{"id":2631920,"date":"2026-07-19T06:59:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T10:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/olivia-rodrigos-new-album-compared-to-bob-dylan\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T07:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T11:06:26","slug":"olivia-rodrigos-new-album-compared-to-bob-dylan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/olivia-rodrigos-new-album-compared-to-bob-dylan\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Rodrigo&#8217;s new album compared to Bob Dylan"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Folivia-rodrigos-new-album-compared-to-bob-dylan%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2631920&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Olivia Rodrigo transitioned from Disney Channel actress to a serious pop artist six years ago, following a well-known formula of signing with top production teams and promoting her music aggressively. Her early success with hits like \u201cDrivers License\u201d set her apart in a crowded industry, and she broke records with her bold, emotionally raw lyrics that tackle mature themes, despite her young age. Now 23, Rodrigo owns her master recordings and has pushed her artistic boundaries by experimenting with genres like goth-pop and synth-rock, drawing influences from artists such as The Cure and Robert Smith. Her latest album,&#8221;You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,&#8221; showcases her ambition and willingness to challenge conventions,blending nostalgic sounds with contemporary sensibilities. The album explores themes of intense love, heartbreak, and the desires of young women, reflecting her deep understanding of her audience. While she occasionally struggles with vocal performance and overuses rap elements, her willingness to innovate and her genre-fluid approach suggest a promising future beyond her initial pop persona. Critics see her as a potential generational artist akin to Bob Dylan, poised for continued success and artistic evolution.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<article class=\"fn-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Six years ago, while still legally a child, Olivia Rodrigo left her career as a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/disney\/\">Disney Channel<\/a> actress with the intent of becoming a pop star. This is a tale as old as time, or at least as venerable as Annette Funicello\u2019s singing career, and the blueprint for success is well understood: sign with a first-rate production team, let them handle pretty much everything but the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/tiktok\/\">TikTok videos<\/a>, while you tour and promote past the point of exhaustion. <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/2448343\/britney-spearss-the-woman-in-me-reviewed\/\">Britney Spears<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/1950148\/miley-cyrus-and-the-millennial-marriage-myth\/\">Miley Cyrus<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/3904049\/sabrina-carpenter-condemns-evil-disgusting-use-song-white-house-video\/\">Sabrina Carpenter<\/a>, and a half-dozen other actor-entertainers have followed this recipe with varying degrees of success, producing <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/music\/\">music<\/a> that is listenable but not memorable, profitable but not persistent, seductive but not particularly authentic. Think early Monkees, but for today\u2019s short-attention-span audience.<\/p>\n<section class=\"explore-more-section\" id=\"wex-recommended-widget\">\n<div class=\"magazine-container single\">\n<h1 class=\"magazine-title mt-2\">Recommended Stories<\/h1>\n<p>             <i class=\"fa-solid fa-play icon\"><\/i>         <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-grid\">\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4654518\/fetterman-switching-parties-likely-before-midterms-joe-concha\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Fetterman switching to Independent or Republican \u2018likely before the midterms\u2019: Joe Concha<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/senate\/4654492\/south-carolina-gets-election-maine-gets-party-pick-byron-york\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>South Carolina gets an election, Maine gets a party pick: Byron York<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4653437\/gop-olive-garden-pasta-pass-more-secure-than-elections\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Republicans joke Olive Garden\u2019s Never-Ending Pasta Pass requiring photo ID is more secure than elections<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/3918618\/musicians-spoke-out-trump-administration-music-copyright-use\/\">Carpenter<\/a>, the former Disney star and current pop phenom, is the modern equivalent of Davy Jones, then perhaps we will have to reluctantly crown Rodrigo as her generation\u2019s<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine\/495936\/bob-dylan-nobelist\/\"> Bob Dylan<\/a>. Since debuting with the surprise hit \u201cDrivers License\u201d in 2021, she has relentlessly curb-stomped every unwritten rule of the Disney pop star, from \u201cdon\u2019t seriously discuss sex in your work\u201d to \u201ckeep it light or else\u201d to \u201cavoid collaborations with older musicians.\u201d For the past five years, she\u2019s worked a reliable seam of teenage-confessional vocal-fry rap-pop that, like Dylan\u2019s early catalog, taps into an angsty zeitgeist while carefully camouflaging a certain lack of vocal incandescence.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-15\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-1\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a business where people often pretend to be younger than they are, Rodrigo, now 23, has fearlessly and ambitiously engaged with adult themes, unsentimental perspectives, and enough foul-mouthed invective to make a young Liz Phair blush. This material has enabled her to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/msnbc-melts-down-after-trump-makes-history-in-new-hampshire-breaks-multiple-records\/\" title=\"MSNBC in Chaos as Trump Shatters Records in New Hampshire\">break multiple records<\/a> for streaming sales and chart position. It has also made her remarkably wealthy because Rodrigo, unlike many of her contemporaries, owns the master recordings of her work.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Think of Rodrigo\u2019s debut, <em>Sour,<\/em> as the equivalent of <em>The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/em>, which makes her new album, <em>You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,<\/em> eerily reminiscent of <em>Highway 61 Revisited. <\/em>The common thread here is ambition and a willingness to rock a very profitable boat. Surely everyone from her label to her parents wanted her to make another \u201cOlivia Rodrigo record\u201d and watch the cash register ring. Instead, Rodrigo decided to spin up a pastiche of goth-pop and \u201980-style synth-rock that will be utterly novel to her 20-something female audience.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\">Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s third album is a heartbreaking account of an intense romance and its demise. (Randy Holmes\/Disney via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2026\/07\/localimages\/LA.Culture.072226.jpg?w=696&#8243; height=&#8221;658&#8243; width=&#8221;1024&#8243; &#8220;https:><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s third album is a heartbreaking account of an intense romance and its demise. (Randy Holmes\/Disney via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rodrigo is wearing her influences on her sleeve here, and the most obvious one is the music of Robert Smith and his post-punk band, The Cure. \u201cDrop Dead,\u201d the absolutely delightful synth-popper that opens the album, name-checks The Cure\u2019s 1987 chart-buster \u201cJust Like Heaven\u201d in the first few lines. Another track is flatly named \u201cThe Cure.\u201d The icing on the cake, however, is the ballad \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with Me,\u201d performed by Rodrigo with an anguished-sounding \u2026 Robert Smith.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-16\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-2\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 44-year age gap between Rodrigo and the 67-year-old Smith happens to be the same as the distance between David Bowie and Bing Crosby when they performed \u201cPeace on Earth\/Little Drummer Boy\u201d in 1977, but Smith\u2019s energy on both the record and in his recent live performances with Rodrigo frankly exceeds what Bowie and Crosby brought to that Christmas track \u2026 combined. Nor is the tune any sort of novelty or joke \u2014 it\u2019s already rushing up in the <em>Billboard<\/em> Hot 100, elevating Smith as a solo artist back to the top of the charts at an age when most people are choosing a retirement community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet this is no soulless nostalgia in the manner of Sha Na Na. Rodrigo has always had a remarkable amount of insight into what her young female listeners want, and she\u2019s been proven right again with <em>You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. <\/em>Although this record is gleefully rife with synth tones and production techniques that haven\u2019t been common on the radio since the George H.W. Bush administration, she\u2019s writing for a modern audience, not Generation X.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\">Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s third studio album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, was released on June 12, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2026\/07\/localimages\/OR3_COVER-ART-scaled-1.jpg?w=696&#8243; height=&#8221;1024&#8243; width=&#8221;1024&#8243; &#8220;https:><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s third studio album, \u201cYou Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,\u201d was released on June 12, 2026. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most obvious declaration of this is the runaway hit \u201cExpectations,\u201d which, despite its Tears For Fears sonic signature, is yet another entry in the currently fashionable pop subgenre best described as \u201csongs about how weak and disappointing today\u2019s young men happen to be.\u201d Carpenter\u2019s newest record is chock-full of this stuff, of course, but it\u2019s all tongue in cheek in accordance with Disney Pop Star Rules. Rodrigo is more direct:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-17\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-3\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I\u2019m not kissing any boy that is passive<\/em><br \/><em>Their indecision is painfully unattractive<\/em><br \/><em>Past mistakes are just new information<\/em><br \/><em>These days I\u2019ve got expectations <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Social media has collectively lost its mind over another line from the song: \u201cDon\u2019t think my future husband\u2019s at this bar in Silver Lake.\u201d Rodrigo is not alone in striking this non-feminist-approved note; listen to Olivia Dean\u2019s \u201cSo Easy (to Fall In Love)\u201d or Carpenter\u2019s \u201cManchild\u201d for more of the same. It\u2019s both charming and a little heartbreaking to hear young women yearning for old-fashioned love and marriage. Perhaps their generational predecessors should have examined the Chesterton\u2019s Fence of traditional moral and sexual standards a little more closely before driving a VW Bus through it on the way to Woodstock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not all of the album evokes the last century. Some of it is clearly influenced by Rodrigo\u2019s counterpart in the prestige side of pop music, the Icelandic Chinese global phenomenon known by the single name of Laufey, including her duet with Smith, \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with Me.\u201d Tracks like \u201cLess\u201d and \u201cCigarette Smoke\u201d betray a bit of desire on Rodrigo\u2019s part to be a lounge singer and\/or symphony solo artist.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-25\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-4\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twenty-three is too old for an artist to be considered precocious, so we have to view <em>You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love <\/em>as what it truly is: an intensely ambitious effort that manages to succeed almost without caveats. If one were to throw stones, they would mostly be performance-related. Rodrigo is not capable of persuasively singing all of the notes she can write into a song, but wasn\u2019t the same true of Dylan? It would have also been nice to hear less of the breathless girl-rapping in every tune \u2014 it will age like milk, the same way every gratuitous rap verse in a pop song for the entirety of human history has aged like milk, with the sole exception of Debbie Harry\u2019s outro in \u201cRapture\u201d \u2014\u00a0 but that\u2019s the opinion of a critic who is very far, in age and outlook, from this album\u2019s core audience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All early indications are that <em>You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love <\/em>will exceed the remarkable commercial success of its predecessors. It deserves to. Yet the most exciting thing about this album is what it suggests for the future of the artist who recorded it. Rodrigo has the sort of talent that is unlikely to sit comfortably in any one genre for any significant length of time. To persist with the Dylan comparisons, it is easy to imagine her recording the modern equivalent of <em>Blood on the Tracks, <\/em>or maybe <em>Nashville Skyline. <\/em>Fair warning to all those young Disney stars who want to follow Rodrigo into stardom: The bar has been raised, and the times, well \u2026 they have a-changed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Jack Baruth was born in Brooklyn, New York, and lives in Ohio. He is a pro-am race car driver, a former columnist for <\/em>Road and Track <em>and <\/em>Hagerty <em>magazines, and writer of the Avoidable Contact Forever newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-5\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-5\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-26\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-5\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six years ago, Olivia Rodrigo left Disney acting to pursue pop stardom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3131,"featured_media":2631921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LA.Culture.072226.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[82900,47805,82899,59711,81667],"class_list":["post-2631920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-artist-analysis","tag-bob-dylan","tag-music-comparison","tag-new-album","tag-olivia-rodrigo"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LA.Culture.072226.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2631920"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2631924,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631920\/revisions\/2631924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2631921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2631920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2631920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2631920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}