Olivia Rodrigo won over the world with songs written from her bedroom floor about what she thought was love. Heartsick ballads and “fuck you” anthems turned into multiple platinum smash hits and two beloved albums, ‘Sour’ and ‘Guts’. So when it came time to write her third, Rodrigo resolved to write a good ol’ love song about her first proper relationship.
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All was going to plan, until Rodrigo started listening to her gut – and her relationship ended while making the record. From that comes ‘You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love’, which details the highs and lows of adult love with a cinematic flourish that’s gorgeous to take in. Ambitious, nuanced and layered, it’s absolute proof of Rodrigo’s generational talent.
The album’s lush instrumental heightens the romance of its first half (officially, the ‘Girl So In Love’ side A), where Rodrigo gleefully basks in the warm rays of a new relationship. You can practically see her skipping through a meadow in the meandering breakdown of ‘Stupid Song’, while the rich chorus on ‘Drop Dead’ feels as opulent and ebullient as the name-checked Palace Of Versailles. That cinematic quality even applies to more stripped-back songs like ‘Honeybee’, which pairs Rodrigo’s eerily intimate vocals with a warm, fuzzy piano. “I hope I never see what your face looks like going,” she belts passionately. Ah, young love…
From that naïvety, jealousy and co-dependency rear their ugly heads in Rodrigo’s serenades. She’s braindead and listless without her lover on the excellent New Order ode ‘Maggots For Brains’, while she fights to prove she’s the best girlfriend – paired with the best boyfriend ever – on ‘U + Me = <3’. On ‘My Way’, a deliciously bitchy pop-rock anthem that’s the closest thing to ‘Guts’ as we get here, Rodrigo fends off a rival who can’t keep her eyes off her boyfriend (“Let me be direct, just stop!, You’re being fucking weird…”).
So begins Rodrigo’s inevitable downfall. Though ‘Purple’ fails to stitch together its patchwork sections, its tentative energy sets up the glorious drama of ‘The Cure’. Here, the singer’s an emotional wreck, tallying her lover’s body count in tears until she realises that she’s also the problem. That becomes even clearer on tender folk ballad ‘Begged’, where despite fighting tooth and nail for bare minimum, she hopelessly resolves to ride out the relationship: “I’m a penny in a fountain / Just waiting on my luck to change”.
‘What’s Wrong With Me’ should have been a smash – after all, it’s only got Rodrigo duetting with bloody Robert Smith from The Cure. Their voices melt like butter, and Smith does a fantastic job writing his own ominous verse, but the production is drab and sluggish compared to the grandeur of the album. The relationship comes to a head on ‘Less’, where Rodrigo’s officially, despondently dumped: “If loving me means letting go and wishing me the best / Then I guess / I wish you loved me less.”. It arrives at a thoroughly exhausting point in the record, so depending on your stomach for another ballad, you’ll either find this extremely cathartic or tiresome.
Thank god we have ‘Expectations’ to lift our spirits, which find the singer in a fit of dance-punk mania and post-breakup delusion: “I am so evolved / Now I ask for more and more and more and more and more!” By the time we arrive at closer ‘Cigarette Smoke’, it feels like those expectations are a facade for the deep heartbreak that lingers in her psyche. Even for Rodrigo, this is one haunting ending, who seethes at how long she’s stayed in a relationship with diminishing gains: “Tell me something honest so the memories turn dark.”
More than any other Rodrigo album, you feel emotionally spent by the end of ‘You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love’, but in the best way possible. This must be the most fully realised journey Rodrigo’s taken us on – an impressive feat, considering how quickly she had to rewrite songs here in light of her break-up. Here is a major popstar who is not afraid to get weirder and more wonderful, to give even more of themselves over in their art. ‘You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love’ is undeniable evidence of Rodrigo’s growth: as a songwriter, composer, and as a human being.
Details
Record label: Geffen Records
Release date: June 12, 2026
The post Olivia Rodrigo – ‘You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love’ review: a bittersweet, cinematic odyssey from a generational talent appeared first on NME.
