Sometimes, the defining mood of the 2020s seems to be isolation. The culture of these years will be remembered for many things that numbed and distracted the senses: smooth country music, friendly AI chats, ketamine nasal sprays, conspiracy theories that were favored over facts, and airing podcasts about all of the above. The feeling is out; vibing is in.
But the case against this line of thinking is simple: Olivia Rodrigo.
Early 2021, the then-Disney star song “Driver’s License” it pierced the disease-weary zeitgeist like a gear in the desert. The song’s intense piano and screamed choruses interrupted the flow of any playlist by arousing the listener’s sympathy and, perhaps, alarm (Is he okay? am i ok) his albums Sour (2021) and Intestines (2023) boasted the wit and poise of a theater kid with a stirring work from rock producer Dan Nigro—but the defining feature was its rawness. As he flitted between punk intensity and bedroom intimacy, each rocking track was backed by palpable guts.
His third album, You Look Sad For A Girl So In Lovemakes that earlier work sound childish. That’s not to ignore what he did before—he was bottling it in some kind of hate, hot and thin like boiling water. Now that he is 23 years old, the mood is thicker and worse. The album chronicles what he has called his first “adult” relationship, and was originally intended to be composed entirely of love songs. Then he and his boyfriend broke up, and the work went dark. The result is an immersive listening experience—so intense it’s almost sickening.
He’s been in unstable territory since the debut of the first single, “Drop Dead.” The voiceover evokes the swagger of a John Hughes film, but it changes in pitch, as if he’s about to bow out. Rodrigo sings about a first date in a slinky, secretive voice—then he starts plucking the same note over and over for the chorus. The effect is carefree fun. One thinks of the Proclaimers’ narrator many maniacal hits starting their 500 mile journey with two doses of Vyvanse.
Soon, Rodrigo will fall completely. “I feel right, I feel wrong, I feel completely crazy,” she sings on the beautiful “Stupid Song,” which sets the honeymoon phase to pounding piano and pounding drums. The song takes the gentle approach of U2, Coldplay, and Nation—until the elegant high rises like a passionate wedding cake. Then, the song “Honey Bee” sounds so deep in the middle of the night that the chorus seems like a sudden flash, beautiful and strong. Two jangle-pop delicacies, “Fuu kwa Akili” and “U + Me = <3," wave the red flag like it's a pom-pom. "And sometimes, in such a low state / I even wish for tragedy," Rodrigo sings, "'Cause I know he would come / And take care of me so well."
The self-deprecating nature of the songs marks a welcome evolution in today’s heart-wrenching pop repertoire. Rodrigo came under the influence of Taylor Swift, who taught a generation of singers how to write post breakup essays truncated by antiheroic confessions. But now Rodrigo is pulling the strings the basis of the modern problem of young love: how engagement is linked to goal-seeking and social functioning. The album opens by tracking a handsome man on his phone; in the middle of the song list, he has the relationship he dreamed of yet he can’t feel safe. The villain isn’t just his own person—it’s also “all the pretty girls in my mind,” as he sings in “The Cure.”
As he explores these tensions, Rodrigo shows himself as struggling against the limits of his art form: He wants his man “more than any silly song can say,” and he warns that “it’s so hard to express this / In a way that feels honest.” But really, she’s a master at getting her point across, mixing vivid stories (crying on the curb at LAX), catchy vocals (full-flow, high-pitched intensity), and high-stakes silliness (“They say modern romance is a bad endeavor / And to that I say, ‘whatever!’). This queen of vocal realism even starts to try metaphors, though she gets low marks for the clinical imagery of “The Cure” and the metaphorical misfires of “Begged.” (“I’m an anchor in the sea / You know I couldn’t leave”—but what if the captain winched?).
Either way, as Rodrigo knows, music is exactly the way to convey indescribable feelings. Leaving pop punk behind, he and Nigro create an elegant, curated sonic array from 1980s New Wave to ’90s alt-rock to 2000s indie-music traditions that have been used to dress up bad music (lust, self-loathing) in cinematic splendor. The album is full of references to The Cure, as well as a beautiful composition from Robert Smith. Rodrigo clearly understands that the essence of his band is not only in his dream guitars but also in the total rejection under them.
Still, as Rodrigo’s songwriting matures, heavy references to Nigro’s production start to seem silly. The nostalgia on his earlier albums was refreshing—he was a Disney guy, yes, but he had a taste for High Fidelity clerk Zoomers and Boomers unite! So far that type of novel has ended. When I listen to the karaoke future’s “Expectations,” I want to enjoy the songwriting—the looping hooks, the satisfying call-and-response. But my brain is racked to determine if a song sounds more like Cyndi Lauper, Gary Numan, or the B-52s.
The imitative nature of the production is, in fact, the more Rodrigo conforms to the pop norms he otherwise defies. Delving into the past with our phones, streaming the familiar at the expense of the new, is one way people use to numb themselves to the present. Rodrigo, clear-headed and open-hearted, makes art about the terrifying excitement that comes with giving here and now everything you have. If he were to write his musical language, he would score more.
