Absolutely: Olivia Rodrigo, Sour – There’s nothing worse than a massive build-up that just doesn’t live up to the hype. Olivia Rodrigo can sleep soundly knowing that that doesn’t describe her debut album, Sour. The Zoomer’s earnest lyricism about love lost, crippling beauty standards, social media hell holes, and hearty fuck yous has already prompted a stream of memes, with Millennials gushing over how her music brings them back to their teen years. But not all of Rodrigo’s tracks feel regressive: Anyone who has gone through a bitter breakup, who has scrolled Instagram and felt like shit afterward, who has felt like a piece of meat, can find something that resonates in Sour.
Rodrigo has a beautiful singing voice, and I love her gentle vulnerability in tracks like “favorite crime” and “hope ur okay.” And, yes, her breakout single “driver’s license” is a lovely pop song. But to me, Rodrigo is most compelling when she’s the ugliest, most blunt version of herself. Like when she cries “You got a pretty face, pretty boyfriend too/I wanna be you so bad, and I don’t even know you” in “jealousy jealousy” or when she sneers “I’m so sick of seventeen/Where’s my fuckin’ teenage dream?/If someone tells me one more time/’Enjoy your youth,’ I’m gonna cry” in the killer opening track, “brutal.”
And, of course, there’s “good 4 u,” when Rodrigo sings, “And good for you, I guess that you’ve been workin’ on yourself/I guess that therapist I found for you, she really helped/Now you can be a better man for your brand new girl.” Whew.