{"id":6648,"date":"2026-08-16T16:29:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T21:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=6648"},"modified":"2026-08-16T16:29:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T21:29:26","slug":"a-pop-savant-raises-her-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=6648","title":{"rendered":"A Pop Savant Raises Her Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pop savant raises her game and her standards on her third album.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Olivia Rodrigo has loved and lost many times since she cried through the suburbs as the heartbroken teenager in \u201cdrivers license.\u201d She\u2019s grown up, and her standards have gotten higher\u2014for a good love song, but also for what makes a good relationship.<\/p>\n

With her third album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Rodrigo is eager to share what she\u2019s learned. \u201cI found a lot of interesting pieces of myself in this album,\u201d she tells Apple Music. \u201cI just wanted to perfect a sad love song. All of my favorite love songs are so beautiful because there\u2019s an element of yearning or melancholy or fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not the first woman to fall in love while waiting in the bathroom line at the bar, as she does in \u201cdrop dead,\u201d but you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find someone who can voice that specific, oh-so-familiar scene so vividly.<\/p>\n

She sings of hoping to impress a boy\u2019s sister on \u201cu + me = \u14383\u201d (\u201cI try to win her over with my cynical humor and yacht rock music taste\u201d); she captures that moment when a love develops from new butterflies into something deeper with \u201cpurple\u201d (\u201cI used to visit your town like a tourist\/Now I\u2019ve got a local grocery store and a favorite florist\u201d).<\/p>\n

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Stream Now! Image Courtesy Of Apple.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s not all googly eyes, though: \u201cexpectations\u201d taps into the mortification that sets in when the party goggles wear off and a dude goes from cute to cringe real fast (\u201cI think he was on drugs\/He wasn\u2019t smart or funny\/I convinced myself he was… And now his number\u2019s blocked\u201d), and she invokes the pop-punk snarl of Avril Lavigne and Paramore for \u201cmy way.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even if she has fun between the ballads, the sadder, sparser songs lay out\u2014again, in characteristically vivid detail\u2014how Rodrigo believes the mistakes we make in the name of love are painful but effective teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201ccigarette smoke\u201d delivers one of Rodrigo\u2019s strongest vocal performances, as well as a one-liner you wish you thought of in that final text to an ex (\u201cI thought that we played the perfect couple\/Until you didn\u2019t want the part\u201d). \u201cless,\u201d which brings her back to the piano by herself, teaches her that love isn\u2019t all you need to make a relationship work: \u201cIf loving me means letting go and wishing me the best\/Then I guess I wish, I wish, I wish you loved me less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also effective teachers are the rock stars who came before her: \u201cthe cure,\u201d a meditation on the baggage that sinks relationships, boasts a guitar riff that, let\u2019s say, pays homage to \u201cEverlong\u201d as well as Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness-worthy strings, while the longing \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with me\u201d goes straight to the source by bringing Robert Smith of The Cure (the band, not the Olivia Rodrigo song) in for a duet.<\/p>\n

Maybe you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love is a collection of love notes, but not the kind you send: This is further proof of Rodrigo\u2019s great capacity for feeling, and feeling it all\u2014the brutal lows, sure, but also the bottomless hope that sparks with a look from a stranger in a crowded bar that could potentially change your life.<\/p>\n

Every product\/service is selected by editors. Products\/Services you buy through these links may earn “Streamapse Online Magazine”<\/strong><\/em><\/span> a commission or revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pop savant raises her game and her standards on her third album. Olivia Rodrigo has loved and lost many times since she cried through the suburbs as the heartbroken teenager in \u201cdrivers license.\u201d She\u2019s grown up, and her standards have gotten higher\u2014for a good love song, but also for what makes a good relationship. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[920],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6651,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648\/revisions\/6651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}