A Chronological Track-by-Track Analysis of Olivia Rodrigo’s New Album
TOPNOTE reviews Olivia Rodrigo’s new album. Image credit: Olivia Parker
'‘'You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’ is the lament of a person who’s lost their identity in the well of a wish they threw themselves into the water with.’
Can Olivia Rodrigo’s new release be considered a concept album?
‘you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (YSPS)’ chronicles the life cycle of a romantic relationship, from its dizzying conceptual sparks to its agonising death. Or… is it brilliantly executed and devastating proof that art imitates life?
As with any art where the ending is known before the first page is turned or the actors step on stage, its enjoyment is determined by its ability to set the scene, prophesise, and do justice to a finale lacking in surprise. In YSPS, we know the relationship doesn’t last… so how does Rodrigo take us to its demise, especially after introducing her new musical chapter with ‘drop dead’ – a performance of pure bliss which saw her skipping in delirious delight through the literal Palace of Versailles? (If you want to really give yourself emotional whiplash, listen to the album’s first and last track consecutively…)
For now, since the 14-time GRAMMY® Award nominee went off to live some life and returned with it condensed into a 13-track album, TOPNOTE are making our way through it in order. Read our song-by-song analysis of YSPS below.
Olivia Rodrigo, ‘You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love’ album artwork. Image credit: Chuff Media
If we look at YLPS as a play, then its opening act is the (not-so) carefree central characters finding their way to each other. ‘stupid song’ is in many ways rendered the most romantic of the lot, released with a music video featuring the almost insect-like fragility of Prima Ballerina Tiler Peck and ensemble from the NYC Ballet and American Ballet Theater in New York’s urban streets. Rodrigo’s vocals swell and swell – this is her reaching the unsustainable heights that have her swinging upside-down on the album’s cover. But, like ‘honeybee’, it’s rooted in anxiety, if not panic: she’ll stay genuinely unstable until she ‘gets’ her muse. ‘stupid song’ is the embodiment of nervous butterflies catching fire, a crush reaching its crescendo… and it is absolutely one that deserves to be screamed loudly and lividly.
“In ‘YSPS’, we know the relationship doesn’t last… so how does Rodrigo take us to its demise, especially after introducing her new musical chapter with ‘drop dead’ – a performance of pure bliss which saw her skipping in delirious delight through the literal Palace of Versailles?”
It’s interesting to wonder if the eeriness to ‘honeybee’ was an intentional addition whilst these earlier tracks were revisited. From the ghoulish backing vocals to the horror-movie chords, ‘honeybee’ hides its toxins in plain sight – and foreshadows the sting when its re-referenced in the album’s final track. ‘It’s too hard to describe this / in a way that feels honest’ Rodrigo tiptoes over tragic strings masquerading as a romantic backdrop. It’s an unusual thing for such a prolific writer to admit, and more revealing when compared with the cutting, explicitly considered metaphors of the album’s latter half. Perhaps there’s an early admission emerging that Rodrigo isn’t being completely honest with herself – hence the struggle to locate her usual eloquence.
‘maggots for brains’ is a depraved, codependent version of ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’. True to its title, Rodrigo’s lyricism suffers in the album’s mid-section, and whilst these next three tracks move the story along to reveal more of ‘the perfect couple’’s imperfections, it trades impact for narrative progression.
‘u + me = <3’ is fit for the end credits of a 00s coming-of-age or ‘Freaky Friday’ adjacent film, likely as intended, with rose-tinted glasses and high-school heartthrob references threaded through each line over jangling guitar. We get stuck in teen mentality for a little longer, with a possessive Rodrigo admonishing anyone who comes near her man. Dipping her toes back into the world of pop-punk, this isn’t Rodrigo’s classiest step, but most of us have looked back and winced at territorial pettiness, so at least she dares to own it.
Rodrigo’s second single ‘the cure’ was pre-emptively regarded as the turning point of YSPS, thought it transpires that the shift actually happens at the end of the preceding ‘purple’, rescuing the album’s least engaging song with an unexpected plot twist. Perhaps the impatience of listening to Rodrigo’s dreamy and doe-eyed descriptions of her intertwined and invisible-string romance comes from knowing what’s next: that the bubble is imminently about to burst. And suddenly, on the slowing of a piano and turning down of an amp, the lines ‘melt with you till it all turns black / melt with you till it all turns sad’ slip out…
From here, the album takes a steep upwards turn in quality as her relationship suffers the inverse fate. For the recently heartbroken… proceed with caution.
“We could only hope to see Rodrigo close her album with such a banger, but alas, there’s more heartbreak to attend to.... ‘cigarette smoke’ ends with an isolated vocal and an acoustic guitar, and we’re back in the empty house, with no clarity or closure. Most heartbreak albums end with some level of catharsis… Rodrigo leaves her audience more upset than they’d asked or ever expected to be.”
On first listen, ‘begged’ is surely the deepest cut of the album (spoiler; it gets even worse). Rodrigo, vulnerable and isolated, battles with herself to protect her relationship and sanity, wondering if both can exist. ‘Nothing’s quite enough when to know that to get it I begged’ she wails, and the pain in her vibrato is as audible as unwanted silence.
As widely identified, one of the key throughlines of this album is the multi-referential allusions to The Cure – both using mentor and collaborator Robert Smith’s band as the epitome of romance, and the since-broken idea that the perfect love would ‘cure’ her. Would ‘i think you’re what’s wrong with me’ be more than a song with a brilliantly catchy chorus if it did not feature Smith’s harmonies? Certainly, it’s not as gut-wrenching as the track that follows…
‘less’ almost didn’t make the cut, and thank god Rodrigo listened to her friends. Painfully intimate, you can hear the squeaks of furniture as she pens her deepest fears: ‘if loving me means crying on the curb at LAX / then I guess, I wish I wish I wish you loved me less’. Those who’ve passed through will recognise LA airport as the epitome of an overstimulating and transient environment. To find yourself unable to maintain composure in such a crowded place is the reflection of something gone terribly wrong — to admit defeat in front of nothing but the heavy chords of a grand piano is just as depressing.
We mentioned voluntary emotional whiplash, but if you’re listening to the album through, here is where you’ll experience it regardless. ‘expectations’ is Dua Lipa’s ‘New Rules’ for Gen Z. Wipe your tears and shake off the vicarious heartbreak. Throwing herself headfirst into rebound territory, Rodrigo returns appalled and repelled, and armed with a new set of boundaries – which should be taken as gospel.
Briefly, Rodrigo is in control, and unstoppable, and it’s natural to hope her next record is driven by more of this self-empowerment when it’s by now become clear that ‘you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’ is the lament of a person who’s lost their identity in the well of a wish they threw themselves into the water with. We could only hope to see Rodrigo close her album with such a banger, but alas, there’s more heartbreak to attend to.
Her final track’s lyrics are devastatingly simple, painting at first the image of a cold and empty house, before regrets and resentments bounce off the walls and cascade down the stairway to fill each room. The bridge is one that sends goosebumps and shivers off skin like gushing water… or the steady stream of tears. Rodrigo’s pent-up anxieties are finally set free, and it’s still not enough. ‘cigarette smoke’ ends with an isolated vocal and an acoustic guitar, and we’re back in the empty house, with no clarity or closure.
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Most heartbreak albums end with some level of catharsis… Rodrigo leaves her audience more upset than they’d asked or ever expected to be. To achieve such a feat is the mark of a truly talented musician.
Given the chronology of ‘YSPS’, the album’s final statement and bitter delivery makes clear the multi-platinum artist is still dragging her heels out the mud of her own heartbreak – though one watch of her clenching jaw while recently sharing ‘less’ with fans reveals the same. In ‘YSPS’, Rodrigo’s ‘love’ songs don’t hold a candle to her ‘love unravelling’ ballads, but after hearing the record through, it’s easier to understand why. Bittersweetly for Olivia Rodrigo, her personal tragedy has acted as the catalyst for a wonderful piece of artwork, producing an album that will undoubtedly mark her pivot into a career of promising longevity.