Olivia Rodrigo must have been mad as hell in the studio when she finished you seem so pretty sad for a girl so in love. The rollout for her third album, produced by longtime collaborator Dan Nigro, started with a bang when she released the song “drop dead” in April, months after the rumored end to her relationship with British actor Louis Partridge, and amid other rumors that she was seeing Geese frontman Cameron Winter.
Fans wondered which of the two the song and her upcoming album would be about, but these things are only secondary to how amazing this album is. The singer has come a long way since releasing “drivers license” in 2021, maturing in her songwriting and sound. Between SOUR and her sophomore album GUTS, music fans and critics widely agreed that she was pretty good for her age and a standout among her peers. But with you seem pretty sad, Rodrigo cements herself as an exceptional talent among today’s musicians, regardless of age.
At risk of sounding overly fanatic, there are no bad songs on you seem pretty sad, which makes the work of ranking them so difficult. Instead, we rank the tracks on Olivia Rodrigo’s latest album from good to great.
13. ‘less’
“less,” the eleventh track on the album, is a piano-driven lounge ballad with all the wispy sadness of “Mia & Sebastian’s Theme” from the La La Land soundtrack. Here, Rodrigo bares her soul without embellishment or instrumentation to hide behind, and the track also contains one of the album’s most hard-hitting lines: “If loving me means leaving me and wishing me the best / then I guess / I wish, I wish, I wish you loved me less.” On the one hand, it’s straightforward and uncomplicated; on the other hand, it’s still too easy a listen.
12. ‘begged’
Like “less,” “begged” is another ballad that appeals to the listener’s emotions. What makes it interesting is that the track signals a pivotal moment in the album, in which Rodrigo’s persona realizes there’s a lot lacking in the relationship she’s been singing praises about. The chorus provides a moment of catharsis and clarity amid the song’s uncertainty, and it’s here that Rodrigo also shows off more of her vocal chops, belting and holding high notes over an acoustic guitar.
11. ‘what’s wrong with me’
It’s a little difficult to name the feeling that this song evokes. It’s sad for sure, and Rodrigo and The Cure’s Robert Smith are good at delivering the disappointment that comes with realizing “you’re what’s wrong with me.” In it, Rodrigo sings about being rendered immobile from heartbreak, but the drums incite some movement, if only to nudge the singer towards action.
10. ‘my way’
Unlike Frank Sinatra’s (allegedly) lethal song of the same name, this one is definitely more karaoke-safe. In fact, we need every karaoke company to get this on their machines now. Where most songs on you seem pretty sad are lovey-dovey or dejected, “my way” is upbeat, anthemic, and a little petty. It’s the song where Rodrigo seems the most in-your-face about the album’s central relationship, even if a little insecure (the insecurity makes it fun). The pop-punk drums and guitars also make the song more of a standout, and one cannot help but chant along in the bridge: “That’s it. I win! That’s it. I win!”
9. ‘cigarette smoke’
Very few songs capture what it feels like to have a deep sadness wash over you the way “cigarette smoke,” the final song on you seem pretty sad, does. From the second chorus to the bridge, guitars strum along an unending, and ever-swelling current of synths and strings. The music overwhelms in the most masochistic way, as Rodrigo sings, “It’s bone-dry, bitter and hollow / You’ll be miles away tomorrow / Why’d I try at all?” The outro to the track — and to the album — yanks us back to shore, stripped back, tired. “The memories go dark,” she sings over and over again, seeking resolution.
8. ‘expectations’
What makes “cigarette smoke” such an effective closer in the first place is that it comes after the more euphoric, cheerdance-paced “expectations.” From the synth lead hook and talk-singing verses to the rants about boys not being worthy enough (“I won’t settle for a guy with a fake job”), Nigro returns to what made Chappell Roan’s “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl” so great. It’s bitter and jubilant. It’s also perfectly sandwiched between two sad songs, and to that I say, “You had us fooled with this one, Olivia!”
7. ‘u + me = <3’
Rodrigo has cited The Cure as a major influence on her music, and it’s most clear in “u + me = <3.” Its jangle pop elements are not unlike The Cure’s “Friday I’m In Love,” which Rodrigo got to sing with Smith in Glastonbury 2025, but it’s still very much an Olivia Rodrigo song. She delivers the lines in the verse with plainness, as if to mask the giddiness of the lyrics with nonchalance, but it all bursts in the chorus, betraying just how in love Rodrigo is.
6. ‘maggots for brains’
Cannibalism as a metaphor for all-consuming love is, at this point, tired and overdone. “maggots for brains” feels entirely different because instead of edgily revelling in depravity, Rodrigo talks about the misery of co-dependence like a normal, lovesick friend would. “I’m a sad shell of a woman and I’ve got maggots for brains / But that’s just a thing that happens when my / when my baby goes away” sounds exactly like the thing that would prompt a “Girl, stand up” pep talk out of me if I ever heard a friend speak this way. Like “u + me = <3,” The Cure’s influence surfaces in reverberating, flanging guitar hooks.
5. ‘the cure’
The second single to be released in the album rollout, “the cure” demonstrates more of Rodrigo’s pop-rock edge and serves as a foil to the super-in-love first single “drop dead.” Here, she backtracks on a line from “u + me = <3” (“I got a feeling / wounds are healing”) and says that this relationship “will never be the cure” to her ills. The vocals and guitars in the verse are largely unprocessed, as Nigro and Rodrigo used demos in the version we hear now instead of re-recording for cleanliness, adding to the track’s rawness. It’s one of the strongest tracks on the album and even maybe across Rodrigo’s catalog.
4. ‘drop dead’
“drop dead” is the perfect lead single to herald an upcoming album, and also the perfect first track on said album. Instead of talking about her fabled relationship in the past tense, Rodrigo makes us sit through the very beginning of it and sets us up for the absolute emotional roller coaster the album is. The track is also an effective teaser for her new era and shows us that the singer really has grown into pop-rock.
3. ‘honeybee’
We know how this story ends and “honeybee” foretells it. For a song that’s about falling in love, there’s also a stomach-churning wistfulness to it that makes it stand out from the other sad ballads on the album and pretty much makes it the album’s main thesis. With the backing vocals, the line “And I hope I never see what your face looks like going” sounds like a dirge. Catastrophizing tends to be annoying when other people do it; when Rodrigo does it, it’s dreamy and cinematic.
2. ‘purple’
The second-best song on this album is a Jim-E Stack co-production that received praise (in the form of an Instagram story) from Lorde. “purple” has a lot of elements that I cannot help but latch onto: the hazy synth organ in the beginning, Rodrigo’s subtle vibrato when she sings “It’s funny” in the intro and “youuuuu” in the chorus, the soft pianos in the second verse, and just how the whole song seems to shimmer. As the seventh track, it marks a moment in the album’s story in which the relationship begins to curdle: Rodrigo realizes that she’s no longer able to be her own person, having grown so attached to this man. It’s devastating that the song starts with giddy musings about being one with someone, and ends with “Melt with you ‘til it all turns sad.”
1. ‘stupid song’
you seem pretty sad’s second track and third single has turned out to be a huge fan favorite, and it’s not hard to see why. It starts out like another sad ballad (which is always welcome), but it ascends into something triumphant in the first chorus, and then chugs into motion from the second verse onwards with drums and guitars. The song establishes how exactly this new lover fits into Rodrigo’s turbulent life, painting him as messianic. “You’re a spark in the dark / and my clothes have caught aflame,” she sings in the pre-chorus. She’s cautious in the first half of “stupid song,” but charges on anyway into a career-best bridge and final chorus that celebrates this newfound love.
Frequently Asked Questions
The album traces the arc of a relationship from infatuation to co-dependence and emotional breakdown, produced by Dan Nigro with clear influence from The Cure throughout.
“stupid song” is a fan favorite on you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. It opens as a ballad, builds into a career-best bridge, and closes with full pop-rock momentum.
Dan Nigro, her longtime collaborator since SOUR, produced her third album. He and Rodrigo kept demo vocals on select tracks — including “the cure” — to preserve the record’s rawness.
you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love is her strongest yet — more assured in pop-rock, more complex in songwriting, and the first album where Olivia Rodrigo sounds like an exceptional talent rather than a standout for her age.
The Cure’s influence is most audible in “u + me = <3” and “maggots for brains” — jangle pop, reverb-heavy guitars, and emotional directness. Rodrigo also performed with The Cure’s Robert Smith at Glastonbury 2025.
