Mad at Disney

The production here is deliberately thin and slightly trashy in the most knowing way — overdriven guitar, a drum machine that cracks rather than blooms, a pop-punk skeleton draped in Gen-Z irony. Salem Ilese's voice is direct and pleasantly unpolished, with a dry wit that keeps the song from tipping into genuine grievance. The premise is a kind of cultural complaint — the gap between the romantic narratives we're handed growing up and the messiness of actual emotional life — but it wears its thesis lightly, more eye-roll than manifesto. There's a lineage here that runs through early Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo without quite landing in either camp; it's sharper and more self-aware, almost parodic in how clearly it knows what it's doing. The chorus opens up just enough to feel cathartic without fully committing to sincerity, which is precisely the tone of a generation fluent in ironic detachment but still quietly capable of being hurt. Ideal for a playlist that acknowledges feelings while maintaining plausible deniability.