If you thought Olivia Rodrigo‘s next album would be stacked with love songs, wrapped in emotions raked from both ends of the spectrum, some of which are inspired by HBO’s Sex And The City, then you’d be right.
The pop phenomenon stopped by NBC’s The Tonight Show on Thursday night, May 30, where she spilled the beans on her forthcoming album, tour and Saturday Night Live gig.
“I knew that I wanted this record to be about romantic love in more of a positive sense,” she says of You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, due out June 12 via Geffen Records. That’s considering her last two were “heartbroken and angsty,” in her own words. Expected love songs, “injected with a little bit of sadness and longing. And melancholy, because all my favorite love songs have that.” Those faves, she tells Jimmy Kimmel, include “Love Song” by the Cure, and “Video Games” by Lana Del Rey.
“Multiple songs” from her forthcoming album, she also reveals, are inspired by the complex relationship of lawyer Miranda Hobbes and former bartender Steve Brady, two central characters from Sex And The City. “It’s my favorite show,” she enthuses. “I think I watched every single episode maybe three times.”
It’s worth pointing out that Sex and the City concluded after six seasons on Feb. 22, 2004, a year to the month after Rodrigo was born.
Rodrigo’s new album is led by “Drop Dead,” which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking her fourth title to debut in the top spot. “The song is basically about an awesome first date,” she explains. “It’s the first step in the journey of You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl. The journey definitely like ebbs and flows. It goes in lots of different places from here, but this is the first chapter.”
Rodrigo will sing “Drop Dead” and a brand new one, when she appears on Saturday Night Live this weekend as both host and musical guest.
“It’s always been a huge dream of mine,” to pull double duty on SNL, she explained. If she has nerves, she’s not showing it. And she does have a lucky charm, a gift from Jack White, which he planted in her dressing room.
The 23-year-old pop star will support her next release with the Unraveled Tour, which currently stands at 65 arena date across North America, Europe and the U.K. this fall and winter beginning with a Sept. 25 show at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, Conn. “I’ve been working so hard on it,” she says during her latest late-night interview. “I’m so stoked to play these songs live.”
With You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, she resisted the temptation of going with another four letter word after Sour (from 2021) and Guts (2023), both of which logged time at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. “I always knew if wasn’t going to be four letters.” She wanted to “break out,” and “didn’t want to be stuck in it,” she tells Fallon.
Watch Rodrigo’s appearance on late-night TV below.
