Olivia Rodrigo: Rock in lace

The electric guitar played along with the drums and then Olivia Rodrigo’s voice sang: “The cat took my tongue, I think I’m not close to anyone.”

Olivia Rodrigo – Photo: Byrdie

The Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl in the middle of Rodrigo’s album Guts was just released this Friday, making us wonder: how long has it been since there was a real rock hit?

How long has it been since we heard the electric guitar take the lead in music?

And then it suddenly appeared here, in the album of a 20-year-old female singer with the appearance of a princess, whose debut album had all the songs certified platinum or higher. .

Olivia Rodrigo – ballad of a homeschooled girl (Official Lyric Video)

Around the same time Guts was born, one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time, The Rolling Stones, also announced the release of a new composition after 18 years, Angry.

The voice of the legendary Mick Jagger is like the bite of an angry king cobra and then if you immediately listen to Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl, a song also filled with anger but the anger of a A teenage girl is educated at home instead of going to school, has no friends, no one to play with, and at the point she screams:

“The party is over and I have no fun, I know, I know, I know”, I suddenly thought, could a young cobra be born?

Guts opens with All American Bitch, a song with a punk rock sound that might remind us of Green Day: first it deceives the listener with a mellow feeling, then the drums suddenly rush in as if splitting the layer in half. the outer shell, revealing the fierceness inside.

That composition’s structure seems to condense the way we perceive Olivia Rodrigo: at first glance, she’s an “American sweetheart”, but when we get closer, we see the appearance of a rock knight fighting against vampires.

Olivia Rodrigo – vampire (Official Video)

Those vampires are the overwhelming emotions of adolescence when starting to know the opposite shades of love (“I want to break your heart but then I want you to come back” – song Get Him Back!), starting to realize that I’m lonely, starting to be disappointed by everyone and disappointing everyone, are the frustrations of a young star – or rather, a young female star – when suddenly becoming idol of many people, but “people love me like I’m a tourist attraction”.

Ryo Kinoshita & 20 years of Asian heavy rock

Compared to the debut album, Guts has reached a new level of roughness, even perhaps the roughest song is “wrapped” in layers of music as soft as lace fabric of the song Lacy (lacy also means lace, lace), a song about admiration mixed with jealousy when standing in front of a woman who is different from him in every way.

In terms of timbre, Lacy is like a sweet pause, the initial lyrics are also very loving when the lyrical character expresses admiration for a girl with skin like puff pastry and eyes like daisies. .

But then gradually the complexes of jealousy, envy and insecurity appear. Olivia Rodrigo adjusted her sweet, metallic voice into a caressing whisper as if she didn’t want anyone to hear the lyrics expressing her hidden hatred.

Olivia Rodrigo

Some viewers immediately interpreted Lacy as a song about Taylor Swift – Rodrigo’s idol, but ironically also the person she is often compared to.

Previously, the bridge in the song Deja Vu on Rodrigo’s debut album was pointed out as having similarities with the song Cruel Summer by Swift and Jack Antonoff.

Without ignoring or denying, Rodrigo added the names of Swift and Antonoff as co-authors of the song and contacted them to pay half of the royalties to them.

Regardless of whether the disagreement between Rodrigo and Swift exists or not, gently admitting and correcting mistakes instead of stubbornly denying Rodrigo’s mistakes is also an example of the attitude of an artist with self-respect and dignity. , something we don’t always see in young artists.

Guts’ opening line is: “I’m as light as a feather and as stiff as a board.” Whether in music or life, Rodrigo has shown that she is strong enough to be soft and strong enough to be hard, and more importantly, knows when to act, what is there that she won’t achieve?