Olivia Rodrigo made her return to music on Sept. 8 with the discharge of Guts, her angsty follow-up to 2021’s Bitter. The previous Disney star — who left Excessive Faculty Musical: The Musical: The Collection in 2022 to pursue her music profession full time — already has a Greatest New Artist Grammy underneath her belt and the endorsement of among the music business’s largest names, so a celebrated sophomore album felt inevitable. Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter what followers and the critics say, it’s Rodrigo — who’s credited as a songwriter on each track on the album, alongside along with her producer Dan Nigro — who individuals most need to hear talk about her work.
Luckily, Rodrigo is spilling her, nicely, guts. Right here’s what she’s stated about her new album.
How her writing course of has modified
“I believe that, usually, making this album has given me a number of confidence as a songwriter. I believe writing the primary album, it simply felt so spontaneous,” Rodrigo informed Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s New Music Every day. “I used to be 17 years previous studying methods to write songs for the primary time and simply pouring my coronary heart out. I had a lot to say. I believe this time I used to be in a special place and I used to be having a number of strain and a number of expectations positioned on me and I believe I actually needed to attempt to block out the noise and simply deal with the craft of songwriting. I wasn’t going via my first 17 yr previous heartbreak and I believe that it pressured me to be possibly just a little bit extra inventive in the best way that I write.”
In an interview with SiriusXM’s The Morning Mashup, she additionally shared why she determined to lean into a special sound.
“I might say it is just a little extra rocky than the final one,” the artist defined. “There’s some songs which might be type of hard-hitting and driving, however I am actually pleased with, and it is extra poppy stuff. I do not know. I believe that the file is much more upbeat and completely satisfied than Bitter was. I went on my first tour, like performed my first few exhibits after Bitter got here out and I in a short time realized like how a lot I cherished enjoying upbeat songs for like a giant crowd and the way enjoyable that was, and so I believe I type of wrote this album knowledgeable by these emotions, so I simply hope individuals can like, leap up and down and scream to them. That is my dream.”
Her favourite track off the album
Rodrigo informed Folks her favourite monitor off Guts is determined by her “temper.”
“I actually love ‘All-American Bitch.’ I actually love ‘Teenage Dream.’ I actually love ‘Love Is Embarrassing,’” she stated. “It simply is determined by if I’m feeling in a dancey temper or a rage-y temper. However I’m very excited for this album to return out. It’s been a very long time within the making, so it’s going to really feel good.”
What impressed “All American Bitch”
The previous TV star additionally shared her love of “All American Bitch” with Lowe on New Music Every day, calling it “certainly one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written.
“I believe it expresses one thing that I have been attempting to specific since I used to be 15 years previous, this repressed anger and feeling of confusion or attempting to be put right into a field as a lady,” she stated.
She informed Folks that the track “comes from the essay that she wrote about hippies in San Francisco and working away from residence.”
“One of many runaways was speaking about his mother again residence and stated that she was an ‘all-American bitch.’ I used to be like, ‘Wow, that’s so cool,’” she recalled. “It’s such a provocative set of phrases. I sat down the following day on the piano and wrote ‘All-American Bitch.’… You by no means know the trajectory a track goes to take.”
How she’s dealing with accusations of copying different artists shifting ahead
In 2021, Rodrigo granted her longtime idol Swift, in addition to Swift’s collaborators, songwriting credit score on her monitor “Deja Vu” after Rodrigo spoke about being impressed by the Lover artist’s track “Merciless Summer time.” She additionally gave Paramore credit score for “Good 4 U” following hypothesis that the track sounded much like their hit “Distress Enterprise.”
Rodrigo informed The Guardian it was, “disappointing to see individuals take issues out of context and discredit any younger girl’s work,” however that it didn’t impression how she wrote Guts.
“I used to be so inexperienced as to how the music business labored, the litigious aspect … I really feel like now I do know a lot extra in regards to the business and I simply really feel … higher geared up in that regard,” she stated. “It wasn’t one thing I considered an excessive amount of.”
How she navigates writing songs about actual individuals
Following the discharge of “Driver’s License,” her first single off of Bitter, many individuals speculated Rodrigo had written about her former Excessive Faculty Musical co-star Joshua Bassett and his reported romance with Woman Meets World star and singer Sabrina Carpenter. In 2022, Bassett hinted the stress from the scrutiny led to well being issues that landed him within the hospital for septic shock and coronary heart failure.
In an interview with Phoebe Bridgers for Interview Journal, Bridgers requested whether or not Rodrigo felt like she ought to give topics of Guts a heads up. Rodrigo stated, “I really feel like final time there was a lot bizarre media s**t and I had no thought methods to cope with any of it. Actually, it was the primary track out of the gate and all of that shit occurred. I felt so ill-equipped…That was an awesome expertise, however now I undoubtedly really feel a accountability. I simply attempt not to consider it throughout the writing course of.”
On writing about fame
In her Interview Journal dialog with Bridgers, Rodrigo spoke about why you “must be cautious about writing songs about fame,” as a result of “a number of the time individuals don’t need to hear that.”
“However fame is extra accessible than it has ever been,” the singer famous. “Everyone seems to be craving for some form of web virality, and there’s a lot social climbing and lust for fame on the earth that doesn’t have something to do with dwelling in L.A. or New York. It’s simply prevalent in our technology.”
She seems to reference her rise to fame on monitor “Makin’ the Mattress,” and calls the topic of her track “Vampire” a “fame f***er.”
Whether or not “Vampire” is definitely about Taylor Swift, as speculated
Rodrigo might inform the topic of a track who it’s about, however she informed The Guardian she doesn’t need to publicly verify it. That features confirming or denying whether or not her lead single off Guts, titled “Vampire,” is about Swift as some have speculated.
“How do I reply this?” Rodrigo requested when questioned in regards to the track’s potential connection to Swift. “I imply, I by no means need to say who any of my songs are about. I’ve by no means executed that earlier than in my profession and possibly received’t. I believe it’s higher to not pigeonhole a track to being about this one factor…I used to be very shocked when individuals thought that.”
Rodrigo might must do one other spherical of denial: Following the discharge of Guts, many followers now suppose her track “The Grudge” is about Swift as nicely.
