After the success of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album “SOUR,” her sophomore album has been highly anticipated. Her new album, “GUTS” does not disappoint. It shows that Rodrigo is not a one-hit wonder.
In an interview with the Today Show, Rodrigo says that one of the reasons she chose the title “GUTS” for her album is because she was “spilling her guts” with the lyrics and songwriting.
Rodrigo writes about ex-boyfriends, anxiousness, feelings of self-doubt, and the pressures of being a woman in the music industry. Regardless of the song topic, she brings authenticity and emotion to her lyrics. You want to yell with her and you want to cry with her. She balances quippy lines like “I want to meet his mom just to tell her her son sucks” with more heartfelt lines like “When am I going to stop being great for my age and just start bein’ good?”
My favorite song on the album is “making the bed.” The song title refers to the idiom “you made your bed now lie in it.” It explores the idea of fame without falling into the stereotypical sophomore album song about fame. On her entire album there is only one song, this song, that references her new popularity, and it does it in a very subtle and modest way. Additionally, the song has a simplicity to the lyrics that doesn’t take away from them, but makes them more impactful.
Another stand out on the album is the song “Get him back!” It uses the double meaning of the title to fit both her feelings of wanting to be with him again and wanting to get revenge. The use of this phrase makes a very clever song that, along with the infectious beat and musical intricacy, makes it stand out on the album.
The style of music sounds like it’s from the 2000s and is filled with teenage nostalgia. There is a perfect mix of ballads and rock while all having the emotions to back it up. She uses interesting techniques like yells, screams, and distorted guitar to draw us into the more heartfelt lyrics.
My only complaint is how similar it is to “SOUR.” In many ways this album feels like Sour 2. In “SOUR” she starts with a song that asks, “Where’s my f—— teenage dream?” and in “GUTS” she ends with the song “teenage dream.” The topics of her songs are similar and it is easy to compare the style of the lyrics.
Though I don’t know a lot about music composition, even I can tell that the overall music style is very comparable. This decision to tie back to “SOUR” isn’t necessarily bad but I hope this isn’t a pattern in the future. I would love to see her experiment a bit with her sound and music.
In the final song from the album, “teenage dream,” Rodrigo sings, “But I fear that they already got all the best parts of me.” If this is true, she has given us two great albums and many fantastic songs.
But I suspect that the best is yet to come.
