Olivia Rodrigo’s “expectations” already sounds like something that could have blasted from a girl’s bedroom in the 1990s: punchy, rebellious and full of romantic irritation. With Chappell Roan joining her on a new remix, the song gains another perspective — and the dating complaints suddenly go sapphic.
Roan doesn’t just turn up to harmonise. She contributes a new verse about dating a girl, a concert and the familiar frustration of being ghosted. Rodrigo’s disappointments with boys and Roan’s experiences with women aren’t treated as separate universes. Instead, they overlap in the funniest way: apparently, nobody knows how to communicate.
Credited as a songwriter under her real name, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, Roan slots neatly into the song’s wonderfully ’90s girl-punk attitude. Producer Dan Nigro, a longtime collaborator of both singers, gives them an infectious backdrop. The remix doesn’t need to reinvent “expectations”; it simply lets more people recognise themselves in it.
The official video, directed by Bardia Zeinali, is just as playful, sending the pair into a retro game-show showdown hosted by David Byrne, with an appearance from Nigro. It’s gloriously camp, perfectly matching the track’s larger-than-life personality.
The streaming figures are already making noise. On 16 October, the remix debuted at No. 4 on Spotify’s daily global chart with 4,595,699 streams, also reaching No. 3 in the US with 1,692,207 streams. It also reached No. 1 on the US iTunes Songs Chart, while the official video drew 6.4 million YouTube views in its first 24 hours.
Early projections suggest the remix could reach No. 4 on next week’s Billboard Hot 100, although the chart position is not yet official. Whether it gets there or not, this is a wonderfully noisy reminder that queer and straight heartbreak can share the same chorus — even if the people causing it are different.
