|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 8, 2023 15:51:25 GMT
 With the still-dazzling “Drivers License,” Olivia Rodrigo arrived as a fully formed pop savant, capable of piercing turns of phrase, major-key choruses and bridges that stop you in your tracks and force you to sway along. Of course her debut album, 2021’s Sour, was just as impressively detailed and sumptuously catchy; of course songs like “good 4 u” and “Deja Vu” became just as ubiquitous on top 40 radio and streaming services; of course the best new artist Grammy was in the bag; of course the first headlining shows were giddy shout-alongs. With a preternatural talent like Rodrigo, the artistic and commercial successes felt predestined from the moment we first heard, “‘Cause you said forever, now I drive alone past your street.” With Guts, Rodrigo’s feverishly anticipated sophomore album, the rocket ship keeps climbing higher and higher: if Sour represented a rock-solid, no-skips debut, its follow-up is a bigger and better sequel, more confident and gripping in almost every way. The personal stakes are higher as Rodrigo gestures at the life changes (and expectations) that her newfound stardom have produced, but she matches them by thrusting her songwriting into more adventurous, and rewarding, territory. Rodrigo expands upon the heartbreak central to Sour on songs like “Logical” and “Love Is Embarrassing,” but also addresses fame leeches (“  ”), social awkwardness (“Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl”), body image standards (“Pretty Isn’t Pretty”) and pre-adulthood anxieties (“Teenage Dream”), among other topics. Just like he did on Sour, Dan Nigro, Rodrigo’s main studio collaborator, helps push the right buttons while getting out of the way of her towering songwriting, as the pair hopscotch through pop-punk, new wave, indie-folk and hushed balladry without sounding haphazardly constructed or dulling any one-liners. Because that’s what stands out the most on the first few listens of Guts: the way Rodrigo can bring a lyric to life with a gut-punch metaphor or a pitch-perfect vocal delivery. That gift stood out on Sour, and has sharpened on its follow-up. “I am built like a mother, and a total machine/ I feel for your every little issue, I know just what you mean,” she sings on opener “All-American B–ch,” crystallizing the impossibility of Relatable Female Pop Stardom in one lilting rhyme. On “The Grudge.,” Rodrigo flattens a breakup into, “We both drew blood, but man, those cuts were never equal.” And on “Making the Bed,” Rodrigo distills the ephemeral nature of success: “Another perfect moment that doesn’t feel like mine/ Another thing I forced to be a sign.” Guts has plenty of potential singles to join the already-minted Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits “ ” and “Bad Idea Right?,” but those lyrics — the ones that feel painfully perfect, that you want to write down for your own inspiration — are even more plentiful. That remarkable songwriting ability is what ultimately separated Rodrigo when “Drivers License” launched, and what makes the sky her limit today. With Guts, Rodrigo has released the most complete pop album of the year, and nudged her trajectory even higher. All 12 songs on the standard edition of the album are top-notch, but which are the early standouts? Here is a preliminary ranking of every song on Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts. www.billboard.com/lists/olivia-rodrigo-guts-album-songs-ranked-review/lacy/ |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 8, 2023 21:04:44 GMT
Olivia Rodrigo - bad idea right? (Official Video)
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2023 5:06:27 GMT
Olivia Rodrigo - lacy (Official Lyric Video)
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2023 19:40:26 GMT
Rumors have been swirling for months that the two stars had a falling out over a copyright issue with Rodrigo’s hit single “Deja Vu,” which she once said was partly inspired by Swift’s “Cruel Summer” before quietly retroactively crediting Swift as a co-writer. (A similar scenario went down with Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U,” on which she retroactively credited and split royalties with Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Josh Farro after listeners pointed out similarities between the song and “Misery Business.”) At the beginning of her music career, Rodrigo passionately identified as a super fan of the “Anti-Hero” singer and even interpolated Swift’s “New Years Day” on another Sour song, “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” But since the “Deja Vu” situation, she’s gone radio silent about her Swiftiehood, and even seems to evade questions about Swift in interviews. In a recent New York Times profile, for instance, Rodrigo said she’d been too busy to catch a show on Swift’s Eras Tour. She also chose not to confirm or deny whether or not her song “ ” was about her onetime idol, though she did confess to feeling “very surprised when people thought” the scathing track was about Swift. Enter: “The Grudge,” which dropped Friday (Sept. 8) along with nine other new songs and two previously released singles, “ ” and “Bad Idea Right?” on Rodrigo’s sophomore album Guts. The piano ballad finds the 20-year-old pop star reflecting on a soured relationship with someone whom she once admired, admitting at the end that “even after all this, you’re still everything to me.” “I have nightmares each week ’bout that Friday in May/ One phone call from you and my entire world was changed,” she sings. “Ooh, your flowers filled with vitriol/ You built me up to watch me fall/ You have everything and you still want more.” The lyrics stood out to many listeners as being reminiscent of Rodrigo’s rumored feud with the elder star, who previously seemed fond of Rodrigo and championed her early success with “Drivers License” prior to the “Deja Vu” debacle. “Olivia Rodrigo’s new song ‘The Grudge’ is absolutely about Taylor Swift, right?” tweeted one fan, sharing screenshots of the song’s most pointed lines. “The drama. The anger,” wrote another. “I wasn’t on board with being about Taylor swift. But convinced by the lyrics of the grudge.” Rodrigo isn’t new to having folks speculate over the subjects of her songs. As mentioned, many people were convinced that “ ” called out Swift upon its release in June, while others debated which of the former Disney star’s rumored ex-boyfriends (Zack Bia? Adam Faze) inspired the track. Even the very first song Rodrigo released, “Drivers License,” started a full-blown fan war online after listeners connected its story of betrayal to her alleged breakup from Joshua Bassett. The “Good 4 U” singer will be the first to remind you that this kind of speculation can lead to a dead-end, though. “Songs are just songs at the end of the day,” she said in a recent interview with Sirius XM Hits 1. “Lots of the time I write something that’s kind of like an amalgamation of lots of different people, or I write a lot of songs out of fantasy sometimes too.” |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 10, 2023 4:54:04 GMT
Olivia Rodrigo - the grudge (Official Lyric Video)
|
|
”), social awkwardness (“Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl”), body image standards (“Pretty Isn’t Pretty”) and pre-adulthood anxieties (“Teenage Dream”), among other topics. Just like he did on Sour, Dan Nigro, Rodrigo’s main studio collaborator, helps push the right buttons while getting out of the way of her towering songwriting, as the pair hopscotch through pop-punk, new wave, indie-folk and hushed balladry without sounding haphazardly constructed or dulling any one-liners.