2023-09-08 22:27:00
20 years, three Grammy Awards and two albums. Olivia Rodrigo just launched Guts, the album with which the singer seeks to continue confirming herself as one of the most important names in current pop. Now with a more rock edge and country overtones, yes. And she does it having achieved that the label of ‘Disney girl’ that predecessors like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gómez or Demi Lovato had a hard time getting rid of to be taken seriously within the industry has not been, by any means, an obstacle.
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His formula: breaking ties with the ‘mouse factory’ as soon as he started releasing songs. She wasn’t willing to become his new pop star/puppet and she didn’t let him be the one to control her music career. She always composed her songs and she defended herself as the singer-songwriter that she is. And yes, of course she is part of a pool that also includes other popular names such as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan; But she hasn’t had to pay the toll of frustration, radical changes, or the risk of ending up as a broken toy.
Rodrigo’s life (2003) was linked to music from an early age, since from a very young age he began taking singing classes and learned to play the piano. At the age of six, he also began to train in acting and with that came his first theatrical forays in his school plays. At 12 he was already playing the guitar and country music – especially that of Taylor Swift – sowed the seed of his interest in composition. His debut on the small screen came in 2015, in the film An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success.
Disney signed her a year later for the series Bizaardvark, in which she played Paige Olvera for three seasons. A guitar-playing teenager who, with her best friend Frankie (Madison Hu), posted songs and comedic videos on the Internet. Rodrigo made the definitive leap in 2019, with her leading role as Nini Salzar-Roberts in High School Musical: el musical: la serie.
The fiction followed a theater group from the same center where the film led by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens had been filmed in 2006; and that they prepared their own version of it. Disney invited the American to compose a song for her character. The result was her ballad on the piano All I Want and it became his first big hit.
Rodrigo then made the key decision that differentiated him from Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and Selena Gómez. He didn’t tie his music to the company, but signed to an outside label. The one chosen was Interscope/Geffen because she felt that he was the only one who truly valued her as a songwriter and not just as a Disney phenomenon destined to make a lot of money. She signed with the record label and in January 2021 she released the single that catapulted her, Drivers license.
The song shattered records: for two days in a row it was the most listened to non-Christmas title in the history of Spotify, with more than 15.7 million views worldwide. It was also the first to reach 80 million in seven days and debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. “It has been the craziest week of my life,” she said in an interview. She was 17 years old. In it she poured her sadness after her breakup with Joshua Basset, who was her co-star in the series. High School Musical (heartbreak, once again, as a machine to generate hits).
In April of the same year, his second single was released, Deja vu and in May the third, Good 4 Ufor which she was later accused of plagiarism by the group Paramore due to its similarity to Misery Business. The controversy was settled in favor of the plaintiffs by adding the names of Hayley Williams and Joshua Farro to their credits. Both titles served as an appetizer for her debut album, Sour.
With the album on the market, the young artist toured the United States, Canada and Europe on her first world tour and was named Artist of the Year by Time magazine. That summer she visited the White House to support its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, appealing to the younger population.
Olivia Rodrigo is at the White House today to meet with President Biden and Dr. Fauci and discuss the importance of young Americans getting vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/s95KtOkrsF
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 14, 2021
In February 2022 he already had his own documentary for Disney+, Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2U. Deciding to bet everything – for the moment – on music, she abandoned the fiction of High School Musical after its third season. The Grammy Awards supported her work, awarding her three golden gramophones: Best New Artist, Best Pop Individual Performance, and Best Pop Vocal Album.
Opinion as a weapon
Rodrigo also didn’t let Disney make her a ‘white’, correct and equidistant figure. Even while she was still in the cast of the series, she did not hesitate to criticize Donald Trump and the murder of George Floyd through her social networks. Another of her most notable protests took place at the Glastonbury Festival in the summer of 2022, in which she spoke out about the repeal of the abortion law in the United States.
“I am devastated and terrified. So many women and so many girls are going to die from this. I wanted to dedicate the following song to the five members of the Supreme Court who have shown us that at the end of the day they don’t give a shit about freedom. The song is for Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh. “We hate you!” He snapped before performing the song with Lily Allen. Fuck You.
olivia rodrigo at glastonbury name dropping the justices of the supreme court who voted to overturn roe v wade “we hate you” and then singing fuck you by lily allen to them yea that’s my girl. pic.twitter.com/BueiLOApNx
— bri (@strawberritom) June 25, 2022
Compose from the inside
Rodrigo has given himself more than a year to release his second album, Guts, which make up 12 new songs. The singer had already released two songs, Vampire –an allegation against sentimental bloodsuckers–and bad idea right?who had anticipated the character that his new album was going to give, whose title, above all, is a declaration of intentions: he composed it from the inside.
This is demonstrated from the song that opens the album, all-american bitcha satire with which he rebels against the expectations and double standards that he still feels he has to confront.
“I have experienced a lot of confusion due to feelings of anger and dissatisfaction that I felt I could not express, especially in my work. I have always felt that I couldn’t admit it, that I had to feel lucky because a lot of people would want to be in my place. And this just causes a lot of repressed feelings. “I have always struggled with the desire of wanting to be the perfect American girl, and the reality of not feeling that way all the time,” she reflected in an interview with The Guardian.
Rodrigo recognition in the magazine Interview that this is precisely one of his favorite songs on the album, whose title ‘owes’ to Joan Didion and her book The White Album. “He has so many fucking great quotes. I read how Didion went to San Francisco to meet all the hippies who had been taking acid and going to Grateful Dead concerts for five years. There she was talking to a hippie who had run away from home and called her mother an ‘American bitch’. And I was like ‘that’s the coolest line I’ve ever heard,’ so I had to write a song about it.”
Love, heartbreak, pressure, expectations and guilt are other themes that underpin his recently released album. We won’t have to wait too long to see Rodrigo in action performing his new songs. The singer will perform next week at the MTV Video Music Awards gala, in which she is up for five awards: Best Video of the Year, Best Song of the Year, Best Pop Video, Best Photography and Best Editing.
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