Olivia Rodrigo's Sour Has A Song For Every Mood
the hugest pop song of the year starts like a diary entry. "I got my driver's license last week,"
Olivia Rodrigo sings, then rapidly adds another person to the narrative: "Just like we habitually discussed about / 'Cause you were so excited for me / To finally drive up to your residence By right now, we know that the story ends with her passing the street and leaving the subject of the song in the rear view. However we also know the addictive engine that fuels her No. 1 hit "
Drivers License" — rather personalized songwriting coupled with excellently crafted song structures — is the same one powering Rodrigo's entire career, as heard on her impressive debut LP,
Sour, out today (May 21).
With help from her co-writer
Dan Nigro, Rodrigo splits open her rock-tinged songs with specifics as real as what you'd send in a text ("reruns of
Glee," "crying on the floor in my washroom) and the occasional tactical F-bomb — lessons she picked up from her idol
Taylor Swift. The songs themselves remain easy to digest;
Sour's tracklist suggests a
Inside Out-style approach to feelings with "Happier," "Jealousy, Jealousy," "Brutal," and more telling you what you must know in title alone. Nevertheless there's a sly sophistication in Rodrigo's work, informed by her approach to disciplined songwriting. "I really think that more or far less forcing yourself to write a song some days is really favorable she
told MTV recently. "I think you can't rely on those lightning bolts of concepts to strike you all of the time."
That mentioned,
Sour has more than enough lightning bolts to fill Zeus's quiver. From blistering pop-punk to more measured folk and pop-rock elements, Rodrigo spends its 35 minutes in an educated manner spanning the sounds that speak to her, leveraging them to speak
for her as well. "My dream is to have it be an intersection between mainstream pop, folk music, and option rock,"
she said ahead of the album's release. Below, we break down
Sour, track by track and mood by mood.
"Brutal"
Listen to it any time you're feeling: over it.
Key lyric: "Who am I if not exploited? / I’m so sick of 17 / Where’s my fucking teenage dream?"
Over a crunching rhythm that sounds like
Elastica doing
Elvis Costello, "Brutal" kicks off her album with an explosive pop-punk number building a declarative statement plagued with self-doubt: “It’s brutal out here.” She’s talking about the perils of being 17, on the cusp of legal adulthood although yet still treated like a child.
Sour is a number of angst, and nothing primes the listener for what’s next better than Rodrigo getting a couple of things off her chest.
"Traitor"
Listen to it any time you're feeling: replaced.
Key lyric: "It took you two weeks to go off and date her / Guess you didn’t cheat yet you’re still a traitor"
The three characters in this song feel quite lived in, showcasing how Rodrigo can capture the dramatic stakes of a narrative by revealing it piece by piece. As she expresses the special sting of having her own romantic replacement lined up in front of her, this stormy ballad really gains momentum near its conclusion. As her voice begins to ascend, so do the stakes.
"Drivers License"
Listen to it any time you're feeling: prepared to zoom away from heartbreak.
Key lyric: "Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me / 'Cause you mentioned forever, right now I drive along past your street"
The massive resonance of "Drivers License" (and its eight weeks at the best of the Billboard Hot 100 chart) is due in part to its mixing of perplexing emotions. Is the narrator shattered by love's end and plagued by a future that no longer exists? Yes. Is she willing to leave all that beyond and accelerate into her next chapter? Also yes. It's the sort of song where "I still fucking love you" shifts its power the more times you listen. In the end, it's just you in the driver's seat, fully free to go anywhere.
"1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back"
Listen to it once you're feeling: lost and powerless.
Key lyric: "It’s habitually one step forward and three steps back / Do you love me, want me, hate me? Boy, I don’t understand"
One might expect the song that actually interpolates Taylor Swift — the gentle loping piano rhythm from
Reputation's "
New Year's Day" — to be the most Swiftian composition on the album. Although the interpolation as a substitute permits Rodrigo to find her quietest moment of self. As a new composition, "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back" finds the intimacy of a voice note, complete with bird noises in the background, as Rodrigo questions her love’s motivations as much as she interrogates her own reasons for staying put.
"Deja Vu"
Listen to it any time you're feeling: like you've been replaced.
Key lyric: "So as soon as you gonna tell her that we did that, also? / She thinks it's special, although it's all reused"
While "Drivers License" cruises with its hands at 2 and 10, "Deja Vu" changes lanes without signaling, then speeds off into the night. It's a song for anyone who's ever realized that what they thought was a unique sort of love was likely just one in a series. While that would be harrowing, Rodrigo's version sounds downright psychedelic; she is aware it's better to laugh than give anyone the satisfaction of a sad face.
"Good 4 U"
Listen to it once you're feeling: angsty.
Key lyric: "I've spent the night crying on the floor in my washroom / Just over the fact that I really never get it / However I guess good for you"
At first listen, you'd be forgiven for thinking this scrappy pop-punk number was the work of another artist. Nevertheless even amid a cloud of power chords, Rodrigo's singular voice rises like smoke to deliver her most biting kiss-off however. Don't sleep on the Billie Eilish-inspired bridge, either.
"Enough for You"
Listen to it as soon as you're feeling: like you've got to find yourself again.
Key lyric: "I’d mention you broke my heart yet you broke much more than that / Right now I don’t want your sympathy, I just want myself back"
On this just-past halfway mark, gentle acoustic plucking is the only accompaniment to Rodrigo mapping out a story about a love who abandoned her immediately after she seemingly did everything right. The haunting breaks in her voice reveal this as a cautionary tale of not changing also much for someone else and losing yourself in the process. It's also one of only two songs on which Rodrigo gets full writing credit.
"Happier"
Listen to it once you're feeling: generous, however not too generous.
Key lyric: "I hope you’re happy / Although not like how you were with me"
Here's the other sole Rodrigo composition, characterized by cautious piano arpeggios along with a waltzing rhythm that feels like sneaking through a home immediately after everyone’s asleep. Like a lot of Sour, "Happier" is a monologue, one where she chooses her words added cautiously, though her moments of discontentment creep up in the clever production beyond by way of the muted claps, the kind that make it feel like maybe we’re not hearing the whole story.
"Jealousy, Jealousy"
Listen to it any time you're feeling: like you don’t deserve what you have.
Key lyric: "All I visualize is what I should be / Happier, prettier, jealousy, jealousy"
Soon after a couple of songs without a genuine backbeat, “Jealousy, Jealousy” pounds in like an elephant, letting Rodrigo work out some feelings of imposter syndrome over a real groove. There's not much sonic overlap, nevertheless I couldn’t help yet think of Sheryl Crow’s “
If It Makes You Happy,” another ode to the chaos wrought by getting what you want. With a bassline that’ll linger in your head, “Jealousy, Jealousy” means that, contrary to her fears, you won’t be thinking about anyone else.
"Favorite Crime"
Listen to it once you're feeling: deliriously smitten.
Key lyric: "Everything we broke and all of the trouble that we made / Yet I mention that I hate you with a smile on my face"
Like an ode to a crush the other way, preference Crime" looks back fondly on the destruction wrought in the wake of a crumbled love. It’s not sad and it’s not very happy, either. As a substitute, the glowing track captures the lingering fizz of dysfunction because the end result of love. Thanks to a pleasant set of acoustic chords and Rodrigo’s fantastic pipes, this one is ready for both the coffee shop and pop radio.
"Hope Ur Ok"
Listen to it as soon as you're feeling: empathetic.
Key lyric: "I love you / I hope that you’re OK"
Because we’ve reached the end of a rather diaristic LP, we have to close on a series of character vignettes that look outward rather than in. So, Rodrigo paints portraits: a childhood marching-band drummer whose father abused him along with a classmate ostracized for who she loved. Then she sends a message of solidarity and love and support to them and to each person listening; as she does, the echoes of her three biggest influences (Swift, Eilish, and Lorde) swirl into sonic view, marking a key moment that recognizes her past while forging ahead boldly on her own. The next move is all hers.
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