All right — now you’re ready for Olivia Rodrigo‘s third album.
Not that the first single from the LP, “Drop Dead,” didn’t properly prime her audience for what’s coming. It wouldn’t have debuted at No. 1 if it didn’t do a sufficient job of creating expectancy; several other equally big pop ladies have recently flopped with equally high-profile comeback songs, proving that Rodrigo didn’t return on top strictly on the basis of name value. But “Drop Dead” felt like a deliberate outlier song, testing the waters to see whether her audience would accept Rodrigo in a chipper mood. They did, but that didn’t mean the fans didn’t still want Rodrigo to go sour on them again.
So the album’s second single, “The Cure,” is a heck of a wish-granter. It’s the kind of preview track that lets you know that chances will be taken but you’ll still get sufficient quantities of what you came to the party for, which, in this case, is something reasonably wrenching. Among the licenses Rodrigo has collected since her debut five years ago is a permit to get completely dramatic on us, and she and her collaborator Dan Nigro go down that road here, deliciously, with a stirring ong that manages to make new tricks feel like their best old ones.
