Olivia Rodrigo’s Early-Twenties Lament

“They say modern love’s a cruel endeavor,” Olivia Rodrigo sings on “u + me = <3,” a lush, desperate new song from her third album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.” She adds, “And to that I say, ‘Fuck it, whatever.’ ” Insouciance has always been Rodrigo’s abiding philosophy when it comes to romance. If her discography has a single repeating theme, it’s that love is ruinous, a surefire path to acting like a ding-dong. Once again, Rodrigo shrugs off concern. What else would she do—stay home?

Rodrigo began her career as a child actor. By age seven, she’d had her first role, in an Old Navy commercial; by thirteen, she was starring in her own Disney Channel series—but she didn’t become a superstar until 2021, with the release of “Drivers License,” an indignant, slow-burning anthem about the humiliation of desiring someone who betrayed you. Her first two albums, which contain a mix of moody, stricken ballads and springy, punkish romps, remind me of Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne, with a hint of Ashlee Simpson thrown in: poppy, highly confessional, sometimes slapsticky songs about how love pushes even the best of us to the precipice of insanity. Rodrigo’s always had cool taste—she collaborated with David Byrne; Blondie introduced one of her performances on “S.N.L.”; Robert Smith, of the Cure, is a guest vocalist on a new song, “What’s Wrong with Me”—but she’s just beginning to figure out how to merge her countercultural influences with her Disney pedigree.

On “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” Rodrigo, who is twenty-three, is inching away from frisky, impish pop-punk and leaning more toward New Wave, with its melodic synthesizers and velvety yearning. (There’s also a good dose of angsty nineties alt-rock here, including tracks that sound inspired by Weezer, the Smashing Pumpkins, and the Breeders.) Rodrigo has a disarmingly powerful soprano, and she’s a charming, determined performer. I still recall, with a mix of horror and reverence, a viral clip of her tumbling into an open hole in the stage during the “Guts” tour, bouncing back out, and proceeding to finish the show.

The first side of “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” is about the euphoria and terror of new love. But the back half is a heady object lesson in the limits of partnership—how even the right person can’t fully quell whatever torment lurks in the recesses of one’s consciousness. “I know everybody changes, but I hope that we don’t,” Rodrigo wails on the chorus of “u + me = <3.” It’s a lyric destined to make elders in the room grimace. Change is inexorable; better to hope that you evolve in compatible ways.