Olivia Rodrigo knocked it out of the park on her first attempt, along with her prompt traditional of a debut, Bitter. So expectations have been sky-high for her subsequent transfer. However the suspense is over: her wonderful new Guts is one other prompt traditional, along with her most formidable, intimate, and messy songs but. Olivia’s pop-punk bangers are stuffed with killer strains (“I wanna meet your mother, simply to inform her her son sucks”) however she pushes deeper in highly effective ballads like “Logical.” Throughout Guts, she’s so witty, so pissed off, so angsty on the similar time, the way in which solely a rock star may be. And that is the album of a very good rock star.
As on Bitter, O-Rod co-wrote the songs along with her trusty collaborator/producer Dan Nigro. Final time she kicked off the album with the query, “I’m so sick of 17 / The place’s my fucking teenage dream?” This time, she indicators off with the ballad “Teenage Dream,” lamenting, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t at all times be your teenage dream.” Nevertheless it’s America’s sweetheart blowing up into the self-proclaimed “All-American Bitch” and getting a number of issues off her thoughts. As she declares from the beginning, “I’ve acquired the solar in my motherfucking pocket.”
Rodrigo avoids all the everyday second-album pitfalls—no songs about how fame is anxious, no songs about social media. The nice lead single “Vampire” seems to be a complete outlier, as a result of it’s the one tune that goes for a celebrity-life angle. As a substitute, she focuses on the subject she actually cares about as a songwriter: the gawky, insecure, peculiar American Each-Lady we met in “Driver’s License.” Throughout Guts, she exhibits off her superb aptitude for detailed story-telling, making every line really feel like she’s simply spilling it out, one pained confession at a time.
“All-American Bitch” kicks it off with a implausible pop-punk angst rant, with a title from Joan Didion, choosing up the place “Brutal” stopped. It’s stuffed with slumber-party power (“I’m mild as a feather, stiff as a board”) as she sings about striving to dwell as much as an ideal excellent (“I acquired class and integrity, identical to a goddamn Kennedy”) however attempting to cover her darkish aspect. On the finish, she sneers, “I’m grateful on a regular basis / I’m attractive and I’m form / I’m fairly once I cry.” (That line would possibly really feel like a shout-out to her pal Lana Del Rey.)
Her love life is brutal as ever, and he or she is aware of the right way to savor it as an incredible joke. In “Love Is Embarrassing,” she fumes, “You discovered a brand new model of me / And I rattling close to began World Struggle 3.” However she’s at all times coming again for extra, although she admits, “I’m planning out my marriage ceremony with some man I’m by no means marrying.” The closest factor to a contented romantic connection is the ex she jumps in “Unhealthy Thought Proper,” who no less than owns a mattress.
“Get Him Again!!” rips right into a bad-news boyfriend, with a brain-devouring pop-punk refrain and a Joan Jett-level air-guitar hook. Olivia goes full blast with putdowns like “He had an ego and a mood and a wandering eye/He mentioned he’s 6-foot-2 and I’m like, dude, good attempt.” She will be able to’t resolve whether or not she needs to “get him again” as in reuniting, or as in revenge, however she craves each on the similar time, so she vows, “I wanna key his automotive / I wanna make him lunch/I wanna break his coronary heart then be the one to sew him up.” There’s additionally an intriguing private apart when she quips, “I’m my father’s daughter, so perhaps I can repair him?”
However the very best moments on Guts are her emotional piano ballads like “Logical,” “The Grudge,” and “Teenage Dream.” “Logical” is essentially the most poignant and highly effective second on the album. Like so many of those songs, it’s the story of a younger girl getting manipulated and humiliated by an older man. Rodrigo’s voice chokes with rage as she sings, “Stated I used to be too younger, I used to be too tender/Can’t take a joke, can’t get you off.” The tune builds to the purpose the place she sings the troubling line “I do know I’m half accountable” (she’s not) and ends by asking herself, “Why didn’t I cease all of it?”
“The Grudge” is on the similar highly effective degree—she torments herself over a break-up, arguing with him when she’s alone in entrance of her bed room mirror. As she sings, “I’m so robust once I’m alone/And I make you’re feeling so responsible/And I fantasize a couple of time while you’re just a little fucking sorry.” However she wonders why she couldn’t rise up for herself, confessing, “It takes energy to forgive, however I don’t really feel robust.”
“Lacy” is a mournful lament about falling below the spell of a femme fantasy excellent, who’s a “dazzling starlet/Bardot reincarnate,” however seems to be “product of angel mud.” (“Lacy” shall be broadly interpreted as a touch upon alleged private dramas she might or is probably not having with one other pop star, and Olivia doesn’t precisely exit of her approach to decrease this impression by singing, “I attempt, I attempt, I attempt.”)
“Fairly Isn’t Fairly” is a devastatingly candid exorcism of damaging physique picture (“it’s within the cellphone, it’s in my head, it’s within the boys I deliver to mattress”) and the way in which it does harm to each degree of life. As she sings, “I purchased all the garments that they instructed me to purchase/I chased some dumb excellent my complete fucking life.” She goes into a unique kind of ache in “Making the Mattress,” the place she’s “getting drunk on the membership with my fair-weather buddies.” The previous Disney princess is now sufficiently old to go social gathering with the stylish set, ordering totally different drinks on the similar bars, “one other day pretending I’m older than I’m.” However she wonders why this model of maturity isn’t any enjoyable. She additionally confesses to having nightmares the place she’s driving within the metropolis. Weirdly, it’s one of many solely moments on the album the place Ms. I Drive Alone Previous Your Road makes use of her drivers’ license.
Nigro’s manufacturing has all of the punch and gloss of Bitter, but additionally the knack for tension-and-release hooks he’s proven ever since his emo band As Tall As Lions. The bops go for a Eighties synth/guitar new wave chug a la the Automobiles or The Go-Gos, although you possibly can hear surprisingly detailed echoes of Lacking Individuals (“Love Is Embarrassing”) or The Motels (“Fairly Isn’t Fairly”).
“Teenage Dream” ends Guts with a massively highly effective piano ballad. The title may be a salute to Katy Perry, however Olivia sings a couple of very totally different sort of teenage dream. She comes clear about being a troubled ingenue, heading into her twenties, however questioning why she’s nonetheless bringing all her standard doubt and confusion. As she sings, “Solely 19, however I concern they already acquired the very best components of me.” “Teenage Dream” evokes the pensive tone of “Nothing New,” Taylor Swift’s Crimson vault duet with Phoebe Bridgers, with a litany of questions. Olivia asks, “When am I gonna cease being smart past my years, and simply begin being smart? When am I gonna cease being a fairly younger factor to guys?”
The tune by no means settles on a solution, nevertheless it soars right into a Oasis-worthy piano-anthem crescendo. Olivia Rodrigo may not have her awkward teenage blues all discovered simply but. However throughout Guts, she proves that she’s a voice that’s right here to remain and a songwriter constructed to final.
