The sink is full. Not "give it a day" full – full like, whoever lived there stopped believing that dishes were a problem that could be solved. A bottle of dish soap stands guard next to it, untouched and almost empty, going stale in its own reflection. There's takeout strewn about and a ghost under the sheets hiding in the bedroom as we race into the opening shots of "Better Side," Dolly Ave's latest music video. It debuted to the world on September 1, 2026, just before the latest album from Dolly Ave is slated to release later this month.
You know, I've watched a lot of music videos with my cute lil' journalist hat on, and most of them tell you how to feel before you dive in to feel it yourself. "Better Side" doesn't do that. It sits you down in the wreckage and lets the scene do the talking – pizza boxes gone soft at the corners, CDs scattered like sycamore seeds on the carpet, our artist lying amongst the chaos swallowed almost entirely whole by an unseen haunting gnawing at the edges of our awareness.
Who is Dolly Ave?
If you haven't caught my conversation with Dolly Ave from earlier this summer, here's the short version: she's a Vietnamese-American alt rock artist who grew up in small-town Missouri, came up as an event photographer before turning to music, and writes in that space where early 2000s alt rock meets melodic emo-pop (think Paramore, Avril Lavigne, Cage the Elephant, etc.) all filtered through her own Vietnamese-American grungy lens. She's been spotlighted by Rolling Stone and Harper's Bazaar, recognized as an artist to note by LiveNation, and heck, Kevin Lyman personally pulled her onto the Warped Tour scene after spotting her incredible talent. "Better Side" is a track off her upcoming album, "Bad Brain," out later this month.
So, What Is "Better Side"?
"Better Side" premiered on September 1st, and honestly it feels like less a music video and more a confessional diary shot in the mellowest blue light.
The visual color palette leans cold – your eyes settle on desaturated blues and low lights, that muted glow spraying from the TV left on too long in an empty yet cluttered apartment that sometimes feels all too familiar to me. It reads like this closing sequence of a 2000s-era anime, all mood and stillness where you'd expect movement (think that second season Inuyasha closing credits song, the one that you'd wake up to randomly at 2am after the Adult Swim rerun of the earlier episode.) It gives Paprika, Death Note, and quiet emotion bathed in cinematic shots that evoke more emotion than raw story. This isn't a video that's built for constant spectacle and a hand-fed narrative; it's built for the moments that live in the recesses of your mind, all oozing with feeling and blue light.
The story, from what I felt, follows Dolly Ave through the small, specific rituals of a person who is not okay. She sits on the floor of her apartment, by her bed or her couch, soaked in doomscrolling and witnessing the world through eerily glowing screens. Though the scene should read as peaceful with the sheer curtains and trailing houseplant, it feels like a moment trapped in time. We're moving through the music without really moving. We watch her move from her bed to her couch to her kitchen table with her colorful fruit loops in hand and her phone in the other, watching her blankly scroll through the screen. She never leaves the apartment, enmeshed in the specific kind of mess that doesn't just come from one bad night.
The video's most striking image, though, comes from the bathroom. Dolly has submerged herself in a full bathtub, fully clothed in a sleek black outfit, evoking the sense of weightless drowning and escape from the void of the apartment. It reminded me a little of the bathtub scene from Constantine, where John submerges Isabel in the water of the bathtub gateway to ignite her psychic powers. There have been many a call through media where bathtub submerging scenes feel as though the character involved is trying to drown out something (be it pain, memories, or blocking out the surroundings somehow), and it felt like Dolly was finding her own way to temporarily relieve the overwhelming pressures of the world.
Anyone who has been through a burnout or a depressive stretch could recognize this house immediately, and it feels as though that recognition is the whole point. There's no performance to camera here, no wink at the audience knowingly. The camera is just a witness.
There's also a needle-drop of a visual reference buried in there for anyone paying attention: Dolly's look reminds me of someone:
The hunched posture, the dark hair falling forward in their face, the stillness of someone who thinks too much sometimes for their own good – for a few frames, I pictured L from Death Note singing to us as an audience. I had spoken a little to Dolly, who mentioned that she had watched the popular anime series, and it sparked her pen to this incredible song after she struggled with concerns about the state of the world. The justice versus morality felt too real and is embedded in the DNA of the song itself.
Lyrically, "Better Side" is about the exhaustion of living inside a constant feed – the news, the scrolling, the noise of everyone arguing about who's right, and the slow erosion of compassion that comes with it. There's a repeated line near the hook, essentially daring you to admit whether you actually want to land on the right side of it all, and it haunted me like a personal callout. Not in like, a preachy kind of way. In a "damn she's talking right to me, and I have no answers" kind of way.
Sonically, this one's a mood (matching the visuals.) The beat is hypnotic and slow-paced, sitting in an even pocket that never rushes to prove itself. Dolly's vocal melody floats and flows gorgeously and unhurried over the top, with flickers of electric guitar peeking out from behind the smoother production – not blaring or blasting through, just haunting and outlining the edges. The real standout for me is the bass work that lays as a foundation underneath; it's doing so much of the emotional labor here. It adds exactly the right amount of moodiness to sit under those lyrics. Vocally, she's landing somewhere in Avril Lavigne territory – a comparison she's heard before, and one that makes total sense once you hear it.
The video mirrors all of that tension almost exactly – pacing that never rushes, never overstates, letting the wreckage of the world sit in frame just as long as it needs to before the song asks its question.
Gut reaction, for whatever it's worth: it made me want to put my phone down. Call a friend. Find one bright spot in the day that doesn't run through the screen. I chose to paint a sunflower with a bunny in sunglasses to disconnect from the world for a minute. Felt good, man. I hope you disconnect somehow too (preferably after finishing this article.)
Where It Sits In Dolly's World
"Bad Brain" as a whole feels like it is Dolly's most reflective work yet – heavy guitar work, melancholically haunting lyrics, and an album she's described as built from time spent living life outside the studio before turning around to write all about it. "Better Side" fits right into that world: it's a long way from the flirty viral energy of "Play With It" or the easy catchiness of "Don't Wanna Turn Back" (which is STILL STUCK IN MY HEAD!) This is a quieter, heavier Dolly, and it's a good look on her.
Behind the Video
We gotta take a moment to celebrate the work of the ones behind the scenes. Visually, sonically, technically – all of you nailed it.
Director: Malia Janeane Cinematographer: Jonathan Ho 1st AC: Anthony Godinez Gaffer & Colorist: Jake Sanjongco Key Grip/Jib Operator: Alejandro Zambrano Production Design: Jesse Guzmán Art Assistant: Nik Ramirez Hair & Makeup: Jordan Nguyen Photographer: Lauren Nieves
Final Thoughts, My Dollies
"Better Side" dropped into the world on September 1st, 2026, as a part of the upcoming "Bad Brain" album rollout, and it's the kind of video that's going to resonate differently depending on where you're at mentally right now. If you've ever laid on a floor surrounded by the wreckage of a bad week and wondered what you were even supposed to do about any of it, this is for you.
Dolly Ave closed out her recent tour, and I cannot wait to see her go out on the road again (after she rests, of course.) Keep an eye on her, and keep an eye on us here at Music Scene Media for more of these premieres, reviews, emerging artists, and well-loved band coverage. Now go out into the world, go paint something, and create and log off for a little.
