A review of Olivia Rodrigo's debut dreamscape: SOUR

By: Emily Yoon

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In a set of events reminiscent of a quintessential Disney Channel chick flick, teenage actress Olivia Rodrigo has gone from a wistful observer of her pop idols to a musical icon herself in an astoundingly short period of time.

Although it might seem to some that Rodrigo’s fame came overnight, long-time fans can attest otherwise. Before establishing a singing career, Rodrigo played the title role in the 2015 American Girl film “Grace Stirs Up Success” and led Disney comedy series “Bizaardvark’s” ensemble cast from 2016 to 2019 along with her co-star Madison Hu.

As early as three or four years ago, Rodrigo began regularly posting snippets of self-penned songs on her Instagram account. Though her platform was at first modest, a full-length songwriting debut on Disney Channel show “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” introduced many new ears to Rodrigo’s artistry.

Eventually, one of Rodrigo’s songs, previously seen via Instagram snippet, would break the Internet and make “Olivia Rodrigo” a household name: “driver's license.” The dreamy pop ballad is three minutes and fifty-eight seconds of catharsis and teenage longing, augmented with production that fluctuates artfully between austere and sweeping.

Older fans say “driver's license” took them back in time to their teenage breakups with a surprisingly nostalgic wave of emotions. Younger listeners cried in solidarity with Rodrigo as they experienced heartbreaks of their own. Even those who couldn’t relate to the song found themselves screaming the bridge “Red lights, stop signs” along with Rodrigo.

Even those who couldn’t relate to the song found themselves screaming the bridge “Red lights, stop signs” along with Rodrigo.

Rodrigo’s first album “SOUR” succeeded lead single “driver’s license” by a couple months. It’s a collection of songs that illuminate teenage rage, disappointment, and post-breakup desolation in all their “sour” glory. The California teen ranges from high-octane pop punk anthems to stripped-down piano ballads with surprising variety, always conveying herself with unfiltered honesty and heart.

The May 21 debut quickly became a global phenomenon: almost every track has achieved TikTok viral status, and Rodrigo broke the Spotify record for biggest opening week for a female album. Some attribute “SOUR’s” popularity to internet gossip surrounding “driver's license” and an alleged love triangle involving Rodrigo and two other musicians that supposedly inspired the record.

But “SOUR” has more to thank for its popularity than speculative drama. With lyrics like “All I ever wanted to was to be enough for you” and “I’ve lost my mind, I’ve spent the night / crying on the floor of my bedroom,” Rodrigo injects vulnerability into her music in order to achieve the most chased-after factor in modern music: uncontrived authenticity.

Though confident, “I’m hot and I know it” party anthems are making their comeback with artists like Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion, audiences today continue to love songs that allow them to wallow in the depths of ugly emotions, from bad breakups to rage towards socio-political issues to fear of growing old, group-therapy style.

The full-on snot-cry, mascara-dripping belting song was arguably popularized by Adele and Rodrigo’s personal icon Taylor Swift. But Gen Z’s take on sad music has been more low-key. The emergence of imperfectly produced bedroom pop, championed by the likes of Clairo and Rodrigo’s Wasian brethren Conan Gray and mxmtoon, made it cool to be shy, reserved, and even lonely at times, reflecting an entirely new demographic of teenage introverts whose experiences hadn’t really been represented musically before.

On “SOUR,” Rodrigo manages to unite these two schools of pop-thought in many of her songs. Her round-toned, stylized belting voice echoing through the melancholy calls to mind established pop hallmarks like Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain,” Swift’s “All Too Well,” and Lorde’s “Writer in the Dark.” Paired with lyrics like “I read all of your self-help books so you’d think that I was smart / stupid, emotional, obsessive little me,” Olivia manages to reflect both her generation’s sarcastic, self-deprecating humor and the timelessness of capturing heartbreak through song.

But Rodrigo also isn’t afraid to tap into her angst-inducing experiences as a Gen-Z teen: on “jealousy, jealousy,” a cool-toned soft rock anthem, Rodrigo “kind of wants to throw her phone across the room,” lamenting about how envying her peers’ body types, expensive excursions, and picture-perfect relationships is “killing [her] slowly.” Even on the opening track “brutal,” a loud, vitriolic pop-punk lamentation of the pitfalls of the teenage years, Rodrigo channels the social awkwardness, disillusionment, and insecurity her Gen-Z contemporaries relate to, with lyrics like “I don’t stick up for myself / I’m anxious and nothing can help, “I’m so sick of seventeen / Where’s my f*cking teenage dream,” and “I hate the way I’m perceived.”

Although “SOUR” might be too universal to call it an album solely about girlhood, the half-Filipina 18-year-old draws from her experiences as an Asian gal in a Eurocentric society. Her confession in driver's license that her ex’s new, blonde girlfriend was “everything [she’s] insecure about” received acclaim from women of color who’ve experienced heartbreak augmented with insecurities about not fitting the beauty standard.

Rodrigo addressed this facet of her identity in an interview with “The Guardian,” where she said, “It’s hard for anyone to grow up in this media where it feels like if you don’t have European features and blond hair and blue eyes, you’re not traditionally pretty.” Although Rodrigo certainly isn’t the first to express this sentiment through lyricism (indie-rock artists Mitski and Japanese Breakfast notably brought Asian-American womanhood to the popular music sphere), a songwriter in a heavily white-dominated environment speaking candidly about their experiences as a person of color is always a win for our community.

Though “SOUR” has been praised by many reviewers and audiences as a stunning smash debut, acclaim is never unanimous. Critics have called the album “disjointed,” and while there isn’t really a middle ground uniting drum-heavy punk-rock lamentations with heartbreak anthems that utilize little more than piano and a couple synths to augment Rodrigo’s voice, you could argue that’s teenhood (or the “sour” side of teenhood) in a nutshell: a collection of mood swings where the sad, the bad, and the ugly seem to immediately succeed one another in crushing waves.

Others maintain that Rodrigo’s music reminds them too much of other artists and argue that sometimes heavy inspiration verges on inoriginality. Although this is true of some songs, I’d reason that this is much the effect of a newly-signed artist playing with different sounds and genres; again, much like any teen’s exploration of multiple identities and “looks” to find the one that feels right.

Like the coming-of-age period it portrays, the record isn’t perfect, but after all, what artist’s debut record is?

Altogether, Olivia Rodrigo’s “SOUR” is a gloriously inglorious and brutally (no pun intended) honest montage of teenhood’s complex lows.

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Written by Emily Yoon

Photo of Olivia Rodrigo courtesy of IMDB

Dear Asian Youth SCV

2021