Olivia Rodrigo’s “expectations” remix featuring Chappell Roan is streaming now, and its retro game-show music video landed alongside it on 15 October 2026. For fans in Singapore, the plan for the weekend is to put on the song, then the video, then the song again.
Universal Music bills the remix as Roan’s first-ever feature. That is a big deal for an artist who has kept her recorded collaborations rare, even as she became one of the most-watched names in pop. Longtime listeners will know her voice has slipped onto Rodrigo’s songs before: she sang uncredited backing vocals on lacy, obsessed, bad idea right? and Can’t Catch Me Now. This is the first time her name is on the front of the box, and it is worth the wait.
Two Pop Stars, One Producer
If you are newer to either artist, here is the quick introduction. Olivia Rodrigo is the GRAMMY-winning singer-songwriter behind SOUR and GUTS. When GUTS arrived in 2023, we called her the chart-topping starlet who stole our hearts at 18, and she has only grown since. Chappell Roan is the singer behind Pink Pony Club, Good Luck, Babe! and The Subway, known for drag-inspired stagecraft and unapologetically queer pop.
The thread connecting them is Dan Nigro, the producer behind Rodrigo’s SOUR and GUTS, Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and the original “expectations.” The friendship goes back years. Roan opened selected dates on Rodrigo’s 2024 GUTS World Tour, and Rodrigo later called her “a really significant part of the GUTS tour” and “a wonderful friend.”
What Roan Brings to the Song
The original “expectations” sits on Rodrigo’s third album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, which the label says debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 485,000 first-week units. It is a self-mocking, 1980s-flavoured synth-pop track about taking off the romantic “party goggles” and realising the guy was never worth it. The thesis sits in one couplet: she once “gave my heart with zero stipulations,” and now she takes “careful consideration.”
Rodrigo has said the song began as a dare from Nigro to write a “mantra song.” She disliked the first result and nearly binned it before coming back and deciding it rocked, which is a nice reminder that even pop stars doubt their best ideas.
Roan’s contribution is a newly written second verse about being ghosted after a date with a woman. That gives the song a second perspective rather than a pasted-on guest spot. In an Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe published on 16 October 2026, Rodrigo said Roan’s “attitude and swagger” shaped the remix. She recalled sharing her dating horror stories, which prompted Roan to reply: “Oh my god, you need to start dating girls. This is crazy.” Roan said the song felt like the “perfect fit” for her first feature, adding simply: “I love making things a little gay.”
That verse is the reason to listen. Rodrigo’s original is about lowering your tolerance for bad men; Roan’s verse points out that disappointment does not check your orientation first, and the joke lands harder for it.
Come On Down to “The Big Expectations Show”
The official music video, directed by Bardia Zeinali (whose earlier work includes videos for KATSEYE, Sabrina Carpenter and Doja Cat), casts Rodrigo and Roan as rival contestants on a fictional programme called “The Big Expectations Show.” The pair battle through games lifted from classic 1980s and 1990s television, with sets nodding to Family Feud, Hollywood Squares and Wheel of Fortune.
The host is David Byrne, the Talking Heads frontman whose new-wave pedigree makes him a perfect match for a song this steeped in 1980s synths. Rodrigo has said she felt “a bit sheepish” asking him. Byrne said yes straight away, stayed on set for the entire shoot day, and invented his own character, a smarmy host named Johnny Johnson, improvising his way through a pile of outtakes. Nigro pops up too, in a special appearance.
Casting a rock legend as a cheesy TV host could easily have been a throwaway cameo. Instead, Byrne commits fully, and that is what makes the video endlessly rewatchable.
The Charity Side of the Story
The remix arrives after a busy few months of fundraising for both artists. On 29 August 2026, Rodrigo’s first women-led music festival, Daisy Chain Fields, took place at Great Park in Irvine, California, with Roan on the lineup.
Roan is running her own fundraiser next, with all net proceeds going to The Midwest Princess Project, the non-profit she launched in 2025 to support organisations providing resources for trans youth and LGBTQ+ communities.
That fundraiser is The Super Graphic Spectacular and The Super Graphic Block Party, a two-day Los Angeles charity event set for later this month.
Rodrigo, meanwhile, kicked off her sold-out The Unraveled Tour last month, with over 1 million tickets sold globally.
Most fans here will not be attending either event in person, but it is good context for the remix. The playfulness on screen sits alongside two artists putting real money behind the communities their music speaks to.
How to Get the Remix
Streaming is the easy route, but collectors have options too. The remix comes in limited edition 7-inch vinyl, CD and cassette formats, sold through Olivia Rodrigo’s official store and Chappell Roan’s official shop. Limited runs tend to go fast, so cassette fans should move quickly!
🎧 Stream: Out now via Interscope Records
📺 Music video: Out now, directed by Bardia Zeinali
💿 Physical formats: Limited edition 7-inch vinyl, CD and cassette at both artists’ online stores
It would have been easy for the first feature of Chappell Roan’s career to be a safe, polite guest verse. Instead, she rewrote the story of the song, dragged David Byrne into a fake game show, and gave Rodrigo’s sharpest dating anthem a second punchline. Hit play on the remix, then settle in for the full video and decide for yourself who wins the grand prize!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Olivia Rodrigo and Interscope Records.
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