When are you aware a tune has develop into a real, lasting cultural phenomenon? When it reaches Quantity One all around the world? Or maybe when it’s the soundtrack to hundreds of TikTok movies, or racks up greater than 724million Spotify streams – and counting – in only a few months? Within the case of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut single ‘Drivers License’, it was a Saturday Evening Dwell sketch that confirmed the 18-year-old Californian songwriter had hit the large time.
The sketch, which aired in late February, simply over a month after the tune was launched, opens with a bunch of blokes taking pictures pool as visitor host Regé-Jean Web page masses up “his tune” on the jukebox. And what may the Bridgerton heartthrob’s musical choice be? Rodrigo’s epic pop ballad, in fact. Initially his gaggle of friends are dismissive of the tune, claiming to have by no means heard it earlier than. “Sounds prefer it’s just a few teen lady singing in her room to her piano,” comic Pete Davidson’s character shrugs. However because the tune builds to its euphoric climax – the place Rodrigo depicts messy post-breakup feelings that flit between heartbreak and anger – their façades crumble.
“It’s like she ripped a web page out of my diary,” one whispers. “It’s obtained me serious about my breakup… Perhaps I’m Olivia,” one other provides, the skit ending with the boys stood shoulder-to-shoulder singing the tune’s exultant bridge: “Can’t drive previous the locations we used to go to / ’Trigger I nonetheless fuckin’ love you, babe”. With over 4million views on YouTube, it stays one of many present’s most-watched sketches of the 12 months. In an excitable tweet on the evening, Rodrigo referred to as it “one of the best birthday current ever”. She echoes this assertion at the moment, enthusing that she’s “so obsessed” with SNL and that she “idolises all these individuals a lot”.
Rodrigo’s tune might, on the floor, be concerning the overwhelmingly teenage milestone of passing your driving check, however, because the forged of Saturday Evening Dwell exhibit, it’s a common anthem that particulars the complicated aftermath of a relationship, when you possibly can’t fairly untangle your self from an ex. Rodrigo concludes the tune with the immortal line: “’Trigger you stated ceaselessly, now I drive alone previous your road”. It’s the kind of pop second tune that everybody – even some macho blokes taking part in pool – can relate to.
In January, ‘Drivers License’ grew to become the quickest tune to achieve 100million streams on Spotify, and valiantly fought viral sea shanty ‘Wellerman’ off the highest spot within the UK charts for 9 consecutive weeks. It’s, by a ways, the most important tune of the 12 months and seems to have an insurmountable lead.
The speedy success additionally signifies that Rodrigo’s first ever dwell gig wasn’t some pokey backroom, however at London’s O2 Enviornment for this 12 months’s BRIT Awards. The magnitude of the occasion, which passed off earlier this week, isn’t misplaced on her. “It’s completely mind-blowing to me”, she tells NME over Zoom, quarantining in a cottage simply exterior of London, every week forward of the ceremony. “I used to be so nervous rehearsing for it and my crew had been like, ‘It’s effective, there’s simply going to be 45 individuals’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah however the 45 persons are going to be Harry Kinds and Dua Lipa; that’s so scary!’”
By the point you’re studying this, she’ll have carried out to 4,000 BRITs attendees – to not point out the thousands and thousands of viewers at residence – earlier than hopping on a flight to New York to organize for her very personal Saturday Evening Dwell; she’ll carry out on the upcoming Could 15 version of the long-running present. She laughs off questions on whether or not she’ll smash a guitar à la Phoebe Bridgers (whom she “loves”) and says she seemingly gained’t star in any of the sketches: “I’m so nervous to sing, so I don’t understand how a lot I can placed on my plate”. You sense that she’s already performed sufficient for that present.
Next week, too, we’ll see the discharge of her vastly anticipated debut album ‘Bitter’, which boasts each pop-punk riffs and mosh-pit inducing choruses, alongside some tender acoustic moments. It’s a heat file, crammed with witty and trustworthy lyricism that covers fractured relationships (‘Sufficient For You’), social media envy (‘Jealousy, Jealousy’) and messy breakups (‘Good Four U’, ‘Deja Vu’).
Work on the file first started final 12 months, with preliminary plans to launch a debut EP in 2021 – although this understandably modified after the response to ‘Drivers License’. “I used to be like, ‘I want that I could make a venture that absolutely encompasses who I’m as an artist’,” she says. “And I really feel just like the EP wasn’t my strongest work.” Eager to totally showcase who she was as a songwriter, she referred to as her label, Geffen, and requested to increase the venture to a full album. They, in fact, stated sure.
On ‘Bitter’, Rodrigo collaborated with producer Dan Nigro (who’s labored with the likes of Carly Rae Jepsen and Sky Ferreira), largely recording in his residence studio. “I used to be actually impressed by ’90s various rock data with ‘Bitter’, particularly various rock women,” she says, and references Alanis Morissette as a selected inspiration. “I believe the albums from that point had been so brutally trustworthy and angsty, and I wished to make an angsty file about me rising up and going by means of heartbreak.”
“I didn’t wish to make a whole file that seemed like ‘Drivers License’. There’s no enjoyable in that”
You possibly can hear that on ‘Good Four U’ and its Inexperienced Day-indebted refrain. “We wished to take an early 2000s pop-punk tune and kind of twist it and discover a option to make it 2021,” Rodrigo reveals of the slick tune. “I hope persons are shocked. I like pop-punk music; I like grunge music; I like nation music and people music. I believe, truthfully, you possibly can see little influences of all of these genres in my album. And I didn’t wish to make a whole file that seemed like ‘Drivers License’. There’s no enjoyable in that for me – and possibly not for listeners, both.”
There’s one fixed in Rodrigo’s music: her astonishingly open songwriting. She’s a completely Gen-Z creator, carrying her feelings plainly and pouring her personal experiences into her songs. That’s in line with her friends similar to Madison Beer and Lady In Purple, the latter of whom lately instructed NME: “Gen-Z crave and anticipate extra honesty, intimacy and nearly a rawness.”
Rodrigo provides: “I’ve all the time been such an oversharer. I’ll inform my Uber driver all of my deepest traumas and insecurities, and so I simply suppose songwriting for me is an extension of that facet of my persona. I’ve by no means actually been so terrified of individuals studying concerning the intimate elements of myself; I believe that’s what makes songwriting so particular.”
This honesty goes hand-in-hand with a shift within the relationship between followers and artists. Prior to now, an artist would have constructed up intimacy with followers by means of preliminary dwell exhibits. It was as soon as a badge of honour to say you had been at an act’s early gig, which music lovers who found ‘Drivers License’ in a pandemic gained’t precisely be capable to do. However Rodrigo’s not apprehensive.
“I really feel like social media is taking that function,” she says, explaining that the shift was already underway. “I used to brag that I adopted Billie Eilish when she had 200,000 followers on Instagram, and that’s kind of the brand new ‘I used to be there at their first present’.” She’s an enormous fan of Eilish and says that she was “so moved” by the star’s current British Vogue cowl: “She’s so clever and I believe it’s so superior that women can look as much as someone like her, who’s so courageous and clever.”
Rodrigo’s dad and mom are each “music heads” and inspired their daughter’s inventive endeavours. Rodrigo began to audition for tv and movie appearing roles at seven years outdated, one thing she recognises as a brutal course of: “I believe auditions are actually tough for anybody. I do know individuals who’ve gone into their first audition and booked it, however that positively was not my expertise”. There have been instances that she nearly sacked the entire thing off. At one level she made a pact along with her mum: if she didn’t get a job by Christmas, they’d name it quits. She booked her first gig in November of that 12 months.
In 2016 she joined the Disney Channel, first as a lead on comedy sequence Bizaardvark, and since 2019 she’s had a significant function in mockumentary TV present Excessive Faculty Musical: The Musical: The Sequence, with the second season of the sequence airing later this 12 months. Different artists who’ve equally come up through Disney have tried, of their solo work, to distance themselves from that point of their lives. Miley Cyrus, for example, overhauled her picture with 2010’s risqué ‘Can’t Be Tamed’ and actor Bella Thorne has mentioned now not needing to have a “harmless Disney enchantment” when she wrapped her work on the channel.
Now her music is taking off, was Rodrigo nervous about being pigeon-holed as a Disney channel artist?
“Yeah, completely,” she says. “That’s to not knock Disney Channel artists. A few of my favorite artists got here from Disney Channel… However yeah, I all the time wished to do one thing totally different. I by no means wished to be a pop lady; that was by no means my prerogative.” She provides, diplomatically: “I all the time wished to put in writing my very own songs.” Whereas Rodrigo has written a handful of songs for Excessive Faculty Musical, she’s largely performing songs that she gained’t have written herself. “It was super-important to me that I instructed my very own tales in my distinctive voice.”
“I’ve regarded as much as Taylor Swift since I used to be 5 years outdated. She’s so business-savvy”
Rising up on tv units initially made Rodrigo anxious about her lyrical content material: “I bear in mind worrying that I wasn’t going to put in writing songs that had been relatable due to how bizarre rising up on a set was.” She provides, laughing: “Like, what was I going to put in writing about? ‘Ah, gotta do that desk learn!’”
The success of her gargantuan breakout tune has helped to tame these fears, although: “With ‘Drivers License’, there have been lots of people who had been like, ‘Yo, I’ve by no means heard of this lady earlier than however I actually like this tune’, which to me was the dream – to get a model new introduction to individuals simply as a songwriter. I take into account myself a songwriter first and I’m actually completely happy that persons are beginning to recognise me as such.” Elsewhere in our dialog, too, she insists that it’s necessary to her to be “taken critically as a songwriter.”
That’s certainly the impact ‘Bitter’ may have. Comply with-up single ‘Deja Vu’, launched in April, is a witty eye-roll that sees her scoff at an ex who’s repurposing their romantic moments with a brand new companion: “So whenever you gonna inform her that we did that, too? / She thinks it’s particular, however it’s all re-used,” she slams within the refrain. On album monitor ‘Sufficient For You’, Rodrigo lays out the ability imbalance in a flawed relationship: “I wore make-up once we dated ’trigger I believed you’d like me extra.”
With this degree of possession as a author, although, comes negatives. As ‘Drivers License’ picked up tempo, there was enormous intrigue as to who she’d written the tune about, with websites speculating a few “love triangle drama” involving her Excessive Faculty Musical co-star Joshua Bassett. “To be utterly trustworthy, it was actually arduous,” she says of the limitless on-line hypothesis. “And, yeah, generally it wasn’t all the time the kindest or probably the most respectful. However I perceive why persons are curious and I’ve been inquisitive about who my favorite songwriters wrote their songs about, so I utterly perceive.”
This degree of commentary is nearly completely reserved for feminine artists, with lyrics by ladies present process an additional degree of scrutiny from the media and listeners – simply take a look at Taylor Swift’s songs being dissected for particulars about her love life. “It could be a bald-faced lie if I say that I didn’t face any misogyny within the music business – particularly being a younger lady,” Rodrigo tells NME. “It’s a bizarre place to be. However I really feel like I’m surrounded by individuals who actually respect me and deal with me with kindness. I’m actually fortunate in that regard and I hope that my technology of artists can actually forge a path for youthful artists.”
She additionally insists she would let the scrutiny lead her to self-censorship: “I’m not going to sacrifice me being susceptible and writing songs that I really feel like are true to what I really feel… I’m simply all the time gonna write about what I really feel probably the most intensely as a result of that’s one of the best kind of songwriting.”
And, fortunately, the 18-year-old is just not going by means of the maelstrom alone – a number of pop superstars have reached out to Rodrigo to supply recommendation in current months. Cardi B tweeted her help (“She’s tremendous cool and I hope to satisfy her in the future”), One Route’s Niall Horan instructed her he “liked” ‘Drivers License’ and Rodrigo’s songwriting idol Taylor Swift despatched her a handwritten notice of encouragement.
“It could be a lie if I say I didn’t face misogyny within the music business”
Lately, Swift has spoken publicly about her battle to personal her grasp recordings, which has resulted within the unprecedented re-recording of her first six albums, and beforehand clashed with streaming giants Apple and Spotify, combating for a fairer deal for artists who put their music on the platforms. As a younger songwriter, has that impacted Rodrigo’s choices within the music business? “I’ve all the time regarded as much as Taylor since I used to be actually 5 years outdated,” she says. “Clearly I believe she’s one of the best songwriter of all time, however she’s so business-savvy and he or she actually cares about her profession in that regard too – that’s been actually inspiring for me to look at someone take management of their profession and their life like that.”
As Taylor Swift re-records her outdated albums, she’s additionally letting followers additional into every period, finishing never-heard-before songs and teaming up with present musical friends to finish them. US singer Maren Morris, for instance, offered backing vocals for ‘You All Over Me’, a tune that Swift first penned in 2008. If Rodrigo might be on one of many re-recorded Swift albums, which wouldn’t it be?
“My favorite Taylor Swift album is ‘Converse Now’,” she says. “I’d like to be on a ‘Converse Now’ tune. I’m simply so excited to hearken to them, although. I like listening to the vault recordings and stuff like that. I’m gonna personal my masters, however I’ll hearken to songs I’m not placing out and be like, ‘Perhaps I’ll do a vault factor after I’m Taylor’s Swift’s age.’”
When NME first spoke to Rodrigo again in January, she spoke excitedly concerning the data she had damaged and the “surreal” expertise of surpassing her heroes. Optimistic and well mannered, she recognised that it was maybe “just a little bit daunting” to have your debut be the most important tune of the 12 months. ‘I simply actually take pleasure in writing and really feel so pleased with the stuff that I’ve created, in order that’s all I can do,” she stated. “I don’t have management of the opposite stuff.”
She echoes this sentiment at the moment. Talking proudly concerning the work she’s created, she brushes off questions on any nerves as to how the album can be acquired: “I made a venture that I really feel actually pleased with and that’s the one factor that I got down to do. I strive to not write songs by means of the lens of hoping that they’re commercially profitable. I simply really feel that takes away a number of the magic of the songs. Success in my eyes could be making music that I really feel actually pleased with, and I really feel prefer it challenges me and excites me and hopefully makes individuals really feel understood.”
Perhaps this is the reason Rodrigo’s songs have such common enchantment. They’re not created to go viral on TikTok – although they do – and he or she doesn’t leap on musical bandwagons. Even when her songs are crammed with private particulars or – as on ‘Deja Vu’ – area of interest references to Glee and discovering the music of Billy Joel, it’s simple for the listener to really feel themselves in her songs of heartbreak and relationships.
It’s a powerful talent, and one which units an artist up for longevity in a world of viral smashes. ‘Drivers License’ could be the largest tune of the 12 months, however you sense Rodrigo’s defining second is additional down the street.
Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Bitter’ is out Could 21
CREDITS
Styling by Anna Hughes-Chamberlain
Hair by Lisa Laudat
Make-up by Lucy Carrying
Nails by Kim Treacy