This Week’s New Music: Olivia Rodrigo, Charli xcx, Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande—“Knew Better Part Two”

This week we celebrated 10 years of the hot-daggered “Dangerous Woman” era. Grande shared a reflective Instagram post earlier this week honoring the fan-favorite record. Grande also recreated the album’s iconic cover art—swapping the original black bunny ears for a white pair—as the anniversary edition arrived on streaming with an additional track, “Knew Better Part Two.”

“Ain’t nobody like me,” she sings in the chorus, and a decade later, she’s still right. The new album “Petal” is due out July 31.

Lola Young—“From Down Here”

Lola Young, fresh off a Grammy win for her song “Messy,” released “From Down Here.” According to her Instagram post, the song came together right after she took home the Grammy. “I got in the studio…and it poured out of me,” she wrote.

Young pulled out of her tour last year after collapsing during a performance at the All Things Go festival in New York City, later saying she needed time away to prioritize her health and to “work on myself and come back stronger.”

Here, she returns, seemingly fit and stronger. “From Down Here” leans a little more laid back than “Messy,” but it feels fitting for where she’s been. We know it’s not all lights and glamour on stage, and someone has to tell us that.

Charli xcx—“SS26”

Charli xcx has been teasing a new era that, despite online speculation, is not rock music. She’s now released her second song in the past two weeks.

“SS26” is a far stronger effort than the last track “Rock Music.” We’re seeing the singer in her best territory here, dissecting the current cultural moment. She worked in this mode throughout “Brat.” It could be a consistent approach if Charli carried this technique through every song going forward.

There’s actually a cool sense of leaving an era behind here, even if she didn’t intend it. “Cigarettes, put ‘em out,” she sings, “Can’t believe the things I’ve done.” It feels like crushing something out and looking ahead.

What works with Charli is that she has a natural sense of coolness. Maybe she knows it, too. “Think my politics could work as a press strategy,” she sings. The accompanying music video sees her strutting down a runway. One scene shows her getting a very heavy makeup application.

The Poppi ad placement could almost go unnoticed.

Bleachers—”Everyone for Ten Minutes,” (Album)

The new Bleachers album has been released. It’s short at just 39 minutes, but there’s still a lot going on lyrically. We also love the moments where the instrumentation feels a bit off at times.

“We Should Talk” seems to be the one getting the push, if the playlist activity is anything to go by. If you’re into old-school ’80s summer songs, we really can’t emphasize enough how much you should check out this album. This song, for example, has a bit of Springsteen in it.

“Dirty Wedding Dress” appears to nod to the night of Jack Antonoff’s wedding to Margaret Qualley, when megastar Taylor Swift attended and fans gathered in large numbers outside.

“So we got married that August, and the neighbors all lost their minds,” Antonoff sings. Was he ever going to be less forward? Don’t show up outside the wedding of someone you don’t know, even if the song that comes out of it is great. The track includes a neat call to the band’s album “Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night.”

The beautifully synth-driven “Upstairs at Els” is also worth checking out.

Maisie Peters—”Florescence,” (Album)

After some delay, Maisie Peters has dropped her new album. The record finds her in love and in bright light.

The opening track of “Florescence” has the singer addressing her experience opening Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. There was a viral clip of Peters singing that prompted a wave of negative online reactions. “Sometimes when I sing, I get the big note wrong/The teenagers held onto that all summer long/And my skin isn’t thick, yeah, that shit made me cry,” she sings. It comes across as humanizing, really.

Compared to “The Good Witch,” this album feels more driven by songwriting than by standout production moments. Peters has a really strong pen, but she should know the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Piano plays a major role across “Florescence.”

There’s a slight build-up on the closing track “Nothing Like Being in Love,” but it never really gets there. The production break with the violin and bits of orchestra is great, but it misses the visceral feeling of “History of Man.” That said, we understand the singer’s approach to the album. Love doesn’t always have to be this loud thing but sometimes a soft bit of light that wakes you up in the morning.

Olivia Rodrigo—”The Cure”

Now to the week’s biggest pop moment. Attention falls on Rodrigo after the chart-topping “Drop Dead.”

The singer used Instagram to announce the song, describing it as her favorite on the album. It’s easy to see how that could be the case.

On “The Cure,” Rodrigo appears to be arriving at lessons her “SOUR” and “GUTS” personas hadn’t yet reached at that age. She pulls the mask from “Drop Dead” and cries out to the world: it [love] will never be the cure! Rodrigo finds a sense of ease in accepting this, and we can almost relax our shoulders as well.

In the music video, she’s set in a Tim Burton–esque hospital, revealing what the “unraveled” moment from the tour is really about. Strings begin to form from her hands as she loses control. As the camera pulls back, we see the hospital is really a dollhouse. She falls into bed as a life-size Rodrigo smashes the constructed set and walks away.

The song finds Rodrigo grappling with herself this time. It’s actually a bit sad when you look at the lyrics. “I thought I found the antidote this time,” she sings. The ending swells in a way that recalls her “drivers license.” Then we hit the orchestra and have time to reflect.

We watch as the strings shape themselves into the album title. “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” is out June 12.

Access our playlist, updated weekly with new releases, here:

—Dawson Therre

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