Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan appear on vintage game shows in the retro music video for the “Expectations” remix, with appearances from musician David Byrne and producer Dan Nigro.
The clip, directed by Bardia Zeinali, shows Rodrigo and Roan (in his first-ever feature film) appearing on sets clearly inspired by “Family Feud” and “Hollywood Squares.” Byrne appears as Johnny Johnson, host of the show “Big Expectations,” where he asks three Rodrigos in different outfits “a little bit about how you got here.”
What follows is a journey through the various settings and a new “Expectations” verse from Roan, who appears on the set of “Sister Squabble” to confront Rodrigo in a “Family Feud” showdown. “I took her to a concert in the front row, I thought it would be fun,” she sings. “Her hand goes up my skirt, no tongue piercing / She said she’d call me later, that was three weeks ago / Classic LA behavior, she could have just said no.”
Nigro, who produced “Expectations” along with Roan and Rodrigo’s albums, appears at the end, holding a giant brick of a telephone straight out of the 1990s. His appearance makes sense, since he produced the track and its parent album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.”
Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on Thursday afternoon, Roan and Rodrigo explained why they teamed up for the remix. “This is obviously my first feature film,” Roan said. “I’ve never done that before, so it seems perfect. I don’t know. I feel like it represents a generation of songwriters who really think about their lyrics. I felt like with this song, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s so cool that she puts a pretty difficult concept into the pop song,’ which is my favorite pop song of all time.”
Rodrigo explained that she asked Byrne to appear in the video but was “a little sheepish” about making the request. “I always feel embarrassed asking people for favors, but he was so depressed,” she said. “He came in all day. He had a character that he had built and he created this character of Johnny Johnson. There are so many takes we have of him improvising and riffing and he was so into it. And I was like, ‘Gosh, David, maybe he should be an actor too one of these days.’ It is very versatile.
Beyond sharing Nigro as a producer, Rodrigo and Roan go back a few years, as the latter supported the former on his “Sour” and “Guts” tours. Roan recently performed at Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival in late August as part of an all-female lineup featuring Doechii, Rachel Chinouriri, Garbage, the Breeders and more.
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