What makes a good love song? Is it a happy ending? A lyrical description of the perfect first kiss? Does the boy get the girl? According to Olivia Rodrigo’s first single off her upcoming album, “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love,” the recipe for a good love song includes underlying anxiety, uncertainty, or discomfort. In an interview with British Vogue, the pop girl known for “driver’s license” and “vampire,” shared, “I realized all my favorite romantic love songs were beautiful because they had a tinge of fear or yearning in them.”
For my initial listen of Rodrigo’s first release in 2 years, I put on the Petra Collins-directed music video that starts with a shot resembling a karaoke bar visual, and then transitions to Rodrigo running around an empty Palace of Versailles in a Chloé babydoll dress and skinny pink headphones. Teen Vogue likened the look to what Marie Antoinette may have worn if she had put a pink, songwriting-bound gel pen to paper. There are elements of relatability in the video, such as social media-stalking from bed, or giddily listening to music and thinking about that one, serendipitous interaction. If only everyone got to frolic around a 17th-century French monument while experiencing those all-consuming crushes.
Rodrigo cues up her new era with a hint from the past. In the first verse, Rodrigo sings, “You know all the words to ‘Just Like Heaven’/And I know why he wrote them now that you’re standin’ right here,” referencing The Cure’s iconic song, “Just Like Heaven,” which Rodrigo covered with The Cure’s frontman, Robert Smith, at Glastonbury Festival this past summer. Through this allusion, Rodrigo injects the genius of a timeless love song into her own first-date ballad.
Drawing on influences from Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette, Rodrigo’s music often has a punky brine that adds nuance to the sugary pop melodies. In this newest addition to her pop-punk index, Rodrigo maintains this theme by juxtaposing a violent visual — dropping dead — with sweet specificity about a perfect night out and being “lovesick” over someone new: “The most alive I’ve ever been/But kiss me and I might drop dеad.”
Rodrigo has carved out a space in the competitive pop genre as an artist who can conjure the perfect breakup anthem. Reportedly, this forthcoming pink-hued junior album tells a love story in chronological order, so while fans can definitely look forward to new heartbreak classics, it is exciting that Rodrigo is exploring new feelings so early on.
Safe to say, the world will be falling in love on June 12, when “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love” makes romantics out of us all.