Audrey Hobert came out of nowhere for me when I recently caught her performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon while searching YouTube for new music to add to a playlist. I had heard of Hobert before, but mostly through her songs appearing on my Spotify-generated daily mixes, where I had already developed a soft spot for “Sex and the City.”
So, this performance became my first real introduction to Hobert, and I was immediately charmed.
I am a sucker for an artist who can sell the fantasy of being a pop star without sanding down all the awkward human edges. Hobert appeared in jeans and a bare face, delivering lyrics that felt vulnerable and direct, the way a class clown might explain an embarrassing moment by making fun of herself first and getting in on the joke before anyone else has the chance. Except here, that self-deprecating charm is packaged inside an earworm of a song that could easily play in the background of Lena Dunham’s feminist classic series Girls.
The stage design was simple but effective: a spotlight, a disco ball, two fans ready for wind-in-the-hair pop-star moments, and Hobert’s confident kitchen-dance-move choreography. It had the spirit of a middle school talent show staged by someone who secretly understands exactly how pop performance works.
Hobert, an NYU screenwriting graduate, reportedly left her job as a staff writer at Nickelodeon to pursue music after falling into songwriting with her best friend, Gracie Abrams, who has become something of a Gen Z canon figure. That screenwriting background makes sense. Hobert writes like someone who understands character, timing, humiliation, and the small emotional crimes people commit when they want to be loved.
But underneath the humor, there is a very real ache. “Sue Me” is not only about romantic attention. It is about the human hunger to be seen, picked, remembered, desired. Hobert’s genius is that she lets that hunger sound a little absurd without denying how serious it feels when you are inside it.
For all its breezy, sing-along charm, Hobert is speaking to something much messier: that horrible, familiar moment when you realize you still want someone to want you, even after your friends, your common sense, and every flashing warning sign have all begged you to run.
In a recent interview, Hobert spoke to the human nature of that kind of wanting: “People hook up with their exes because you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I know you. You know me. Remember? Let’s try it again.’”
That is the emotional territory “Sue Me” understands so well. It is not trying to make longing look dignified. It is interested in the funnier, uglier truth: sometimes you know better, you have read the signs, you may have even developed as a person, and still some shameless part of you wants to be chosen.
In a pop landscape frequently split between cool-girl detachment and massive emotional devastation, “Sue Me” finds a more interesting middle ground. It is dramatic, but knowingly so. It is insecure, but not helpless. It is funny, but not disposable. The song understands that now and then, the most honest thing you can admit is also the least flattering.
Sue her, then. She wants to be wanted. Most people do. -Tricia Cherie
