Kids Who Don’t Know Me

Olivia Rodrigo “Jealousy, Jealousy”

Olivia Rodrigo emerged fully formed this year with one skill most everyone is familiar with by now – an uncanny talent for creating songs so ideally suited to karaoke that her own performances can look like she’s doing karaoke of her own music. Her other skill, a totally unforced aptitude for alt-rock, was not fully apparent until her album Sour came out this past weekend. “Jealousy, Jealousy” is a classic loud/soft/loud alt song filtered through a few decades of genre evolutions – the base structure is Pixies but the skulking bass groove sounds early 00s to me, the dissonant piano more of a post-Radiohead thing, the vocal melody and phrasing are very Lorde. It’s a mishmash, but it all comes together with a casual elegance that keeps the listener focused on the dynamic effect rather than any one component.

Rodrigo’s lyrics about visual social media triggering feelings of inadequacy and envy are particular to the experience of a contemporary teen, but are hardly limited to her demographic. She tries to talk herself out of her own insecurities with lines that sound just like what you might read on an Instagram account devoted to mental health and body image, which I’m not sure is actually meant to come off as ironic. But I think most anyone can pick up on the subtext that Rodrigo – exactly the sort of traditionally beautiful young person with an outrageous level of success that would ordinarily drive other kids mad with jealousy – is feeling this way means there’s no escape from this for anyone besides talking yourself into believing in something else.

Buy it from Amazon.