Even with Blink-182 touring arenas and When We Were Young selling out early-’00s nostalgia festivals a year in advance, Olivia Rodrigo is the queen of pop-punk in 2023. If you had any doubts, you can watch the video for her new single, “bad idea right?”, an addictive slice of ’90s B-movie horror-comedy-stylized cheese that celebrates a devil-may-care stance backsliding into old romances: “F— it, it’s fine.”
Even if you don’t catch it now, we have a feeling you won’t be able to avoid this song in the near future. Bolstered by the significant cultural cache of Rodrigo, the multi-platinum-selling 20-year-old who took pop music by storm with her 2021 debut, Sour, this track has all the markers of another mega-hit for the budding superstar.
Related: Olivia Rodrigo Plays NPR ‘Tiny Desk (Home) Concert’ At The DMV [Watch]
Following “vampire”, the piano-driven lead single from her forthcoming sophomore LP, GUTS, due out on September 8th, “bad idea right?” runs with the carefree attitude of past Rodrigo hits like “brutal”, channeling inspiration from the likes of Sum 41 and Jack White into a song tailor-made for adoption by the TikTok generation, their parents, and everyone in between.
Even amid its unobscured influences, “bad idea right?” boasts a distinctly Rodrigo charm. That White-like “solo” on the last chorus? That’s actually Olivia shouting through layers of filters and effects. “‘bad idea right?’ started with us making a joke song about me hooking up with an ex-boyfriend, but then we realized we were actually onto something,” Rodrigo said of the track. “We were throwing the weirdest things at the wall — in one of choruses there’s a part that sounds like an instrument in the background, but it’s me gradually screaming louder and louder.”
Watch the Petra Collins-directed music video for new Olivia Rodrigo track “bad idea right?” below. To pre-order GUTS, head here.
Olivia Rodrigo – “bad idea right?” – Official Video