ROBYN OTTOLINI - Sick of Sex - Empire Nashville

From opening for Shania Twain to announcing her first headlining tour this fall and a new EP coming in January 2024, CCMA Award-winning, platinum-selling artist Robyn Ottolini has had quite a monumental year.

As “Match For My Memory” is still making strong impact at country radio, and "All My Friends Are Hot" continues resonating with her fans, she’s now giving us a second look at her forthcoming EP, Growing Up To Do, with the transparently vulnerable “Sick of Sex.”

The song, co-written by Ottolini and Emily Reid, sees her doing what she’s done so well in the recent past on songs such as “Five Years” in that she taps straight into the racing anxiety that spirals from a question that she’s asked, utilizing the expertise of her vocal so that it teeters on equal parts disappointment, frustration, and timidness.

Outlined in the softness of piano, Robyn’s voice stands in the spotlight as she deals with the internal struggle that swells after receiving a text from a guy asking her to go out for drinks. Lamenting through the opening verse on how he’s not even asking it in some weird type of way while admitting that it’s not his fault that she’s so self-conscious, she very maturely places the hesitation firmly on her shoulders as she punches the reasoning in the chorus:

“I’m sick of sex, I don’t wanna let

Another person I might learn to like into my bed

Another chore I have to check

To lose my self-respect feels so damn complex

Honestly, it just feels like currency

To keep someone somewhat interested in me

If I hear another you’re just not doing it right

I might not make love for the rest of my life

I promise you’re no different than the rest and I’m sick of sex

I’m so sick of sex.”

Continuing to maturely unravel complex layers, she sings in the second verse of how she feels empty whenever they’re together and even though she knows he means well when he tells her that she’s pretty, those compliments are placing her into her own personal hell, while then facing the proverbial mirror to confess in the bridge that she’s fighting to find the balance between her body craving being alone while trying to love it.

There’s a gamut of confusing emotions embedded into anxiously led situations like this one, which all too often don’t get a solid answer or linear path to overcoming. With end line whispers in the verses and a racing pace to her voice in specific lines through the chorus, Ottolini holds tightly to all the feels to boldly expose a therapy session subject that many are afraid to tackle but so many others feel, allowing herself to instantly become the trusted friend with a shoulder to lean on simply by sharing her own story to let you know you’re not alone in yours.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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