Sorry, I know that title is corny, but I’m also not mad at it, so I guess I’m not sorry.
Check out Olivia Rodrigo in London today promoting her new album, GUTS, releasing September 8, in a great white dress and boots.
She was also seen in a concert tee over a school skirt, white socks, and mary janes earlier in the day.
Good Idea, white? is a play on the second single off GUTS, “bad idea, right?” that just dropped on Friday…which I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE. Between this and the first single, “vampire”, this is an extension of what Olivia was doing on her first album, Sour. Big 90s energy, her big breakthrough, a huge success. What made it especially successful was how personal and universal the experiences were, even for those who are well past their teens. Many of us could relate to the lyrics in her smash hit, “drivers license”, cruising around aimlessly in the middle of the night after an ex disappears themselves from your life and somehow the car directs itself onto their street and past their house…
That’s what Olivia was able to tap into – not just for those in her own age group but for those of us who aren’t even dating anymore. A song like that doesn’t become as ubiquitous as “drivers license” if it’s not resonating with multiple demographics. And she’s doing it again with “bad idea right” because while this is a simple stream of consciousness… we’ve all been there.
You haven’t heard from that person in a while. You KNOW it won’t end well. But you also know it’s going to happen. When she says, “f-ck it, fine”, she’s just put into song what we’ve all done, knowingly: walk into a mess with an ex, with our eyes wide open, and the excuses in that moment sound like true science, math equations that have been solved, all the logic and none of the logic. Anyone who has been there recognises this mood she’s describing in the most straightforward, digestible, irresistible way – a song where the real villain is yourself, your own stupid, dumbass self.
And the video, directed by Petra Collins, in which she makes references to Glee and Euphoria, is the perfect complement. I love how the ex is depicted as a set of fireworks and a hologram, because that’s the lie you’ve told yourself on the way there until it explodes beside you in bed. Of course there’s a guitar case propped up against the wall. And a telescope and skateboards tacked up, the bona-fraud that he always was… only you’re too blind and crazy to see it until it’s too late. Olivia Rodrigo totally nailed it.
