DWAR: Olivia Rodrigo -- you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love

DOG WALK ALBUM REVIEWS: where I walk the dog and listen to an entire album. my mind is free to wander, and I like reviewing shit. don’t expect these to be “good,” or even to totally make sense. sometimes I take notes while I walk, sometimes I don’t.

album: Olivia Rodrigo – you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (2026)

yesterday I watched the company SpaceX go public with an IPO and make Elon Musk a trillionaire on paper while dorky asswipes clapped like harbor seals for a company that is now valued at more than $2 trillion even though the company only had $18 billion of revenue and frequently finishes the year in the red.

meanwhile, sleepy president fuckface has used the most powerful office in the entire world to enrich himself and his criminal ass family of failchildren to the tune of at at least $3 billion. he’s surrounded himself with crackpot eugenicists, know-nothing dilletantes, phony tough guys and jabroni mob fixers while gutting the country of its institutions, torpedoing our standing and respect around the world, and forcing the country deeper into debt and working to make us all dumber, angrier, and poorer.

credulous Boomers and simple-minded legacy media dunces wonder DURRRR why don’t the kids like capitalism DURRRR? because they rightfully see this version of capitalism for what it is – a rigged fucking Ponzi scheme that benefits only a small handful of obscenely wealthy supervillains who not only don’t care about society writ large, they actively despise most of the people in it.

to put a very simple bottom line on all of this: the mere act of existing in America in 2026 is a huge bummer. they’re having a fucking cage fight on the White House lawn this weekend for christ’s sake, which if that doesn’t scream EMPIRE IN DECLINE, I don’t know what does. if you’re not mortified by this incarnation of America, I think you’re either a clueless, booger-eating moron, or a hideous asshole with no taste. possibly both, they’re not mutually exclusive.

Olivia Rodrigo’s new album grows sadder thematically as the tracks progress. she makes a lot of sad music, and she’s really, really good at it. the first few tracks are romantic as hell and make starting the album over after finishing it incredibly rewarding. of course, then it becomes a listening ouroboros where you start out happy and optimistic, get sadder and sadder, and then start over to get a few hits of optimism, and repeat the cycle. that’s dope.

“less” is track 11 and one of the saddest goddamn songs I’ve ever heard. I was a few blocks from home and these lyrics made my cry behind my sunglasses for real:

And I could try convincing you they're just intrusive thoughts But you've seen me truly happy, so you know right now I'm not If loving me means crying on the curb at LAX Well, then I guess I wish, I wish, I wish you loved me less

she’s alone at her piano. her voice aches. she knows heartbreak in a way I haven’t experienced in decades – I fucking love being married – but in a way that feels elemental to the human experience. this song reminded me spiritually of “vampire,” a song I absolutely adore, but another one that destroys me every time I hear it.

thank god the track after that is “expectations” with its overt 80s dancey-ness and its lamentations about the limitations of beer goggles. the cold light of day is harsh and no, Olivia, I don’t think your future husband’s at this bar in Silver Lake either, lol.

Weezer has a song that I’m not going to bother to look up where the chorus goes “all my favorite songs are slow and sad.” I agree with half of that. all my favorite songs are fast and sad. this is why I go to so many punk shows. punks give a fuck, and we’re all there to shout our feelings at each other, build community, bump into each other, and get the overwhelming malaise of existing in modern society out before it eats us alive.

in “u + me = <3” I wrote in my notes app “always be romantic. when you stop, your soul dies.” I’m going to a local punk show tonight and I’m still as giddy, excited, and bubbling with anticipation the same way I was when I was 17 seeing Mustard Plug for the first time in that hot ass upstairs club in Houston. this is going to sound ridiculous, but it still blows my mind that these people are going to play songs I sing along to in my car right in front of me. it blows my mind. and maybe that makes me sound like a simpleton, but I don’t care. find the joy in your own life and get excited about shit. it’s far preferable to whatever cynicism or put-upon curmudgeon energy you think you have to be married to.

I think “my way” is my favorite track on this album because my favorite Olivia Rodrigo energy is when she’s righteously pissed. she clearly feels everything in her life very deeply and is phenomenal at conveying that across 14 incredible tracks. but on something like “my way” it feels like she has proper agency in her life.

So, where'd you get that confidence from?

Last time that I checked, I won

Let me be direct: just stop

You're being fucking weird

Maybe I'm a petty bitch, but you made me resort to this

That's it, I win

That's it, I win

modern society is experiencing the last gasp of the absolute worst generation of all time and all their two-faced, double-talking, disingenuous, selfish, me-me-me, society-ruining horseshit. when the apotheosis of this godawful sensibility finally shuffles off this mortal coil, we’re going to party as hard as we ever have, tear down everything that bears his ugly face and his stupid fucking name, and rebuild a society that works for more than just a handful of ultrawealthy, maggot-brained shitheels.

but for now, we have to find moments of beauty amongst the overwhelming sadness of existence. Olivia Rodrigo’s album is like a concrete rose in that regard. beautiful, exquisite, melancholic. I listened to this once while walking the dog, started it over and listened to it again while writing all of this stream-of-consciousness.

rating: 7 stars out of 5