Olivia Rodrigo Barely Spares Us With ‘Sour’
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It’s Olivia Rodrigo’s world and we’re just living in it! To say Sour was highly anticipated would be an understatement. Her hit single “Driver’s License” broke records for Spotify and Amazon while maintaining its number one spot on The Billboard Hot 200 for eight consecutive weeks. Two successful singles historically add to the pressure of releasing an album that lives up to the hype. Rodrigo proves otherwise.
Her second single, “Deja Vu” in comparison to “Driver’s License” had many guessing what the album would sound like as a full body of work considering how different the two were. It initially seemed that Rodrigo was showing off as an artist who could successfully pull off a power ballad and a pop hit fueled by her not-so-private breakup with her High School Musical: The Musical: The Series co-star, Joshua Bassett. Even so, a multifaceted version of Rodrigo shines through with songs dedicated to self-reflection, growth, and of course, heartbreak.
Opening the album in the spirit of teenage angst, “Brutal” destroys all expectations of a predictable break-up album. Instead, it focuses less on the “teenage dream” and more on the teenage struggle. The 18-year-old, who at one point made us wish we were teenagers all over again, snaps us back to reality. Her lyrics provoke a bittersweet nostalgia with lines like: “Cause I love people I don't like/ And I hate every song I write/ And I'm not cool, and I'm not smart/ And I can't even parallel park.” As per the request of Rodrigo herself, the track is messy...in the best way possible, of course.
“Traitor” follows suit and the Taylor Swift influence comes tumbling in. In a recent interview, Rodrigo revealed she grew up listening to Swift’s music, noting she was only three years old when Swift’s self-titled album was released. This undoubtedly led to Swift’s heavy influence on the album. The piano melody from “New Year’s Day,” off Swift’s 2017 album, Reputation can be heard in the wistful “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” There’s an undeniable theatrical essence that lies just below the surface of the album— the same that Swift masters in 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017). It hits hardest in “Driver's License” and in the unforgiving, Avril Lavigne-like “Good 4 U.”
Rodrigo captures the all-too-relatable “return to self” journey that follows heartbreak in “Enough For You.” She sings, “I'd say you broke my heart, But you broke much more than that/ Now I don't want your sympathy/ I just want myself back.” For Rodrigo, the “return to self” doesn’t solely exist in the realm of wearing extra makeup and reading self-help books to be enough for her ex; it’s also filled with traces of insecurities and envy. She confesses feeding into the toxic cycle of comparison in “Jealousy, Jealousy,” allowing a stream of conscious narrative to take over: “And I see everyone gettin' all the things I want/ I'm happy for them, but then again, I'm not/ Just cool vintage clothes and vacation photos/I can't stand it.” Meanwhile, the half-hearted ballad “Happier” dives into the inner conflict of wanting your ex to be happy but not as happy as they were with you. Rodrigo’s candidness takes a jab at any sort of maturity complex and in doing so creates space for those feelings to exist in normalcy.
Built on dreamy harmonies, “Favorite Crime” serves as preparation for the slightly underwhelming “Hope Ur Ok.” Though the track itself is heartfelt, “Hope Ur Okay” is a lyrical jump into a story unrelated to the rest of the album with minimal context with no other songs on the album to support its origin. Making “Favorite Crime” the final track as opposed to second to last could have been the ending to give this chapter the closure it never got.
It’s frustrating how effortlessly Sour sums up heartbreak and all of its intricacies. In many ways, the album feels like a lesson on the five stages of grief, but in a cool pop-punk kind of way that makes you excited about what’s next. But the real question that remains is, at her core, who is Olivia Rodrigo? When the layers of iconic influences fade away with experience, what will her sound consist of? Aware of the impact she’s made, Rodrigo has said she plans to continue making music but needs to live a little more life before returning to the writing process. While we sit through the dreaded wait for a sophomore album, we can all appreciate the beautiful mess that is Sour. (8 out of 10)
Written by Sabrina Samone
