Laufey<\/a>.<\/p>\n ![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781245878_99_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The cover of Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s new album.<\/p>\n
(Geffen Records)<\/p>\n
The album is structured to trace the arc of a relationship, which means that the second half dips into the heartbreak we\u2019re used to getting from Rodrigo. But she\u2019s writing about familiar scenarios with new wisdom, drawing sophisticated conclusions about why people in love do the things they do (and don\u2019t do the things they don\u2019t).<\/p>\n
In \u201cThe Cure,\u201d which rides a strummed acoustic-guitar pattern that strongly recalls Smashing Pumpkins\u2019 \u201cDisarm,\u201d she realizes a boyfriend can\u2019t fix what\u2019s broken inside her; \u201cBegged\u201d examines the limits of one partner\u2019s willingness to look past the failings of the other. After hearing these songs, the happier ones at the beginning of the album reveal bits of shadow that Rodrigo has built into them to presage what\u2019s to come \u2014 to presage what always comes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fitting, then, that Robert Smith of the Cure \u2014 perhaps pop\u2019s most jubilant gloommeister \u2014 hovers over this LP like a patron saint: nodded to in \u201cThe Cure,\u201d of course, but also \u201cDrop Dead,\u201d where Rodrigo name-checks the Cure\u2019s classic \u201cJust Like Heaven.\u201d Smith himself turns up in \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong With Me\u201d for a duet with Rodrigo in which the two learn to accept that love, in the end, might be what kills them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy head is spinning and my stomach is sick,\u201d they sing, and neither sounds like they\u2019d have it any other way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What to do after writing some of this century\u2019s most devastating songs about the torment of breaking up?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[12707,4985,75928,228818,18,117,6152,19,17,209454,2971,337,40009,33325,1215,981,228819,120019,35452,228820],"class_list":["post-531137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-album","tag-boyfriend","tag-cure","tag-devastating-song","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-girl","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-line","tag-love","tag-music","tag-name","tag-olivia-rodrigo","tag-point","tag-pop-music","tag-pretty-sad","tag-robert-smith","tag-second","tag-third-lp"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116735737665060363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}