Perhaps an infusion of Grammy nominations will help cheer up a certain sad girl?
More than two years after the release of Guts, Olivia Rodrigo has returned with her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, and staked her claim as one of the biggest stars in music and an instant favorite in the highly competitive Album of the Year race.
While the first singles, “Drop Dead” and “The Cure,” failed to achieve the commercial heights of her previous eras, the album surprised both listeners and critics, scoring an excellent 89 score on Metacritic and notching the biggest sales week of the year in the U.S. Those are the kind of numbers that historically guarantee an Album of the Year nomination, and with her momentum growing influence, she has to be considered one of the stronger contenders to win.
Album of the Year
1.
2.
Olivia Dean
The Art of Loving
3.
Olivia Rodrigo
You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love
4.
Taylor Swift
The Life of a Showgirl
5.
6.
Raye
This Music May Contain Hope
7.
8.
Noah Kahan
The Great Divide
9.
Harry Styles
Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally
10.
The release of Olivia’s third project was eagerly awaited by the public, and this anticipation brought high expectations. Because of the common belief that a third album should be more “experimental” or different from the other projects in the discography, listeners created their own theories. The singles from the record, while not necessarily a major shift in sound, did show Rodrigo’s growth as an artist. “The Cure”, which many consider one of Rodrigo’s best songs, draws inspiration from alternative bands like Smashing Pumpkins and early Foo Fighters, while the poppier “Drop Dead” is markedly different from the teenage melodrama of Sour and Guts. While not reaching the same sales numbers as her earlier work, both singles were successful chart-wise: “Drop Dead” reached No. 1 and “The Cure” peaked at No. 5 on Billboard‘s Hot 100, both holding strong for weeks. As she recently told Pitchfork, she is choosing to make more authentic art, even at the expense of certain commercial sensibilities.
When You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love finally dropped on June 12, it received widespread acclaim from both fans and critics. The album opened at No. 1 at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart and became the biggest chart debut of the year so far in the U.S., which will likely be hard to beat in the remaining weeks of the year. The record launched with 485,000 units, a personal best for Rodrigo, and the highest since Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl late last year.
Rodrigo ranks as one of the few commercial successes of the season, alongside Swift, Bruno Mars, and newcomer Olivia Dean, who is also realistically in the Album of the Year mix. However, unlike Swift and Mars, whose respective releases Showgirl and The Romantic received decidedly mixed reviews, Rodrigo’s new record has the elevated critical pedigree that typically makes for an Album of the Year winner. While Dean is riding high off her Best New Artist win last January, Rodrigo’s main advantage is her longevity; voters already know she is a bona fide force in the culture, so bestowing her with such a big award is easier than rewarding a newcomer. While that isn’t always the case (see: Billie Eilish’s sweep for her debut album in 2020), it is rare for an artist to win with a debut, and Dean’s music is seen as more traditional than Eilish’s groundbreaking work.
Girl So in Love is arguably the most envelope-pushing Album of the Year contender. Beyond the creative exploration in the album’s writing, Rodrigo demonstrates sonic evolution, moving away from the youthful pop‑punk of her previous albums to experiment more with dream pop, new wave, and college rock, employing synthesizers and guitars reminiscent of the ’80s and ’90s. This is underscored by her collaboration with The Cure’s Robert Smith, a presence that gave the album additional credibility.
With the Album of the Year nod in sight, Rodrigo’s camp has carried out excellent campaigning that should help her galvanize voter support. She has had high-profile performances on BBC Radio, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Saturday Night Live, and Spotify’s Billions Club Live. She has built empathy with the public by choosing independent artists to create her lyric videos as part of a campaign against artificial intelligence. And earlier this week, she announced her Daisy Chain Fields Music Festival, a Lilith Fair-like concert in Southern California showcasing female artists like Doechii, Chappell Roan, and Katseye, and featuring guest performances from the OG likes of Stevie Nicks and Sarah McLachlan. The event sold out in under 30 minutes.
Rodrigo has strengthened her presence as a singer in an elegant and conscious way, establishing a connection with the public. Now we’ll see if that translates to Recording Academy voters. If they respond in kind, there won’t be much lingering sadness next January when Rodrigo wins her first Album of the Year.
