Olivia Rodrigo – “serena joy”

What in the Rock Lobster do we have here? Anyone else hearing the B-52’s poking their beehive wigs into the frame?

There’s a little Athens, Georgia mischief rattling around “serena joy”: wiry guitars, rubbery bass and synths with their eyebrows raised, all shoved through the pop-punk machinery Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro know how to operate frighteningly well. Then something campier, twitchier and Psycho Beach Partier takes possession. Nobody’s calling the plagiarism police. The resemblance is more spiritual than forensic, but Nigro, who produced and co-wrote the track, we have questions. Mostly about where we can send flowers.

Which makes what Olivia is actually singing about wonderfully uncomfortable. “serena joy” borrows its name from The Handmaid’s Tale character who helped build a system designed to oppress others before learning that proximity to power doesn’t make you bulletproof. Olivia skips the civics lecture and heads straight for the trap: close your eyes, sing along, have a Coke and a smile. Everyone’s having a ball until the thing happening to them starts happening to you.

That’s the nasty little magic trick. The guitars twitch, the chorus begs for company and Olivia sounds almost delighted to be delivering the bad news. By the bridge, denial has become automatic and the sunshine has started to rot. The warning sirens are sounding off, and we understand the warning perfectly. The problem is the warning sounds fucking fantastic.

This is also a great excuse to feature one of the greatest photographers of our time, Szilveszter Mako, who recently photographed Olivia for Vogue.