Every time a female pop musician releases an album, I feel a bit of myself die inside because of the inevitable onslaught of comments from people who find it their civic duty to criticize women online. Olivia Rodrigo is no exception; Rodrigo dropped her second studio album, “GUTS” on Sept. 8 and thus has been the center of the latest musical conversation. The pop album balances the traumas of growing up as a teenage girl and the apathy that comes with it. It’s a conversation that I feel has come up plenty of times within the last few years and has just been circling over our heads since the start of the latest wave of feminism.
Rodrigo isn’t breaking any boundaries with this album, nor is she required to, but that doesn’t mean that her thoughts and experiences are therefore invalid. “GUTS” delivers on that thematic promise, however, the individual songs falter on their own merit. While I found myself thoroughly enjoying the faster songs on the album, some of the ballads felt washed out and fell flat. All in all, “GUTS” is an enjoyable album despite the clichés.
The album opens with a perfect introduction with the song “all-american bitch.” The majority of the faster-paced songs I would best describe as nostalgic callbacks to early 2000s teen movies; “all-american bitch” is the pinnacle of that description. The song starts off with acoustic guitar and Rodrigo soft singing about the type of person she is: “I am light as a feather, I’m as stiff as a board/I pay attention to things that most people ignore/And I’m alright with the movies/That make jokes ’bout senseless cruelty, that’s for sure.”
The entire message of the song is Rodrigo’s critique of the endless expectations of women, in particular in the limelight, to be successful. In Rodrigo’s eyes, the balance of being pretty, kind, forgiving and shy is an impossible task as she sarcastically calls herself the “perfect all-american bitch” in the chorus. In the tangle of witty lyrics and aggressive guitar chords, “all-american bitch” is an excellent commentary and an even better song.
Song three on the album, “vampire,” was the first single released from the album and is currently sitting pretty at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for the second week in a row. The song starts with just Rodrigo’s vocals and piano accompaniment about a presumed ex-boyfriend who drained her just like a vampire would. By the second verse, the song picks up to be more heart-pumping and exciting. This song is the perfect blend of Rodrgio’s style; what starts off as a heart-breaking ballad turns to an aggressively apathy review of a past bad relationship.
“Lacy” is the fourth song on the album, and it’s my personal favorite off of “GUTS.” Rodrigo got her start largely due to the massive success of her single “driver’s license,” which was an emotionally moving power ballad about getting out of a relationship. And “lacy” feels like the spiritual successor to “driver’s license.”
The song follows Rodrigo as she obsesses and fantasies over another girl named Lacy, who is perfect in every sense of the word: “Ooh, I care, I care, I care/Like perfume that you wear, I linger all the time/Watching, hidden in plain sight/And ooh, I try, I try, I try/But it takes over my life, I see you everywhere/The sweetest torture one could bear.” The song benefits from Rodrigo’s layered harmony, creating this choral effort, and an acoustic guitar accompaniment. The song feels ethereal and haunting as Rodrigo deals with her conflicting feelings for this imaginary and perfect girl.
Song six on the album, “making the bed,” falls back into a typical pop ballad. The beat is muted to allow the piano chords and Rodrigo’s vocals to shine through. The song plays off the saying “You made this bed, now lay in it,” meaning if you created a negative situation then you should deal with the consequences. “Making the bed” marks the best example on the album about Rodrigo’s ponderings about how fame has affected her growing up and teenage years; “I’m so tired of bein’ the girl that I am/Every good thing has turned into somethin’ I dread/And I’m playin’ the victim so well in my head/But it’s me who’s been makin’ the bed.”
One thing “GUTS” does well is walking the fine line of how difficult relationships can be as an older teenager, i.e. 18 and 19 years old. Rodrigo flounders back and forth blaming a past unhealthy relationship and her own immature actions throughout the album. While there’s no one correct answer to that nuanced discussion, “GUTS” is a prime example of how difficult those late teenage years are; you’re old enough to be a legal adult, thus dealing with the consequence that comes with your action, but you’re not quite mature enough to deal with all the issues that come with being an adult, such as how to bounce back from a devasting breakup.
The biggest issue within “GUTS” is flat ballads. Rodrigo’s star-making single “driver’s license” truly felt like a breathtaking ballad. But on “GUTS,” those ballads don’t quite measure up to the mastery that was her debut single. “Lacy” and “making the bed” are the best off the album, but the rest fall into this cliché about breakups and self-insecurity. That doesn’t mean that they are bad by any means, but given the standard from her previous album, Rodrigo just didn’t measure up this time. Her faster-paced songs, however, do follow that same level of mastery that I felt with “driver’s license” and end up keeping this album floating well above mediocre.
All in all, “GUTS” bravely tackles the complexity of growing up as a teenage girl in the limelight and gives us multiple earworms. Despite the pallid ballads, Rodrigo still delivers a successful album that is a worthy follow-up to her last studio album.
7.5/10
