Olivia Rodrigo’s Record Year
Image Courtesy: Variety
A year ago, Olivia Rodrigo was just a 17-year-old girl known for her Disney Channel show Bizardvaark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series on Disney+. Until she released her first song titled driver’s license in the first week of January 2021, which met instant praise as creators championed the song on TikTok. News outlets began speculating who the heartbreaking song was about, and soon fingers pointed toward Rodrigo’s Disney costar, Joshua Bassett. On May 21st, Rodrigo released the ultimate breakup album of the year, SOUR. Similar to her debut song, this debut album found itself going number one on the Billboard 200.
Almost a year since Rodrigo’s first release, driver’s license is now nominated for Song of The Year at the Grammy’s, and Olivia Rodrigo has 44 million consistent Spotify listeners. The album was so successful that it resulted in Time recently naming her ‘Entertainer of the Year’ and Variety naming her ‘Songwriter of the Year,’ SOUR was Spotify’s ‘Top Album of 2021 Global,’ and the accolades continue stacking up. In the last week, Billboard just named her ‘Woman of the Year’ in 2022. She’s no one-hit-wonder either, currently, she is ranked 27th in the world on Spotify with 43 million monthly listeners.
Image Courtesy: Pitchfork
Rodrigo’s success is a rarity. With seven Grammy nominations in 2022 for her debut album SOUR, Rodrigo is aiming higher than even the likes of Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and many other kids-show-actors turned popstars. Yet, breakout artists such as Rodrigo only appear once a decade. Many Disney stars pursue music careers following their time on television, but it’s unlikely to achieve the caliber of success that Rodrigo has achieved. Olivia could win more Grammys than years she’s held her driver’s license.
Understandably, Rodrigo is so popular because her music speaks to the Gen Z generation. The combination of lyrics about being a teenager and her early 2000s aesthetics creates unforgettable juxtaposing angst. The Y2K aesthetic reminds her audience of a time when they romanticized teenhood, but Rodrigo brings the nostalgia to the crashing halt of realism about being a teenager. In the song brutal, she sings “and I’m so sick of 17, where’s my f*****g teenage dream?” Critics claim that Rodrigo’s relatability in her songwriting is the driving force behind her success, akin to the early successes and inspiration of Taylor Swift.
Image Courtesy: Official Charts
Even with her incredibly busy schedule, she plans to film the next season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series at the beginning of 2022. She announced a world tour for summer 2022 throughout the United States and Europe, which sold out instantly in record time. Fans complained about how small the venues were because of how popular Rodrigo is, while industry experts explained that she doesn’t have the experience as an artist to headline an arena tour. Certainly, Olivia Rodrigo is someone to look out for both on stage and in the coming years. As she is nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys and is continually breaking records of her predecessors, Olivia Rodrigo is certainly having a record year.
Strike Out,
Writer: Hannah Musiak
Editor: Lexi Fernandez
Tallahassee