When Audrey Hobert hits the pop scene, I am at the ready. Not to ‘claim my spot as an OG fan,’ but by the time her debut single ‘Sue Me’ dropped on 9 May 2025, I’d already signed up to the mailing list, pre-saved and listened incessantly to the snippets.

Nothing could have prepared me for what was to come.

Hobert’s eye for rhyme and lyrical talent is undeniable – shining, chic and splendid lyrics under the delusional obsession with an ex. This is not unusual for her considering she’s a long-term collaborator and co-writer of Gracie Abrams, a rising pop-star who released her album ‘The Secret of Us’ just last year. ‘The Secret of Us’ was fiery, lyrically speaking, cutting sharp and employing interesting word-play to really hammer its emotional identity home. With a little context, you can expect that she’ll be a strong songwriter. What you can’t expect is her acute perception of scene-based writing; perhaps this also comes synchronously with her director credits – both for Abrams’ music videos and her own newly released one.

She opens the song by setting a scene that also succinctly endows her ex with a level of predictability: “I knew you’d be at the party,” even specifying, “drinking a Coke and bacardi.” She cleverly juxtaposes this with her own “breaking [of] patterns”… although she is also at the same party. Narratively, this song is a push and pull between this ex and her muffled adoration for them, and impersonally wanting someone, anyone to want her. 
This comes across quite obviously in the repetitive chorus. I think the repetition makes the second chorus’ lyric changes all the more rewarding, despite some people maybe being turned off by the ear-worm factor.

The instrumentals are also rewarding–just really satisfying in a way you wouldn’t expect. And the surprise gun-shots being revealed as a beat in the bridge? Awesome. I can seriously get behind the electro-pop sound that doesn’t quite reinvent it, but certainly paints it in a new light, making it an easy, digestible sing-along.
Not to mention, Hobert’s outstanding vocals and vocal texture being a centrepiece to this song makes it all the better. You can’t help but root for her and her voice, even if she views the emotional transgression of toying with an ex’s feelings as “business, babe.” The emotional dissonance between her actions and lyrics is both jarring and exhilarating for us as listeners… like I said, not quite a reinvention, but it definitely feels that way.

Like, it’s easy to say Hobert smashed it out of the park, but it’s more than that. Her unapologetic selfhood and hilarity inject itself perfectly in this song. Despite a longing for a reinvention of lyrics in the chorus, it makes sense for her first single to just be catchy and easy to memorise.

After satiating the moral consequence of rewinding to something or someone in a maybe… unhealthy way as just a “want,” or something “kismet,” I’m sure she’d want a break from the deep, philosophical thinking. “Being a saint is exhausting.”
I mean, what can you do? Sometimes a girl just wants to be wanted.

After Abrams hinted at a possible body of work from Hobert in the future… all I can say is: sue me, I want to (NEED to) hear this album.