The Olivia Rodrigo new album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love arrives on 12 June, and if the early material is anything to go by, it marks a genuine left turn for one of pop’s biggest names. Her third record, following 2024’s Guts, throws heartbreak into a blender set to ’80s new wave, string-swollen hooks, and aughts Britpop, and comes loaded with one of the most talked-about collaborations of the year so far.
Olivia Rodrigo New Album: The Robert Smith Moment
The centrepiece everyone is discussing is ‘What’s Wrong With Me’, a duet with Robert Smith of the Cure. Rodrigo and Smith debuted the track live at Primavera Sound, where Smith made no effort to hide his admiration. ‘She is genuinely fantastic as a songwriter and as a singer and performer,’ he said. High praise, and it landed at a moment loaded with extra weight: the Primavera set was the Cure’s first public performance since 2024, and their first show since the death of guitarist and keyboardist Perry Bamonte in December of last year. The band also broke out a number of live rarities across the weekend. Context like that makes the collaboration feel less like a pop stunt and more like something with genuine emotional stakes on both sides.
Singles ‘Drop Dead’ and ‘The Cure’ set the album’s tone before the duet delivers its jolt. The Olivia Rodrigo new album is brash and bold in a way that feels less like a career pivot and more like someone finding out just how far they can push. After the release, Rodrigo heads out on a world tour running from September through spring 2027, so there will be no shortage of chances to hear this material live.
The Rest of This Week’s Releases
Beyond the Olivia Rodrigo new album, this week’s batch is genuinely varied. Kelsey Lu’s So Help Me God, out on Dirty Hit, is the Los Angeles-based singer and cellist’s most unflinching record yet. ‘This isn’t really a healing album,’ Lu said in a statement. ‘It’s more of a reckoning. It’s about facing the parts of myself I tried to move past, and realising they were still shaping everything.’ Co-produced by Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman, with features from Sampha, Kamasi Washington, and Kim Gordon, it moves through new wave pop, orchestral R&B, and lush electronic without ever settling into easy comfort.
YHWH Nailgun’s Magazine, on 4AD, is a 10-track, 11-minute album that somehow feels both frantic and considered. Their debut 45 Pounds leaned hard into electrified math rock; Magazine opens that out with expansive jazz and complex forms. Horse Lords’ Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! continues the Baltimore-founded quartet’s quest to meld minimalist and maximalist impulses, blending improv rock aesthetics with contemporary classical structure. The closer and title track functions as a belated mission statement, tonally busy and capaciously arranged, aiming to unseat listeners from complacent pessimism.
Ruth Garbus returns with Profound on Orindal, a follow-up to 2023’s Alive People built from lo-fi keys-and-guitar arrangements and knotty harmonies. Garbus writes with what the record frames as an almost violent clarity, alongside a playful sensibility she attributes to starting medication for depression and anxiety. Wiki’s Ancient History is a love letter to New York’s parks system, built with jazzy production from MIKE and Navy Blue and featuring fellow New Yorkers Your Old Droog, duendita, and Salimata.
Anysia Kym and Tony Seltzer’s Purity (Flips) curates a wide-ranging lineup of producers including Traxman, Loraine James, and Umru, with features from 454 and Vayda and a remix from MIKE under his alias DJ Blackpower. And CFCF, the project of Montreal club lynchpin Mike Silver, returns with L.U.V., his first album in five years and first since relocating to Los Angeles. It cuts between sleazy techno and post-SOPHIE dance-pop, resisting pure bubblegum cynicism with counterintuitive melodic arcs.
With the Olivia Rodrigo new album dropping on 12 June and a world tour locked in through spring 2027, the rest of the year is already taking shape.
