As the clock hit midnight on June 12th, Olivia Rodrigo’s third album began its life on streaming. Rodrigo’s ‘you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love,’ which breaks the trend of her previous one word, capitalized-formatted titles of SOUR and GUTS, became available to the public with a new sound from the teenage-angst found in her raucous debut and nostalgic feel of her sophomore record.
There is something about Olivia Rodrigo’s energy that is so infectious it can’t help but bring a smile to somebody's face. Quirky lyrics and a fantastic voice, which are fully on show with her latest offering, third album. As seen in album opener drop dead with its chorus’ first line “one night I was bored in bed and stalked you on the internet.” With this, she wholly embraces the quirky side, but personally it never feels as forced as one would think on its written. She’s self deprecating, and funny but behind that is an incredible vocal range where she can drop into a seemingly effortless falsetto.
But she also shows a more heartfelt side, on songs like purple and the fantastic what’s wrong with me, which features The Cure’s legendary frontman Robert Smith. Smith’s voice adds an extra layer of emotion to the track, harmonizing his frisson-filled tenor with her more raw, emotional delivery. This leads into one of the real heart wrenching songs that comes near the end of this album, in less where she sings of a relationship in which she can see that it isn’t going to last, which is in fact a frequent theme of the album. She sings “if loving me means letting go and wishing me the best. Then I guess I wish, I wish, I wish you loved me less” something that I’m sure is relatable for a lot of people. It would be unfair to consider her in any way one dimensional, she’s multi-faceted and this latest album is yet more proof that she is undoubtedly one of the standouts in modern mainstream music.
Our rating at Comicbook Clique/Dirt Sheet Radio is an 8.5/10, recommended for fans of Paramore and Avril Lavigne. The standout tracks of the 13-track fare are less, what’s wrong with me (feat. Robert Smith), and my way.
Photo credit: Geffen Records.
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Ryan Norton is the latest DSR/CBC writer, set to review music of all genres going forward.