GOD, It’s Brutal Out Here: Olivia Rodrigo’s Debut
Olivia Rodrigo, 18 years old, has quite literally taken the world by storm. A new generation Disney star who starred in Disney Channel’s Bizaardvark, we first heard her original music on Disney+’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series when “All I Want” blew up on TikTok. Her debut album has been highly anticipated since she released her first single, “drivers license”, in January after a clip of the song became popular on her Instagram. From there she began to tease what was at the time meant to be a new EP, but in the process she asked her label to let her release a full LP instead after the success of that first single.
Sour was released May 21 to critical acclaim and a huge accompanying promotional campaign, which included large painted murals in various major cities and a phone number you could call to hear snippets of songs from the album before its release. (The number is still in service so feel free to call 323-622-SOUR! Also, it made me so sad to realize how many young kids don’t know how to dial letters in a phone number... I’m 18, I shouldn’t feel old!!!) The success of her second two singles, “deja vu” and “good 4 u” made her the first artist in history to debut their first two singles inside the top 10 of the Hot 100. We really do love to see it.
A huge part of the album’s success was its virality on TikTok. Slowly but surely, the social media app is becoming an important tool of the music industry, and seemingly random songs are finding success after becoming a popular “sound”. Mostly every song has had some amount of success, and some have even spawned their own trends. In addition to just giving the songs publicity, the app also generates discussions about the music. A common topic was the subject sampling when “good 4 u” was released, and lots of people claimed that Rodrigo sampled Paramore’s “Misery Business” for the song. (Side bar, normally I don’t give a lot of thought to what people say on TikTok about things like this but I feel like I should clarify: there is no interpolation/sampled content in this song. It’s just a similar chord progression. Do with this information what you will.)
Now onto the album itself! Personally, I really enjoyed this album, and I’ve been listening to it basically nonstop since it was released. As Crystal Crush’s resident Swiftie, I really enjoyed the similarities and references to songs by Rodrigo’s fairy pop-mother Taylor Swift. There’s tons of lyrical nods, and “1 step forward, 3 steps back” even samples “New Year’s Day”, and in a brilliant move it was done in a way that doesn’t put money into Scooter Braun’s pocket. The album features a few songs in 3/4 time, which I really appreciated since I feel like we barely hear any waltzes on the radio anymore. Like, what was the last big one? “Call Out My Name”? Maybe I’m just out of touch but I thought it was refreshing.
The first track on the album, “brutal” has been extremely well-received by Gen-Z as a whole. The chaotic nature of the song feels like it takes every thought that pops into a teenager’s head and makes it rhyme. Actually, that’s kind of what the whole album does. It’s very cohesive thematically which makes it an easy and fun listen from start to finish. A common comment made by young adults is that a lot of us wish we’d had music like this to listen to in our early teen years. Rodrigo does an amazing job of never dragging others down in her music and even when she disparages herself in a relatable way she always tries to put a hopeful spin on it, and that might have been a little more conducive to a less self-deprecating attitude.
One of my personal favorites is the last track, “hope ur ok”. It’s a beautiful song about well-wishes towards old friends who’ve had a bad run, and this was actually the only song on the album that made me properly cry. I haven’t heard much about this one from the internet, which is kind of disappointing since it’s so good! I think it doesn’t get a lot of focus since it’s pretty much her only song that isn’t a love/breakup song.
This album definitely makes the future of pop music look bright, and I think if the next albums we hear from Rodrigo’s contemporaries sound anything like this, we have a lot of good music to look forward to.
Check out our playlist with all of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album Sour and similar songs:
