Week of June 26th, 2026

Credit: X

Rare is the week where the release calendar reads like a stacked festival lineup, but June 12th pulled it off. This week, Olivia Rodrigo's “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love” dominates the conversation and deserves every bit of it (more on that below). But it wasn't remotely alone; Bebe Rexha's first independent album “Dirty Blonde”, Kelsey Lu's “So Help Me God”, new music from ADÉLA, Usher, MGK, Sublime, and Piebald; plus Ye/Kanye West's “GEMINI SEASON” all landed in the same handful of days. If any of those titles intrigued you, be our guest, check it out! Anyway, there was a lot to sift through this week, so let's jump right in.

1. Most Streamed Song of the Week – “stupid song” by Olivia Rodrigo (9.75/10)

The standout track and lead song in streaming numbers this week doubles as one of the clearest thesis statements on an album's record. One of the love songs from “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love” it’s a song that focuses on the feeling of your heart leaping while being head over heels, or feeling a love so profound that not even a “stupid song” can name it. Honestly, the song seems simple, but it provides simplicity in the most well-thought-out, meditative, and inner-reflective ways an artist so young could do. But there are more layers to carve within the song’s intricacy.

As per Rodrigo, “stupid song” was inspired by Annie Ernaux’s “Simple Passion.” Ernaux’s body of work is a slim, unflinching book about an affair that leaves its narrator unpleasantly dissatisfied with a quiet internal insanity. In a similar language, “stupid song” takes that same shape: love as something that occupies too much space in your head and makes you feel a little unwell for it. Evidently, Rodrigo is no longer writing about heartbreak in the pop-punk, torch-the-ex register of SOUR or GUTS; this is a more interior, more embarrassed kind of confession, the sound of someone annoyed at herself for how far gone she is.

2. Sonic Standout – “When I Get Drunk (I Want You Boy)” by Suki Waterhouse (8/10)

Off her upcoming album “Loveland,” releasing on July 10th, Suki Waterhouse starts off her new era with confidence. She spices it up on “When I Get Drunk (I Want You Boy) with a darkly unexpected blend of jazz, funk, and new-wave textures, held together by a spoken-word bridge that continues to add to Suki’s mysterious and sultry musical identity. Admitting it herself, Waterhouse has shared that she has been “obsessed” with the song since it was made, and that confidence tracks.

To explain more briefly on the topic of the song, it’s focus is built entirely around chasing a feeling rather than resolving one, an ode to a specific, slightly reckless kind of intoxicating love, mirrored efficiently by the production. Sometimes, the persona can feel a little off-putting and “forceful” in a similar way to how Lana Del Rey initially received criticism for her “inauthentic” adoption of a “mysterious girl.” But, realistically, it’s more than likely the Suki finds a part of her own personality (if not her whole personality) to relate to this artistic character she has provided the audience with. Some ideas can just have more common tendancies to be misrepresented in terms of intention, so it seems.

3. Personal Feature – “ICONIC BY MISTAKE” by KATSEYE, LE SSERAFIM, and ILLIT (4.25/10)

“ICONIC BY MISTAKE” dropped June 12th as a joint single from KATSEYE, LE SSERAFIM, and ILLIT. Three separate K-pop girl groups on one track, and no collapsing into an oversaturated supergroup track. But that doesn’t let the song off the hook. The obvious novelty? The song's subject doesn’t feel like a marketing cash-grab stunt: it's about unfair criticism, double standards, and the constant comparisons female artists get put through, with the pointed twist that the haters supposedly made them iconic in the process.

Yet somehow, this song makes it feel all the more inauthentic and resultant of a corporate board meeting treating the song like a product that requires high ROI, rather than a piece of artistic—or I should say should be artistic—work. From cringey and outdated use of modern “tech” lingo like “algorithm bulletproof” to confusing lyrics that just don’t make sense or contribute to the overall meaning of the song at all. For example, while this line (“I'm just tryna stay me, dance a little crazy”) attempts to reclaim the side of insecruity into a re-agency of recognizing one’s own strengths, the execution of committing to self-love by dancing a little crazy feels forcefully algorithm-ready, rather than meaningful in expressing an actual emotion.

Time after time, the phrase is to “show not tell.” Here, the song tries to tell the reader how to feel rather than actually using real meaningful artistic methods of communicating an issue that could have more potential to be relatable to listeners, rather than just an electronic “I’m so confident” song that feels like a corporate ad.