Discussing Ballads and Album Cohesion

This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana Carvana believes selling your car should be easy. Get a real offer down to the penny, picked up from your driveway. You may keep waiting for a catch, there isn't one. Sell today at cararvana d. comot pickup fees may apply Olivia Rodrigo's first two albums were massive chart topping hits. Now she's back with a third collection of fizzy, sometimes jagged pop songs about a love that goes amazingly well until it doesn't. I'm Stehen Thompson. Today we are talking about Olivia Rodrigo's new album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in loveove on Pop Culture Happy Hour from P are This message comes from Whole Foods Market. The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods Market, no antibiotics ever burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. 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On average, at least. We unpack a new study about the social isolation of remote work and what it means for your he This week on Shortwave, NPR science podcast. listen daily on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast. Joining me today is NPR music editor Hazel Sills. Welcome Hazel. Hey! It is a pleasure to have you. also with us is NPR music reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, Hey, Isabella. Howdy, Thankks for having me It is great to have you. So Olivia Rodrigo was a Disney channel star before pivoting to music full time, but she's been a superstar from virtually the moment she released her first single, driver's license five years ago Like her first two albums, Sour and Guts, the new album mixes spiky rock with tender ballads while incorporating influences like Taylor Swift and Paramore also contains several callouts to the Cure, up to and including Rodrigo's first ever featured guest, as the cure's Robert Smith turns up to sing on the song What's Wrong withith Me I' not man. I mustself light Wning browso I weary. I mustself not h You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love is out now, Isabella, I'm gonna start with you. What do you think? You know, it's not my favorite Olivia Rodrigo album. I'll say that. There were moments that I really liked I was excited to see Robert Smith on there. I think that she took risks and sometimes they landed and sometimes For me, they did not. It was like a little bit too much piano. There were specific moments, like stupid song where I was like, this bridge rocks Oh the bridge is so good. Yeah, but like I don't wanna sit through the whole song. It's just it's too slow. I don't Wow. Anyway, I concede So mixed? Mixed is what I'm taking away from this? Mixed. It has moments that I will definitely come back to again and again and I'm already thinking about. And then it has songs that I probably will never listen to again if I can avoid it. Okay, how about you, Hazel? Yeah, I mean, I certainly was, I think a little bit more negative on this album. I think that Olivia Rodrigo really pulled me in with guts. I think that was her first album where I felt like she had sort of emerged as a very exciting voice in pop music for me. and There was so much angst on that album and a very kind of specific point of view coming from like a young woman artist and I think that she loses a bit of that specificity on this album to sort of create this larger narrative of you know being in love, falling out of love and You know, I think there are some strong moments. I think like herer production on this album is really interesting. But I think overall on like a songwriting perspective, I wanted more from her. W Yall I. I think I am the token person on this panel who is completely O RD pilled. Yeah What she does works for me. It's worked for me since Sour. I think she kind of emerged pretty fully formed as a just a very strong presence, a strong songwriter, a very strong singer and live performer every time she's popped up you know, any, you know, singing on SNL or whatever, I just think, wow, her vocals are really, really strong. And to me, this record, you know feels like a natural extension of the records that came before it with kind of a few new influences swirled in. I have always been really, really impressed cleverness of the way that she has managed over the course of her career to combine Gen Z singer songwriter, very Taylor Swift, influenced topop With a lot of sounds of like nineties All Rck, and here she also manages to mix in a little bit of new order, a little bit of the smashing pumpkins, a little bit of obviously the cure, not only in the song that you we heard that includes Robert Smith, but like name checking the song just like Heaven in the single Drop Dead You know all the words did just like heaven I know it You're standing right. The second single on this album is called The Cure, even though it doesn't in any other way really reference the band. To me, I think she does such a great job Bridging a generational gap between Gen Z and GenX and kind of fusing them together in clever ways. For me on this record I think the strongest songs are the ones that have a little more energy. I think her ballads, I find a little lethargic and they don't really hook me in I think maybe the way a couple of the ballads on her first two records do. Yeah. totally. Yeah, I've never really been a fan of ballad Olivia. Like dririver's license for me was not the biggest hook in her career. I was really excited when she started experimenting with like punk rock. and like you're saying, Stehven, really calling back to these influences. We all know she's very into like the sort of riot girl pop punk aesthetics thrilled to see her sort of pivot a little bit on this album away from those and further back into the eighties. L I did feel like I don't know, I didn't her to get stuck in that sound. and I think there are moments on this album where she pulls it off really well. like I liked the song U plus me equals less than three I li that it sounded a little bit like the cure and it sounded a little bit like Al or Diet Sig. L it had a little contemporary crispiness to it. Yumiuma. Yeah. I don't know that she's listening to Yumiuma, but it seems like she could be. Yeah, you know, so there were moments, but I agree with Hazel where like I feel like it was missing some of the bite and some of the sarcasm that I really enjoyed from her first two albums Like some of the lyrics just fell a little flat, even though sonically I liked what she was going for in a couple of different places on this album. Yeah, I just feel like on the last album You know, I really love Olivia in the mode of songs like Bad Idea, right or Get him Back or Ballad of a Homeschool girl, likeike This sense of anxiety or like inner conflict that I feel like she is actively working through on her songs. And I just I didn't hear that as much on this album. I think because it has such a clearer you know, sort of container. like she is singing about this one relationship and how it has transformed her, falling in love, how it It's demise and I think that You know, Sour and Guts just had such wider scope. and I loved hearing her saying about all these different aspects of her life from like social anxiety to, you know body dysmorphia. And I think you know that really set her up to me in my mind as a very, you know, Steven, to your point, like a very like generational talent. L someone who I just really wanted to hear their perspective on her personal life and what she's going through. and I didn't get as many of those moments on this album. I just think because it was, you know very narrative driven and she's leading us through this story. I mean, I'm just gonna to keep steering us in the direction of things I like about this s. go for it. because I really am a fan. One thing that I really appreciate, and I think Hazel, you and I have talked about the song The Cure as a real highlight Yes of this record. And I think one thing that I think this song hints at and kind of suggests you know a future direction and expansion of her sound is I think there are several tracks here, including the cure that really get at a kind of grandeur like a sonic grandeur to match the emotional grandeur that she's trying to capture. And to me, that song has these like these big strings. It's definitely a song that evokes the you know kind of peak smashing pumpkins. That sounds also getting at something I think really important, which is that like love is not the solution to all your problems. Yeah. I also just feel like that's a great message to put out into the world. Great message to put out into the world, and I think especially powerful for someone her I mean, most of this album You know, the first half of this album is basically love songs. you know, songs about being intensely head over heels in love And that's actually kind of a new subject material for Olivia Rodrigo. I mean, she has sort of built this reputation with songs like dririver's license, Vampire, these really intense, you know, cutting songs aimed at ex's And I think the cure is so interesting to me because you know, she is someone who has spent most of her career writing about love and chasing it and you know, searching for it. and on the cure, it's like she has it And it's not a song that's, you know, a dig at an ex or something like that. It's not like a vampire. It's this moment of real self realization and like discovery. and it sounds like I'm hearing her you know, have this epiphany in real time. And I think that that is why the Cure for me is the strongest song on this album because it I think it contains this sort of critical distance that I wanted Olivia Rodrigo to have about most of her relationship on this album. and And it's just an incredible performance. L she is singing on that song. and it has a great music video. and so it's definitely the highlight for me. Yeah, I agree. I think her voice sounds incredible. I didn't love this song when it came out as a single, but I think in the context of the album, it like really clicked into being like kind of what Hazel is saying, Like she's taking a little bit more of a step back ling with conflict in a way that we don't really get to hear for a lot of the album. And yeah, her voice just sounds incredible. I like that she's not singing so much in a falsetto or in a like she's just kind of It's a little bit like balked down in a way that I really like and I think matches the emotional tone of the song. And I think it's worth discussing kind of the context of this record where she had written a bunch of love songs, you know, because she was in a relationship and was very happy and was has, you, has spoken in interviews about kind of like, this was my first kind of grown up relationship. And then over the course of the making of this record, that relationship ended. And so they suddenly kind of had to go back and like retrofit an air of sadness to it and to kind of create the track sequencing that we have going on here. I mean, this record is sort of subtitled where like the first half of the songs are subtitled A Girl So in love And the second half of the record is subtitled, You Sretty Sad. And the cure is the song that is the fulcrum And I agree with Isa that my initial reaction to the song as a single was like, No, that's pretty good. But then hearing it in the context of the way that these songs fall, it kind of took on much, much, much more power. I wanna stick up for the song Stupid Song I'm sorry, I went too hard. hate I will say it's grown on me, but I want it Stehen, I want to hear your like full throatated defense. Yeah, go for it. I mean, first of all, I think it's the best song Taylor Swift has done since midnights. Exactly. I think it is massively better than anything on the last two Taylor Swift records. It is certainly very swift coded, including, I know it has that thing that I think Hazel is maybe more tired of than I am, which is that kind of Pitter Patter vocals. Yeah. And to me, part of what jumps out to me at the song is it's just very commercial. It feels like a colossal summer hit Also, you know, we've spoken several times just about how strong a singer she is. I think her vocal command on this song is something that very, very few even major pop singers could pull off. It's interesting you say that because I honestly I felt like she was straining a bit on the song. but I sort of like those higher notes, but it even though I don't love this song, I understood it to potentially be a choice because the way that the song plays out Her voice is building in intensity. She's like, I'm a heart of wax melting in the sun. like I'm this undone thread and there's this kind of like build to it. But it's funny that you said that like she is, I don't know, I don't know if she was totally hitting all those notes for me in that song. So you kind of hinted at what I'm saying though, which is that like letting your voice go a little raagged is part of the toolkit He powerowerhouse singer. thinkink about like Beyonce and like certain moments on the self title record or Lemonade or whatever, where she lets her voice getet a little raspy Yeah break a bed. Like She could hit those notes, but by letting her voice go more ragged, she's letting emotion in. And I think the way that song has this like this kind of careening quality to it where like her emotions are running ahead of her. Her voice can't quite keep up. To me, I think that's part of its power. I don't want Pop music to sound totally frictionless, right Oh So I don't know, it's interesting The story behind this album of them, you know, Olivia Rod Rgo and her collaborator, Dan Neiger having to go back and sort of tweak these early songs and I think one of my biggest problems with this album is that I don't know if they successfully pull off that I think that there are a lot of songs in the first half where I just they read as very earnest to me, even though I can sense or tell they are trying to put this darker level of sadness, or I think she described it as like creepy in an interview with the New York Times aura to them and I think that the song on the first half of the album that I think really successfully does that tweaking to me is the song Maggots for Brains, which I really loved and is very totally like Isa you mentioned Alveays earlier. It's like a jangle pop song. That is the song where I heard it and I was like, okay, I see what you were trying to do and I think you've really successfully done it on this song where you're essentially describing yourself as you know, feeling like a zombie in your body. Like every time your boyfriend leaves the house, you're like beside yourself So yeah, it's stupid song is, I think, one of the songs in this album that very successfully like completely telegraphs love to me. And that bridge. It's just like cruel summer. Like I'm gl that you called it a Taylor S of sunong Steven because it came on and I was like This is the thing that would make me, I would listen to this whole song just waiting for this buildup But I just wish it didn't I don't know, it like the emotional drive of it isn't enough to get me to sit through the first half of the song until that part kicks in. But the drums are incredible. Oh that bridge. It's interesting because like when driver's license came out So many people were just like, o, that bridge, that bridge, that bridge is the best ever. And to me, like that bridge was what kind of tipped the song over into a little kind of silliness for me. It's like she's so young and she's swearing. It's very teenage, right? And like that's part of what works about it. To me, this was like this bridge felt like she's in command. Yeah, which is what I wanted to hear more of on the record. Like I think when I heard of that bridge, I was like, oh my God, when she's locked in, like, She is so incredible. and I think that the production worked really well. likeike I think that song takes a really good pivot in the second half just I don't know. I feel like overall like this album just had too many ballads for me and I feel like it kind of it bogs her down. I think it sort of keeps her in this kind of like Adolcent sort of Hazel, you've described this to me before as like Claire's core music. And that is I was unfortunately getting a little too much of that on this record. I always and I don't know if it's selfish. I don't know if it's my personal taste getting in the way of my critical ability to evaluate the music. I always want Olivia to push from her theater kid Disney channel upbringings. And Eisa to your point, I think when she is in Valid mode And I think Stupid Song does have a little bit of that, you know, theater kid flair for sure. But she's in that ballid moment. I don't hear the growth. I think I hear growth when she is making more interesting choices. And also there's a part of me that's like, You know, would these songs, if she had sat with some of these ballads more, would they have turned into different kind of song. Like what a song like begged? you know, if she had sat on that a little bit longer, would it have stayed in its minimalist kind of at the piano origins. That's interesting because I thinkgd is maybe the strongest ballad here. Okay. In part, I think because of the sound, because of that gorgeous choral arrangement. They say it's forir you to not let good Rusim boy. I think that keeps it grounded in prettiness. The way I song like Honeybee to me is like floading away and it's like a little too looying. Meagg, I think has a little more emotional heft. Yeah, it's interesting talking about these songs because I think because of the way that the album is packaged and the way that she has you know, described it and sold it to listeners? Is this like tight kind of cohesive narrative. I think it It makes me listen to the songs, I think a little more critically because they're in conversation with each other and I'm not a fan of Honeybee at all. I can't forget for Honeybee. But it is so interesting to me that, you know, Stupid Song is this song about, you know, being unable to fully express your you know feelings in music because they're so strong. And then then she has a line in Honeybee, which is the song that follows Stupid song where she also expresses the same idea, like she sings about being, you know, kind of unable to describe her feelings. So it's moments like that where I just, you know, I wanted