you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love

after further review and deliberation (listening to honeybee on repeat) 9.5/10

wow

Preface: I haven't felt so emotionally involved in a project and able to connect it to an actual timeline in quite some time. This could be because I keep up with her personal life / whatever she's up to on social media / interviews etc. Regardless - you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love is a breakup album posing as a love album that was so clearly written from the end, so even the happy songs foreshadow darker themes of the relationship. Structure: you seem pretty sad [2nd half] vs for a girl so in love [1st half]. This album is a 13-song compilation of the lifecycle of her and Louis Partridge's relationship (with some overlap from GUTS I suppose). Tracks 1-7 are the love songs, initial falling, and honestly obsessive tendencies growing between her and her partner. Purple is the transitional track that leads into the "you seem pretty sad" portion of the album, with the closing lines of that song talking about how their colors (red and blue) blended together are no longer making purple, but a muddy black (how terrible is that). A little generic, but I think that final chorus is super important as the transitional piece. In this portion, we see Olivia start to realize that the reason for her sadness is the relationship that she's in, even though she was under the impression that this relationship is everything that she wanted / perfect. On "begged", she says that she's realized that all of the romantic acts and reassurance she was getting was something that she had to ask for, which essentially boils down to meaning nothing at all. On "less", the relationship more or less comes to an end, with Louis (I assume) ending the relationship with her because he understands that the relationship is causing her pain. To me, Olivia is frustrated that they almost did this to themselves by having such strong feelings towards one another. She ends each chorus with "I wish you loved me less". It's almost like - at what point did this become too serious? At what point did we begin to resent each other? It's almost a selfish back and forth, wanting to stay with somebody despite understanding the right thing to do is to let them go (if you love me let me go trope of doom). I thought that the tracks 1-11 had really good placements. "less" into "expectations" to me is not the best transition. Less is so sad, almost rock bottom, and expectations is a moving-on chaos type of song. Cigarette smoke is a fine outro, though "never do (demo)" not included on the official release would've been awesome on here. This is the only thing keeping the album from a perfect 10. Performances: I thought that she fried, frankly. Yes - these are all ballads rather than punk-rock-inspired songs like GUTS or SOUR. But her vocals have depth; they're much more consistent and mature than on earlier projects. Take "u + me = <3", it's an objectively lovey, fun song with various flows and punchy phrases. Though comparing it to similar songs from GUTS, I just take this version of Olivia so much more seriously. Previously I wouldn't believe her lyrics were hers in a way; her delivery felt performative at times (still in a good way), but here she seems much more settled into her delivery, and everything sounds much more natural. Production is up to par as well, no complaints. Though I do think that "cigarette smoke" or "honeybee" were standouts in that regard. There are strings, guitars, fading refrains, all types of awesome stuff, it feels like an orchestra. Imagery / Theme: The album rollout for this was so on par with what the album actually contained. The girly cutesy font, lyric videos, cover, and crochet type of vibe were all reflected in her lyrics, vocals, and instrumentals. I think anyone could've told you that there wouldn't be much punk inspo on here based on the rollout imagery. There were a ton of really awesome lore-related callbacks in here, a lot of foreshadowing / references to previous tracks, future tracks etc. The album isn't fully linear; it's 100% a reflection of the entire relationship while she is aware of how it ends, which I thought was interesting to pick up on.