By Lizz Panchyk
Olivia Rodrigo, a 20-year-old musician, just dropped her second solo album, “Guts.” She released the first single, “vampire” at the end of June, and released “bad idea, right?” shortly after. These songs had already gone viral, and then her album came out on September 8. Fans were already blowing up.
Much like “Sour,” her first album, the new album is the perfection concoction of emotions. Sad, angry, reminiscent of the past — you will find it all. In my opinion, it’s a great “rage” album. I was a huge fan of “Sour” and it was also one of the best selling albums of 2021. After listening to “Guts” I’m thinking that will be the case for this one as well.
Whenever any new album comes out, I always listen to the first 30 seconds of each song to see if I like it. If I do, I keep listening until the end. This was the case for the song “making the bed,” which is one of my favorites. Then when the song “logical” came on, let’s just say my jaw dropped. The lyricism was incredible. Both of these are songs that you can hear the emotional hurt in.
One thing Rodrigo did incredibly was the intros. “grudge” has one of my favorite intros. It starts out as a soft piano, playing one key at a time, and you can almost hear the purposeful untuned-ness of the piano, which makes it sound authentic.
“all american b*tch” reminded me a lot of her first album. Something about the sound and the lyrics nearly teleported me back to 2021. The ones I don’t favor the most would be “bad idea, right?” and “get him back!” just because they shouldn’t be so good, but somehow they still are and a little too easy to sing along to.
This album overall gives the vibes of early 2000s/2010s, some of the more “aggressive” songs reminding me of Paramore and even Avril Lavigne. It’s angry, it’s silly and extremely emotional, but highly pop rock. The more I listen to it, the more I see this sharp comparison. If you have an ear for music, you will see what I mean.
It’s an incredibly powerful album, with every song being undoubtedly catchy. My friend and I were talking about how intimidating it would be to go to a concert of hers, picturing it to look like something of a Taylor Swift concert, full of young fans who know every single word.
I really didn’t have high expectations for this album based on the two songs that were released prior, which I barely paid attention to. But now that I’ve heard it in full, not only can I say that it’s actually more than I was expecting, I can also say that I think “Guts” will become very popular very quickly. If you liked “Sour,” you’ll definitely acquire a taste for this one too–if you have the guts.