Notes on Sour
If you haven’t heard of teen pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo by now, you either live under a rock or you’re just like my out of touch parents.
Here’s a quick recap for anyone who may have missed it. Olivia made her first claim to fame as the lead actress in the short lived Disney Channel TV show, Bizaardvark in 2016. Only 13 years old at the time, her acting stint didn’t propel her to instant success like her superstar predecessors, Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez, but it did open her to her next major gig, a lead role in Disney+’s TV reboot of their hit musical franchise, High School Musical.
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is where Olivia started to really grow her fanbase in 2019, as kids, teens and nostalgic Millennials alike tuned into the show to watch a new generation of characters sing their way through the halls of East High School.
I don’t watch HSMTMTS (this acronym is ridiculous by the way, but the original title is even worse), but I followed enough people on twitter who for some reason couldn’t stop arguing about the show that I got a general gist of what’s going on. The main point of contention seemed to be a love triangle between Olivia’s character Nini, another girl, Gina and a boy named Ricky, played by Joshua Bassett. While I don’t know exactly what happens in this fictional love triangle, it does serve as an ironic parallel to the events that happened next.
See Olivia Rodrigo was allegedly dating her co-star Joshua Bassett and somewhere along the way things turned sour (hehe see what I did there) and he left her for Sabrina Carpenter, another former Disney Channel actress and pop singer.
If you stayed around on social media a lot in the beginning of 2021, I’m sure you notice I’m keeping these moments quite brief in my recap. Frankly, I’m 26 years old, I really don’t need to be gossiping in detail about the dating lives of young Disney actors, but these facts are important to understand exactly why Olivia Rodrigo blew up. If you want to actually read more about the rumors and shit, there are other sources to go to.
Fast forward to January 8th, 2021 and the 18 year old Olivia releases her first song, “Driver’s License”. A crescendoing piano ballad, the song ruminates on young heartbreak as Olivia deftly uses driving metaphors to tell her story. The standout lyric is undoubtedly “And you're probably with that blonde girl/ Who always made me doubt/She's so much older than me”, a not so subtle reference to alleged ex-beau’s new girlfriend, Ms. Carpenter herself.
Social media went wild the weekend “Driver’s License” was released. TikTok picked up the song quickly, with thousands of users making dramatic and emotional videos as they related to the lyrics and related to the concept of not having their own license while Twitter couldn’t stop discussing the spicy love triangle that birthed the song’s existence.
For teenagers the drama was fun exciting tabloid fodder about celebrities their own age and for older listeners the Olivia/Josh/Sabrina mess amusingly threw us back to the days of our own youth when Disney Channel stars’ Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, The Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez, etc. love quadratic formulas took over teen magazines and online message boards.
“Driver’s License” went on to debut at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and broke several streaming records. I found the follow up rollout for Olivia Rodrigo’s album to be much more interesting than the original hype of her debut song and I wanted to discuss how she smartly and quickly cultivated her own brand.
One of the most noticeable and early narratives in the early Olivia Rodrigo complex was the similarity to one of her icons, Taylor Swift.
Confessional style songwriting, pared down production and wholesome girl next door image had many people in the media and stan twitter alike calling Oliva a “daughter” of Taylor. Olivia leaned into the comparisons herself, not being afraid to admit and gush over the huge influence the popstar had on her own work. It feels almost like Olivia filled in an empty slot herself, as if Gen Z was looking for their own singer-songwriter artist that seemed to be missing lately amidst a rise of rap and urban influenced pop music on the charts. She’s also cited 90’s alternative rock staples like Alanis Morrissette, PJ Harvey and Fiona Apple as major inspirations for Sour
Olivia followed up a couple of months later with “Deja Vu” and “Good For You''. The former was a summer-y indie pop song with a idyllic, vintage feeling music video and the former was a pop-punk anthem that felt straight from Avril Lavigne’s songbook (Olivia would later bring her out to perform on her own tour).
I was impressed by Olivia’s versatility and her ability to tap into this generation’s love for nostalgia without seeming to be defined or drowned in it like other artists.
The music video for “Good For You'' was even an homage to cult horror classic, Jennifer’s Body. The Megan Fox led film has become a staple to 2010s youth culture. Anyone who’s spent a lot of time on social media during that time probably can recognize gifs of Megan in her distinct purple cheerleading outfit or bloody prom dress.
Olivia isn’t afraid to lean into the persona of teenagedom.
The cover of her album Sour is childlike, a light purple background with her face covered in playful 90’s style stickers. She shows signs of that teenage rebellion by sticking her tongue out with the album title splayed on it.
It’s bold, it’s cheesy, it feels slightly Nirvana-esque and it signifies that Olivia is here and she does not give a fuck.
At a brief 34 minutes, Sour is a confident debut for the singer-songwriter. While most of it explores the trappings of romance, there’s interesting songs like my personal favorite, “Jealousy, Jealousy”, a punchy pop rock banger where Olivia wails about envy as she suffocates around kids more popular, prettier and richer than she perceives herself. There’s hints of self awareness and irony throughout Sour’s lyrics, as if Olivia knows she’s more playing a character of a dramatic, emotional teenager, versus actually being one herself.
All the best songwriters tend to embellish though right?
I ultimately liked roughly half of her album, it showed promise, but I personally found some of the music production to be a bit sleepy for my tastes. The self-deprecating and prose-like lyrics did hit the spot for many listeners though.
It’s even become a meme to the point of actual articles being written, pathologizing why older Millennials were so drawn to this singer so allegedly out of their demographic.
To further promote her album, Olivia did a virtual concert called Sour Prom with a, you guessed it, prom theme. Live singing throughout a set decorated like a cheap 80’s high school gym on a dance night, the event felt especially poignant for her many young fans that lost out on the coming of age prom experience due to the pandemic. She even promoted the special with a promo pic of herself in a prom dress crying, another obvious movie reference, this time to Carrie (and even got herself in a bit of a kerfuffle with Courtney Love over the alleged source of inspiration).
She followed up and maintained the prom aesthetic for her 2022 tour along with special tour buses in select cities that had themed photo booths and merch available for fans.
Olivia strengthened her relationship with Disney+ with a documentary called Driving Home 2 U, about her process creating Sour along with live performances with fresh musical arrangements. She keeps up her slight nostalgic feel with the shot on film look, but like many music docs, especially those focused on young artists, the content of the film felt a bit scant (she’ll make a more interesting one in 20 years time).
This section from Olivia's 2021 GQ interview stood out to me especially:
It was not fun. I just remember being 14 years old and being like, “I literally have no idea who I am. I don't know what my personal style is. I don't know what I like. I don't know who my true friends are. How am I expected to cultivate an image?” That was always hard for me. Even now, I have no idea. I try, but my image today is not going to be the image that I'll probably like tomorrow.
And I think that's also the fun part of being an artist, that you get to create images that evolve over time. But as a young girl, that was really daunting to me. I felt like if it wasn't able to be seen by other people and it wasn't consumable over the internet or over other mediums, then it wasn't worthwhile
It's interesting how much pressure the music industry can place on artists to create a certain "image" or "brand" and I'm sure is felt even harder by female artists. While Olivia may feel like she's winging it some aspects, from the outsider looking in, it does feel like she knows exactly what she wants her music to convey. I think younger musicians are finding it even easier to create personal brands as kids that grew up in the social media age where creating a visual identity or persona is almost expected and required these days if you used Instagram, Tumblr and now even TikTok.
With music, celebrities and media available more than ever at the touch of our fingertips, Olivia Rodrigo managing to get millions to turn in her direction so quickly and suddenly is impressive. More impressive is her maintaining that interest in her in a time where the public is very fickle and fast with where their attention lies.
I think that’s what compelled me to write this in the first place. I wanted to understand why I and many others find this random singer's success story so fascinating.
It’s not like she’s the first or will be the last young singer to find seemingly instant success. Nor the first singer to cross age lines to touch the hearts of many.
So much of what I’ve written and the general discourse around Olivia has focused on her age in a way that we don’t see discussed in the same way as fellow teen pop star, Billie Eilish, for example.
She encapsulates many trends for the early 2020s, the rise of TikTok, constant references to the past, the resurgence of pop punk music, the increasing diversity in mainstream music and more. I don’t think Olivia is purposely trying to fit into these cultural molds, she’s just being herself. It would also be naïve to assume that she’s executing every idea surrounding her image herself, we can never forget that she also has the privilege of being signed to a multi billion dollar record label with infinite marketing resources.
I think I’m even more interested in her future evolutions as a songwriter, as a brand, as a personality. 90’s/Y2K references and teenage love work at 18 years old but what happens at 23 years old?
At 28?
At 35?
I’m excited to find out, while many don’t agree, I think Olivia Rodrigo is going to stay in the mainstream for a foreseeable future.