OLIVia Rodrigo – Guts
By: Abena Oppon
Like the entrails twisting around inside all of us, Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS is messy. The title reveals Rodrigo’s inner tumult that we were afforded only glimpses of on her debut album SOUR. On her sophomore album, she negotiates her position in the world, spotlighting the many imperfect edges of her life with far more consistency than on previous works.
The largest departure from SOUR is undoubtedly in genre and tone, and in Rodrigo’s discography, the two go hand-in-hand: as Rodrigo moves from describing the effects of exterior forces on her life to interior-facing meditations on personal mishaps, this movement is accompanied by an emphatic foray into the world of rock and its endless subgenres.
Rodrigo dabbled in rock before on ‘good 4 u’, (a smash hit partially due to the brief pop-punk resurgence of 2020-2021) but aside from this, the rest of SOUR is very much pop. The album was mostly about various scenarios in which Rodrigo had been wronged, entangled in teenage romance, drawing almost inevitable comparisons between her and her predecessors such as Taylor Swift, whom Rodrigo has named as a personal hero. While I feel Rodrigo does have the same knack for evocative storytelling as Swift, this album dispels the idea that she is simply a clone; Rodrigo dives deeper into her own psyche, and airs her own personal failings with coolness and confidence. With GUTS, Rodrigo escapes the box audiences tried to mould her into.
It would be understandable if Rodrigo, as a Disney Channel “alumnus”, was reticent to show multitudes in fear of being criticised for it. Tabloids have a poor track record when it comes to treating child stars properly once they grow up; headlines especially blur the lines between the actual person and the fictional character in order to encourage readership. Rodrigo was also a victim of these harmful headlines. In her earlier days, it was easy to think of her as almost identical to her High School Musical: The Musical: The Series character, Nini Salazar-Roberts. Nini sang similarly-styled piano ballads about love, and was indecisive about her relationships; Rodrigo’s Spotify profile is full of songs she wrote for the character. But, as Rodrigo departed the show after its second series, she seems to have shed the weight of this label too.
On GUTS, Rodrigo begins to wear her other influences: alternative rock artists like The White Stripes, shrewd feminist lyricists like Fiona Apple, bubbly pop icons like Gwen Stefani. But the comparison most prominently to be made is to Avril Lavigne. Rodrigo has previously spoken reverently of Lavigne, and even brought her onstage when touring in Toronto to perform ‘Complicated’. The first track on the album, ‘all-american bitch’, begins with a sweetly meandering verse that bursts into a bold, almost arrogant chorus that would be at home on any of Lavigne’s early albums.
Other songs make reference to other parts of the rock genre. ‘Bad idea, right?” has an intricate, noisy, guitar solo and a fadeout ending unexpectedly reminiscent of Revolver-era Beatles songs. ‘Get him back!’ has an anthemic chant of a chorus, and ‘love is embarrassing’ is very late-aughts in the way of The Ting Tings, or Black Kids.
Despite this departure in sound, GUTS exists comfortably with Rodrigo’s past output. The album’s lead single, ‘Vampire’, treads similar ground as the insanely popular ‘drivers license’ from SOUR, even having a similarly pivotal bridge. ‘The grudge’ slightly interpolates the song’s post-chorus, invoking the same sense of betrayal and showing that Rodrigo hasn’t moved on temporally from what happened.
GUTS is upbeat for the most part — especially if judged by its singles — but lyrically, it reveals the absurdity that is life and stardom as a young woman. ‘All-american bitch’ details the neverending expectations placed on women and girls to embody the ideal of American femininity. Rodrigo acknowledges how aspiring to this ideal, whether to further her career or to make herself appealing, leads her own commodification. The impossible expectations are listed throughout the song: in one striking line Rodrigo reveals she would ideally be “a mother and a total machine”. The terms coexist to show how motherhood is often defined as being a workhorse of a caregiver. Rodrigo is expected to be kind and nurturing to be an all-American girl, not only to any children she might have, but to her fans and to everyone watching her, and these expectations are only heightened by her position in the spotlight.
Rodrigo feels the responsibility to provide entertainment and content for her fans, no matter how she herself feels. To make money, she must tour for large stretches, (the GUTS WORLD TOUR is seven months long) continue the grind, and still appear perfect on every red carpet. However, Rodrigo rejects these impossible expectations: in the chorus of ‘all-american bitch’, she reclaims her relative immaturity in the face of those who criticised her work for its youthfulness, pokes fun at contradictory and impossible expectations in the outro.
Rodrigo treats this topic and many others (being mistreated by an older man on ‘logical’, struggles with self-image on ‘pretty isn’t pretty’) with appropriate seriousness, but also appropriate levity. This album is a lot more self-effacing than SOUR, but it never feels as if Rodrigo uses this humour to compensate for a lack of self-belief. On ‘get him back!’, she acknowledges the unhealthy nature of the relationship, but in a self-aware manner, she also identifies the ways she deludes herself into getting back with him (remembering how he would fly her to France, but then try it on with her friends, for example). The double entendre of the title ‘get him back’ — whether she wants revenge, or a reunion — is played with to exemplify her uncertainty about her own motives. ‘bad idea, right?’ ups the stakes from highschool romance to lust and desire. These themes contrast the expected innocence conveyed on ‘all-american bitch’, but goes to show her lack of shame regarding her choice to meet up with her ex. The song is a little bit cheeky, and a little regretful, but is far more interesting and fun than a song where she might simply lament her residual attraction to him.
Ultimately, GUTS is a promising sophomore album, solidifying Rodrigo’s place as a pop-rock superstar. It leaves open the possibility that Rodrigo’s musical career could expand in any number of directions, and I am deeply intrigued to see what she comes up with next.