"If there's a crucial message to be distilled from the collected pop songs made by young women in the last few years, it's that boys can kick rocks. The men these young artists find themselves entangled with, they sing, are idiots and vampires. They're dudes who take you on a date and don't actually ask you a single question, or they treat you like "s*** on [their] shoes.""
"They're just manchildren, in the parlance of Sabrina Carpenter's latest hit, who can't take care of themselves, flailing through life. Often these insults are sung less in anger than with what sounds like humorous, even self-deprecating exasperation, guffawing at the sorry state of what's available to them as women in their 20s trying to date in an era when major news outlets consistently print thinkpieces asking if "men are okay.""
""Maybe I can fix him?" Olivia Rodrigo asked, with a laugh, on 2023's "get him back!" after listing a litany of faults ("an ego, a temper and a wandering eye") an irredeemable but irresistible ex-boyfriend possessed. Apparently that's all some girls can hope for. Olivia Dean hopes for more. At first glance, the 26-year-old English singer, whose 2023 debut album Messy was shortlisted for the U.K.'s Mercury Prize, shares little in common with pop peers who've found success in saltily degrading potential suitors."
Contemporary pop songs by young women frequently cast men as immature, inconsiderate, or predatory, using insults like "idiots and vampires" and "s*** on [their] shoes." The tone often blends humor and self-deprecation, treating failed suitors as exasperating curiosities rather than objects of wrath. High-profile examples include Sabrina Carpenter's "manchildren" framing and Olivia Rodrigo's ironic "Maybe I can fix him?" line listing an ego, temper and wandering eye. Olivia Dean presents a different stance. The 26-year-old BRIT School alum draws on brassy English soul, and her warm, seductive voice offers romantic ambivalence and simplicity, even when she critiques frustrating partners.
Read at www.npr.org
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