo's discography.
As of today, I give it a 8/10. Let's see how it fares with time.
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