Pop star Olivia Rodrigo has hit the iTunes charts again, this time with her sophomore album, GUTS. Rodrigo is just 20 years old, making her music appealing and relatable to teenagers as she writes about love, heartbreak, and self-discovery. For almost three years since Rodrigo released “drivers license,” the first single of her solo career, listeners have been able to grow up with the realities of their teenage years captured through her catchy tunes. If you listen to GUTS compared to her debut album, SOUR, you can hear how Rodrigo, too, is growing up in her music.
At first glance, the two albums appear similar — both include her signature purple cover background and are similar in length. Rodrigo also maintains her identity and sense of style that she exemplified through her debut. While she didn’t completely change up on us, when you dive deeper into each song, the 20-year-old’s growth from when she released her first to her second album is evident.
Contrasting SOUR’s central theme of relationships and heartbreak, GUTS explores more ideas of introspection and navigating the artist’s way through society. Songs like “all-american bitch” express the unrealistic standards girls face, and “making the bed” shows the challenges that came with Rodrigo’s rise to fame. Don’t worry, we still hear songs from Rodrigo’s experience with love — queue the album’s first single, “vampire” — but GUTS seems to cover a wider variety of topics, proving her ability as an artist to do it all.
Even as Rodrigo does continue to sing about breakups, she does so in a different way than she did on her debut album. Rodrigo is known to write all her songs with a rebellious spirit and fiery emotions, yet in her most recent releases, there is a greater sense of wisdom and confidence. Rather than being an impressionable 17-year-old, which she was at the time of SOUR, Olivia Rodrigo indicates her maturation in GUTS through everything from her experiences to her lyricism.
With the fiery spirit that Rodrigo expresses, her music certainly has an edgier tone. Although her albums fall under the pop category, GUTS explores a variety of new sounds and genres, including indie pop and folk. Most of all, though, this album leans into rock, a style that is not new to Rodrigo’s songs but is certainly more pronounced in the latest releases. Forget being cookie cutter; Olivia Rodrigo is going outside the box to portray the “angsty teenage” character.
One thing is clear: Rodrigo is not our innocent little 17-year-old anymore—and we are here for it. As her newfound confidence and ability to explore new styles shine through her latest release of GUTS, it’s clear she’s not stopping just yet. She had a killer performance on Tuesday at the MTV Awards which sparked lots of reactions, and for all my Livies, she just released dates for her new tour. After getting so much positive feedback from her breakout album SOUR, the pressure to release her second album was real. Rodrigo not only rose to the challenge but also showed her growth as an artist between the two releases, proving that she, too, is a teenager growing up alongside her fans.
Want to see more HCFSU? Be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest!