"Listening to her album feels like you're listening to her pour out her feelings just to you, in the most heartfelt manner."
A broken record for most streams in a day. Number 1 on the American Billboard singles chart. Number 1 in Britain and Number 1 in Singapore, along with millions of videos on TikTok with the soundtrack ‘Driver’s License’. With the single released in January 2021 and with an album that followed shortly after, Olivia Rodrigo has made quite the splash in the music world. Why is she so popular with young people today?
One of the reasons why teenagers, young adults and even older adults reminisce while listening to the songs is that the lyrics seem to come from a raw, real place. The singer has attributed her inspiration to her own life, to all the issues, anger and jealousies, sadness and confusion that often sums up a teenager’s life. What ended up rendering the album so incredibly popular was not just her sultry, easy on the ear vocals. Listening to her album feels like you’re listening to her pour out her feelings just to you, in the most heartfelt manner.
Indeed, Gen Z often stakes their claim to being the most real, raw, open-minded generation to show up so far. Rodrigo’s popularity can be attributed in part to this rawness, and the way the songs are sung, as if they are being read off the pages of a private diary. It forms an incredible connection between the song and the listener, as it sounds as if it could have come off of their own personal diaries. Lines like “She’s everything I’m insecure about” and “I just can’t imagine how you could be so okay now that I’m gone” from ‘Driver’s License’ really hit home. Almost everyone in the world has felt this way before at some point in their lives.
Rodrigo keeps the raw coming throughout the album, with songs like ‘Brutal’ where she sings about how “I feel like no one wants me, and I hate the way I’m perceived.” and ‘1 Step Forward 3 Steps Back’ where the line “never doubted myself so much. Like am I pretty? Am I fun, boy?” resonates. Every teenager has probably wondered at some point if they are attractive enough, fun enough, wanted enough or at all. Young adults (and sometimes the older ones too) continue to wonder these thoughts. The insecurities are written about without rhyme or wordplay. It is what is and what you see is what you get. Everything Gen Z claims to be about, in other words.
The popularity of the album portends great things for the young singer’s future, and a plucky move to launch her pop career by choosing to be herself instead of having cheery, upbeat love songs written by top lyricists has certainly paid off. Hopefully it has inspired many young listeners as well, to do what they are constantly striving to do, be themselves.
For more on popstar success stories, check out Taylor Swift’s Songs in Literary Debate, and Sabrina Carpenter’s Rise to Stardom.