Best Ex have today dropped their new single and video titled ‘Good Girl’, from their upcoming album of the same name, releasing on November 6th via Iodine Recordings.
Whatever your personal preferences are in regards to music, one thing is for certain: ‘Good Girl’ and Best Ex have already accomplished something that plenty of artists spend entire careers chasing. Mariel Loveland takes a phrase that has been weaponized against women for generations and strips it down until nothing is left but honesty. No cheap rebellion and no performative outrage. Just razor sharp songwriting wrapped inside an alternative pop rock rush that feels as cathartic as screaming along in traffic after a truly ridiculous day.
Visually, the video understands that subtlety often lands the hardest punch. Every frame feels intentional without waving a giant neon sign that screams “look how artistic we are.” That restraint gives the song room to breathe while letting Loveland’s performance carry the emotional weight. Plenty of music videos mistake random symbolism for depth. Best Ex actually earns every emotional beat, making the visuals feel like an extension of the song instead of an expensive distraction.
What really sticks is how naturally ‘Good Girl’ balances vulnerability with confidence. Loveland is writing from the perspective of someone who has lived enough life to know that adulthood rarely arrives with answers, only better questions. That honesty becomes the song’s greatest strength. Rather than offering a polished social media version of growing older, Best Ex embraces the awkward, complicated reality of identity, relationships, grief, and the exhausting pressure of constantly being defined by everyone except yourself.
If this title track is any indication, ‘Good Girl’, arriving on November 6, is shaping up to be Best Ex’s most complete statement yet. The single feels both intensely personal and instantly relatable, blending emotional intelligence with hooks that refuse to leave your head. Best Ex continues proving that the most compelling indie music does not need to shout to make a statement. It simply has to tell the truth, and ‘Good Girl’ tells it with confidence, heart, and just enough attitude to leave the rulebook exactly where it belongs, in the trash.
Featured image by Alps Lifee.
About Best Ex
“It’s strange how often women are defined by who they belong to instead of who they are,” says Mariel Loveland of indie-pop project Best Ex. “We’re so often viewed through the lens of being someone’s daughter, wife, or mother, rather than simply existing as ourselves. I wanted to write a song that pushed back against that idea.” That sentiment lies at the heart of ‘Good Girl’, the powerful title track from Best Ex’s forthcoming sophomore album ‘Good Girl’. Out today, the single serves as both the emotional and thematic centerpiece of an album that explores womanhood, adulthood, anxiety, identity, relationships, and the complicated process of growing into a version of yourself that rarely resembles the one you imagined as a child.
Ironically, ‘Good Girl’ became the song that defined the album before Loveland even realized she was making one. Written in a burst of inspiration over the course of an hour, it immediately established the sonic and emotional direction she wanted to pursue. Drawing inspiration from the emotionally driven alternative rock she grew up with while embracing the melodic instincts of modern pop songwriting, Loveland set out to create an album that captures a perspective she rarely hears reflected back: life as a woman navigating her thirties.
“I grew up loving these emotionally honest alternative rock records written by adults figuring life out,” she explains. “Now I listen to a lot of incredible younger pop songwriters writing about being in your twenties, and I love those records too. But I kept wondering—where are the songs about everything that comes next? About getting older, watching friendships change, questioning your purpose, grieving people you’ve lost, building a life, and trying to figure out who you are when adulthood finally catches up with you.”
The release of ‘Good Girl’ follows two striking preview singles that introduced different sides of the album’s emotional landscape. The first, ‘Is This It?’, channels Loveland’s frustration with living in an era dominated by misinformation, political division, and an endless cycle of alarming headlines. While the quiet moments of everyday life remain filled with love and hope, the song wrestles with the emotional exhaustion of constantly witnessing chaos unfold online and asking how anyone is expected to simply carry on as though nothing has changed.
Its follow-up, ‘Sick Of Myself’, turned the lens inward. One of the most vulnerable songs Loveland has written to date, it examines the exhausting relationship we have with ourselves—the endless second-guessing, anxious overthinking, and fear that our insecurities may actually be true. Rather than offering easy answers, the song sits honestly with those uncomfortable thoughts, transforming deeply personal anxieties into something strikingly universal.
Together, the three singles offer a window into Good Girl—an album that feels simultaneously intimate and expansive. Written over the past two-and-a-half years, the record documents a period of enormous personal change. “I blinked and suddenly I was dealing with things that felt impossibly far away when I was younger,” she reflects. “Marriage. Losing people. Watching my nieces and nephews become actual little humans. Friends moving across the country. Trying to build a stable life while the world outside feels increasingly uncertain. Looking back, I think this album became my way of making sense of that transition.”
‘Good Girl’ Tracklist
- Good Girl
- Eurydice
- Is This It?
- Losing Streak
- Sick Of Myself
- I Will (Superman)
- Papercut
- Man Like You
- Boring
- Living In Hell
- Parallel Lines
Across its eleven tracks which were written in Brooklyn and in Hoboken, NJ with longtime collaborator/producer Andy Tongren, Good Girl balances sharp social observation with deeply personal storytelling. Songs like ‘Papercut’ and ‘Is This It?’ confront the political and cultural realities of modern America, while ‘Man Like You’ reflects on the lingering effects of manipulation and power imbalances experienced by many women in early adulthood. Elsewhere, ‘Parallel Lines’ mourns the inevitable ways friendships evolve over time, ‘Living In Hell’ finds liberation in realizing that some people create their own consequences, and the soaring ‘Boring’ reimagines growing older with someone not as settling—but as its own kind of happily ever after.
Perhaps that’s what makes Good Girl feel like such a natural progression for Best Ex. If her 2023 debut album (With A Smile) documented Loveland coming of age amid anxiety, isolation, and profound personal change, Good Girl explores what happens after the dust settles. It embraces the uncertainty that comes with adulthood while refusing to surrender its sense of humor, empathy, or hope.
For Loveland, simply arriving at this moment feels like something worth celebrating. “I’m genuinely just thrilled that I still get to make albums,” she says. “There’s always that fear that one day the inspiration won’t be there anymore. Every record feels like a gift. Of course, releasing music is still scary, but I loved making this album, and I’m incredibly proud of it. That’s enough reason to keep going.”
With ‘Good Girl’, ‘Best Ex’ isn’t offering a guidebook for adulthood or a manifesto on modern womanhood. Instead, she delivers something far more resonant: an honest portrait of what it feels like to grow older in an increasingly complicated world while refusing to lose sight of yourself along the way.
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