Olivia Rodrigo quotes Demi Lovato’s ‘This Is Me’ to explain her mindset ahead of third album ‘You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,’ out June 12
Olivia Rodrigo has made charting history twice before her third album has even arrived, and she is already at peace with whatever happens next. In a Cosmopolitan cover story published April 29 and written by her best friend, actress Madison Hu, the 23-year-old pop star was asked to fill in the blank on what would make the coming year feel like a success. Her answer reached back to a Disney Channel touchstone. “Even if my album flops and nobody likes it,” she said. “If I feel like, ‘This is real, this is me, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be,’ then it’ll feel like success.” The line is lifted from “This Is Me,” the climactic anthem from the 2008 Disney Channel movie Camp Rock, performed by Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas, which peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The reference is not incidental. Long before Rodrigo became a pop phenomenon in her own right, she was a Disney superfan. During her Sour Tour in 2022, she shared a throwback photo of herself as a child holding a mock concert, complete with a handwritten setlist that included “This Is Me” alongside songs by Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez. She and Hu later got their professional start on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark, making the Camp Rock callback feel less like a cute deflection and more like a genuine North Star.
‘Drop Dead’ and a Record That Has Never Been Set Before
The humility is earned, but the commercial picture already tells a different story. You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, Rodrigo’s 13-track third studio album on Geffen Records, arrives June 12, produced once again by longtime collaborator Dan Nigro, who also helmed both Sour and Guts. Lead single “Drop Dead,” released April 17 and performed at Coachella the following day during a surprise appearance at Addison Rae’s set, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated May 2. It is her fourth chart-topper overall, following “Drivers License,” “Good 4 U,” and “Vampire,” and it makes her the first artist in history to debut the lead single from each of her first three albums at No. 1.
The song itself nods to one of Rodrigo’s personal heroes. “Drop Dead” references the Cure’s 1987 classic “Just Like Heaven,” with Rodrigo singing about a romantic interest who knows all the words to the Robert Smith track. It is a detail that speaks directly to the album’s wider sonic ambition. You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love marks a stylistic departure from the pop-rock framework of both Sour and Guts, drawing inspiration from Rodrigo’s time in London and described by the artist herself as her “most experimental” record to date. One track is said to reference the relationship between Miranda Hobbes and Steve Brady from Sex and the City.
Writing for Herself Again
The Cosmopolitan profile also gave Rodrigo space to articulate what separates this record’s creative process from the one that produced Guts. The sophomore album carried visible weight. “With Guts, I was under so much pressure, like, ‘Oh my god, I’m never going to be able to make another good song,'” she told Hu. “It wasn’t even making music to make music. It was making music to please people or prove something.” The shift on album three was deliberate and liberating. “With this album, I actually was like, ‘I’m done with the sophomore one. Now I can have fun again,'” she said. “I was writing songs the way I did when I was 16, purely for fun.” The approach appears to have worked. With “Drop Dead” already at No. 1 and the album sitting second in Gold Derby’s early Album of the Year Grammy predictions, Rodrigo’s third era is off to a start that does not require a Camp Rock backup plan. Though it is hard not to appreciate that she has one.
