On the release date of you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, the New York Times published an article titled, “Olivia Rodrigo’s Songs Can’t Always Keep Up With Her Impeccable Taste.” In the piece, critic Lindsay Zoladz revels in her shock that Olivia Rodrigo’s new album offers an impressive breadth of artistic references — the Cure, Foo Fighters, the Smashing Pumpkins. Another NYT article compares her, again, to the likes of the Cure and the Smashing Pumpkins. A Vogue article compares her to Courtney Love and P.S. Eliot. In every review, the comparisons are endless, and they are marked with a tone of astonishment that says “how could a young pop girl be this good, this knowledgeable?”
The comparisons are compliments, right? Being compared to rock legends is undeniable praise. But why is it that reviewers feel the need to harp on her suspected references again and again? To take some of the focus off of her and give it to (mostly) male musicians?
So I initially thought this element of surprise was because Rodrigo is a woman. And I think that’s true, in part.
When I began writing this essay I plugged Olivia Rodrigo’s name into Google expecting to find the reviews I wanted to discuss. Instead I found article, after article, after article about her new beau. About how he is the epitome of the “man in finance” that all of us girls are looking for. Rodrigo’s artistic merit seemed to have been so quickly forgotten when something more interesting happened in her life, something even more worthwhile than good music: being tied to a man.
Despite her sound being reminiscent of music greats, apparently Rodrigo hadn’t effectively proven to the media that she isn’t just the pop girly ditz they want her to be. The respect critics have given her almost made her “one of the boys” (boys like Robert Smith). Only almost, though, because shortly after those reviews trickled in she wasn’t being seen only for the music she was making, rather for the details of her love life (she is the original Taydaughter, after all).
Olivia Rodrigo is a young woman who has proven her taste and breadth of knowledge of the rock geniuses that came before her, which is something not typically asked of pop stars, especially female ones who are expected to be both musicians and Pop Star Barbies. The ooh-ing and ahh-ing at Rodrigo’s admiration of 90s rock artists is something that just isn’t reciprocated for male artists. They aren’t patronized with this overstated astonishment at their talent.
While it’s true that Rodrigo is underestimated because she’s a woman, it’s also true that a solely gender based analysis is reductive to her work and to the critics’ work.* Ultimately, this critical surprise isn’t totally about Rodrigo being a woman. It also isn’t really about about Rodrigo at all.
“People don’t read books and they’re using AI to speak for them. And this is just very reflective of the moment. It’s not a very literary moment. It’s not a very lyrical moment — and that’s why Olivia stands out so much in this world,” says Caryn Ganz on “Cannonball Today.”
Hearing that clicked all of my suspicions about this persistent critical surprise into place. Rodrigo is being underestimated not because of who she is, but because of who everyone else is becoming. And, because our standards for artistic content have gotten so low. you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love demonstrates the value of human expertise, of what grows from genuine passion for the arts. The album proves that truly caring about artistic craft, not allowing AI to write it and not being influenced by social media trends, becomes the line between forgettable Top 20 hits and thoughtful music that exists within a greater context.
On the same “Cannonball Today” episode, Wesley Morris says about Rodrigo’s album, “I feel like these songs are — it’s funny. They’re just a little bit more sophisticated than the other songs on the chart.”
Today there’s an interest in pop stars who embrace elements of “low culture.” Slayyyter and Addison Rae have been praised for saying that they are inspired by artists like Britney Spears and Beyoncé. Those inspirations are logical connections to the work they are creating, but those answers also feel like a breath of fresh air to listeners who are embarrassed to admit they haven’t read a book in a few months. No matter what the desire to elevate and closely analyze reality television instead of simply engaging with already elevated art indicates about the interests of the decliningly literate masses today, Rodrigo feels no need to pacify it.
No one is questioning if her songs are engineered to highlight fifteen second increments designed to ignite tiktok trends, or if they are AI generated. The songs are as authentic as they are studied. So the obsession over critiquing this album almost feels like a cry for help to other artists. Thoughtful, quality work can still exist if artists choose to care, and if they choose to be artists who are interested in music’s history rather than only its industry. Music critics have to hear it all, so this fixation and this awe over Rodrigo’s album isn’t meaningless. Listen between the lines of you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, and what critics are really hearing is this: an act of anti-anti-intellectualism resistance.
*Side note: Is my aversion to the analysis that the critiques are gendered just part of the very 2026 urge to believe that identity politics are no longer weighty enough and should rather be chalked up to money and capitalism, which feel more tangible and less circular than cultural debates? Not sure.