I know, I know, the number of people on the planet who were hoping to find out my opinion on this album is approximately zero. That includes my wife. No one needs this review. You’re getting it anyway.

I just looked, and I’ve talked at least briefly about all three (yes, three; she released a kickass live album last year) of Rodrigo’s previous albums in this space. I owe the fact that I pay attention to Olivia Rodrigo at all to the fact that I’m a teacher; I never wrote the entire post and at this point it’s irrelevant, but her first album creeped me out on a deep and fundamental level as someone who is supposed to be an advocate for kids, and I never said a whole bunch of things about the people responsible for her career when she was a minor because I know how the internet works and they would be interpreted as me talking shit about her. And then Guts came out and bad idea right? was a world-class banger and a lot of the trepidation I had went away; it was clear pretty quick that the no-longer-quite-a-kid had more maturity and control over her own music than I’d been giving her credit for, and if the adults had been steering her wrong as I’d thought, she’d either gotten new adults or started ignoring the old ones.

All that said, I can boil the “review” part of this down to a single sentence if I want to: the last time an album has dominated my listening time as thoroughly as yspsfagsil was Dark Matter, Pearl Jam’s most recent album. That should be enough for anyone who has paid attention to my opinions on, well, anything; Pearl Jam is my favorite band of all time and at this point in my life is not going to be dethroned. This thing came out on June 12 and I’ve probably listened to it at least twenty times all the way through since then. I’m not sure there’s a song on here that I like as much as bad idea right? but the duet with Robert Smith, what’s wrong with me, is her best song.(*) drop dead, stupid song and maggots for brains are great tracks. Hell, I’d say the first five tracks on the album– those three, plus honeybee and u + me = <3 (**) are as good an opening five as any other album I can think of. I don’t love less, I suppose– in general the higher-energy songs rank higher in my esteem, and less is all high-register and piano; I kind of want to know what Billie Eilish would do with it– but there are no weak songs on here, and the most amazing thing is Rodrigo released a pop album in 2026 and the shortest song is still over three minutes long. I have grown so tired of music clearly written for TikTok. There’s none of that.

I genuinely can’t wait to see where Rodrigo’s career goes in the future. I started that sentence off saying “in twenty years” and then remembered I’m turning fifty this weekend. Let’s just say the future and go with that. Either way, this kid’s the real thing and if you have any interest in pop music at all and you haven’t at least streamed this yet, get on that.

(*) Olivia Rodrigo being singlehandedly responsible for making The Cure relevant to an entirely new generation was not something I was expecting of her during the Sour years, and I love it. Recall that The Cure’s latest album was also unexpectedly fantastic.

(**) yes, she literally says “you plus me equals a heart” in the refrain.