Over two years since her latest original songs came out on “GUTS (spilled)” and almost three years since her last brand-new album, Olivia Rodrigo is back with her lead-off single, “drop dead,” from her upcoming album, “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love.” Released April 17, Rodrigo’s latest hit has ushered in — as one commenter called it — an “Olivia Rodrigo summer.”
The single is different from her past singles for one key reason: She is not single. “Drop dead” seemingly reflects on her relationship with British actor Louis Partridge, shedding light on the not-so-uncommon pre-relationship internet stalking and feeling like it is too good to be true. Rodrigo sings, “One night I was bored in bed and stalked you on the internet…I always had a vision of us standing like this.” Departing from her past songs about breakups and toxic relationships, Rodrigo cannot help but gush about her man and how she feels the most alive she has been in a relationship.
However, hints of past relationships that caused her pain seep through her overwhelming happiness. She sings on and on about how great things are now, but the song title and the primary message revolve around the idea that if he kisses her, she “might drop dead.” She is “paranoid [she] made [him] up,” pointing toward the idea that he is almost too perfect and nothing like the men she dated before. However, she continues on with how good of a pair they are, bringing out the pure joy the current relationship gives her.
Rodrigo’s vocals are as great as ever, though this first single does not fully showcase the range she possesses. In past songs, she showed off her power and rock-ability or kept it simple with a soft piano-accompanied melody. This song keeps a relatively even tone, sounding almost like she’s speaking the lyrics at times. Parts of the song sound reminiscent of her friend and former tour-opener Chappell Roan, with a fast-paced spoken verse over music. As it is only the first single of the upcoming album, I excitedly await what the rest of the songs will sound like — whether they will all carry on this tone of being more rhythmic over lyrical, or if she (as she so often does) has some tricks up her princess-pink sleeves.
The most surprising part of “drop dead” to me was the music video. While the lyrics and beat present themselves as the perfect teenage-girl sleepover ballad, Olivia left the bedroom aesthetic to the lyric video and opted for the Palace of Versailles for her music video. The video follows her as she dances through the gilded hallways and ballrooms, singing down the grand staircases and exploring the expansive (yet empty) gardens. With the lyrics in the song comparing her lover’s face to an “angel on the walls of Versailles” it of course only makes sense that she would live out this imagery with the real thing. Almost as if dreaming, she frolics through the palace with her headphones on, dancing like no one is watching.
Olivia Rodrigo’s latest single has me and much of the internet eagerly awaiting the rest of the album. Many fans — and surely Rodrigo as well — are overjoyed that this album seems to have a happier feel, not a heartbroken one, though the question remains at what could be making her so sad, despite being so in love, as the album title proclaims. Unless she releases more singles, fans will have to wait until June 12 to discover this new side to Olivia Rodrigo. Perhaps it will be so good that listening to it will make us all “drop dead.”
