“expectations,” the late-breaking single-girl anthem from Olivia Rodrigo’s third album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, is pretty much perfect as is, to the point that between two and six Bradshaw types in my life adopted it as a kind of mantra over the summer in hopes of warding off all the tricksters and dark spirits that lurk on Hinge and Feeld. If there’s a song that didn’t at all need a remix—which arrived to us with 100% potency—it’s “Expectations.”
So there’s something utilitarian, almost, about the track’s new redux featuring Rodrigo’s friend, former tourmate, and one-time backing singer. Like: Can we make this song feel more personal for all the long-suffering WLW in our lives? Can we get some new Chappie for the gay club DJs (and Boris Johnson, I guess) to drop on a Wednesday night? Can we keep both David Byrne and Brooklyn’s Venus Twins employed via cameos in the music video? We didn’t need a remix of “expectations,” but, for all of the above reasons, I’m glad we have it.
Of course, if there were ever a song Chappie was born to add some sauce to, it’s “expectations.” Nobody does “withering” better—when she drops the line “classic LA behavior,” you know that the phrase, with that exact intonation, has already made its way to the center of the West Coast lesbian lexicon. Roan turns “expectations” into the rowdier sister of MUNA’s “Eastside Girls,” another ’80s-inflected 2026 anthem about confusing gay dating, and, with the inbuilt new-wave-y-ness of her voice, pulls the Tubeway Army pastiche of Rodrigo’s original into a zone that’s a little more Blondie. “expectations” was already fabulous, but if there’s a lesson from the original track that the remix makes good on, it’s that you should always ask for more.
