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Chapter 1: What is Olivia Rodrigo's new album about?
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My mayor's Muslim. My bagel's Jewish. My jazz is bebop. Olivia Rodrigo's got a brand new album we're going to break down on Switched on Pop. Whoa. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Charlie, Olivia Rodrigo is back with her third studio album. It's called You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl in Love.
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Chapter 2: How does Olivia Rodrigo explore desire in her lyrics?
I'm a thread on your shirt that's coming undone. It's increasing. I feel right. I feel wrong. I feel totally insane.
And I want you more than any stupid song could ever say.
There's our title phrase. It builds up to the title. You're waiting for it. You're waiting for it. And then finally you get it in this moment of climax. Mm-hmm. Perhaps it's worth comparing this to the typical approach to a chorus, which does not make you wait for the payoff like this. It gives you the payoff right at the start of the chorus.
Take a peer of Olivia Rodrigo's that uses the same producer, Dan Nigro, Chapel Roan. Yeah. Her song Pink Pony Club is like a paradigmatic chorus. It's the title of the song and it gets repeated over and over again. Not to overgeneralize, but that's like the classic way to write a chorus.
Chapter 3: What role does The Cure play in Olivia Rodrigo's album?
Pink Pony Club. Pink Pony Club. Pink Pony Club. Pink Pony Club. Let's say it a lot. Let's get a suck in your head. Let's have you sing along. Yeah. That's not what Olivia Rodrigo does. It's more of this approach of...
delayed gratification it makes me realize that all of her training in television and theater musical world i think is also paying off right in theatrical work you need to have drama always moving you forward pulling you through you can't all of a sudden arrive and be like oh everything feels totally concluded if you do it has to be quickly upset so that act two can come next
Chapter 4: How does Olivia's songwriting technique evolve in this album?
That's right, Charlie. You have to ratchet up the tension. And that's something she does really nicely in the bridge of this track, Stupid Song.
Ha ha ha. Oh, I love that call and response.
Oh, my gosh. It's really intense. It's a smart move, too, because I feel like there are a few moments on this track, maybe throughout this album, where it almost gets like a little too introspective or too sad or slow. And then she'll always like throw in this little burst of energy that just like keeps you alert as a listener and locks you back in. She's really managing our expectations.
At the same time, this bridge is just deepening the message of the first part of this album, you know, Girl in Love. Nobody's wanted somebody more. That is like such an Olivia Rodrigo mantra, you know, like I can't even deal with how much I'm crazy about you. Pause. Pause. You're 100% sure that that's not a Cure song? Yes. Okay.
I'm so glad we're on the same page here because we've arrived at our second pretty explicit Cure reference. Yeah. Certainly not a carbon copy, which is something Olivia has had to deal with before in the past, whether it's references to Paramore on her first album, Sour, or even Elvis Costello.
by no means am i saying she needs to add robert smith as a songwriter to this one no but yeah there's a resemblance to the opening of one of the cures big hits friday i'm in love and play back the olivia
It's actually more subtle than I realized. It's just kind of in the universe of The Cure, the chorusing on the guitar. Really, they both have this way of playing simple rock chords that instantaneously bring a tear to your eye. You're like, well, I'm getting in my feelings right away. Just in that intro.
I feel pretty confident saying that for me, the references to The Cure, and there are more coming, fear not, don't ever make me feel like she's trying to, you know, use our love and familiarity with this band to like advance her own agenda. It really feels like she's just genuinely been in her feelings listening to The Cure. Yeah.
And went into these songwriting sessions and was like, I can't help it. This is the vibe I'm on right now. And it just made its way very organically into the songs. That's my take on it, at least.
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Chapter 5: What themes are explored in the song 'Drop Dead'?
Rather than splinter into, I'm going country, I'm going pop, EDM, whatever. She's always just done this sort of ballad thing. You know, your driver's license, piano. I got my driver's license last week, just like we always talked about. You're a vampire. I hate to give the satisfaction asking how you're doing now. How's the castle built off people you pretend to care about? Just what you wanted.
Look at you, cool guy, you got it. And then she has punk and pop punk. And alt-rock is kind of like, that's her other thing. And I like that she's showing us who she loves, paying fealty to them, I think.
As we continue with you plus me equals heart love emoji, we get yet another one of these spiraling choruses.
I've got a feeling wounds are healing. Spiraling faster and faster.
And there's our title phrase, finally.
Fact-checking department coming in really quickly. An emoji is an actual drawing of a symbol, whereas what we were talking about is, in fact, an emoticon.
Emoticon. I really appreciate that correction, Charlie. You know I'm a stickler for lexicographical issues such as this, so much appreciated. And I feel like Olivia would be the same. She's clearly a hyper-literate kind of writer, despite her affinity for emoticons here. Yeah. And I feel like that's why this spiral song technique works so well.
It allows her to like literally spiral out in real time with her language. And then we kind of get to the end of the chorus and we reset. And the next song we'll listen to is actually kind of a reset for the album. So the album, let's see, it's 13 tracks. And I told you it was divided into two halves.
Our love set that we're just making our way through now, and we're about to embark into the sad set. And we have this like kind of transitional piece called Purple, which is literally like the merging of two colors into one. And it kind of represents our movement from the pursuit of desire to the fulfillment of desires.
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