Emily Sara Steps Onto the Field on “Rookie”

Emily Sara wears football pads and red sequins in the photos for Rookie. On a field at dusk, Sara stands in tall red boots with a hand on one hip. In a closer portrait, a helmet and its white faceguard take up most of the frame. The gear makes a visual joke out of the title, especially alongside the bright, bubblegum sound of the single. A rookie may be the least experienced person on the field. Sara makes that the most conspicuous role in the picture.

The melody keeps Rookie moving, and the modern pop production gives that playful energy a clean shape. There’s a sense of ease in how readily the song gets going. The photographs push the same quality a little further. Sara is wearing enough equipment to look as though the next play might matter, and enough red glitter to make it clear that being seen is part of the fun. The title gets to hold both ideas. Being new can make a person feel conspicuous, and it can give them a good reason to make an entrance.

Before writing pop songs, the Brooklyn-based independent artist trained in opera. Sara’s biography describes leaving that path to write on more personal terms. There’s a different sort of theatre in setting up a pop song with a costume and a field. The wider picture keeps the net and the fencing in view behind the costume. The close portrait makes a faceguard into a frame. The song does something with a similarly simple piece of material, a melody that carries the playfulness even without the pictures. The voice and the image can work at different scales, with the big visual idea sitting beside a three-and-a-half-minute single.

In the biography Sara supplied, the songs are for girls who stopped shrinking. Titles such as Quarter Life Comedown and Burnout take their vocabulary from the mess of being in your twenties. Rookie offers another way into that territory. The title leaves the stakes open, and the single’s buoyancy leaves space for some pleasure in being the person still learning how the game works. In the photo on the field, the lights are already on and there are people behind Sara, going about their evening. The rest of the field carries on around Sara. There’s room in that picture for someone to be new and visible at the same time, with the game still to play.