Content Warning: The music discussed in this article is designated as “explicit” and contains quotations of said “explicit” lyrics.
On September 8th, rising pop-star Olivia Rodridgo released her sophomore album GUTS after the great success of her debut album SOUR. GUTS debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and its world tour has already sold out. Similar to its predecessor, GUTS captures the essence of the female teenage experience through relatable lyrics and angsty beats.
This relatability is shown in the first track, “all-american b*tch”, in which Rodrigo sings about the difficulties and impossible expectations of being a woman in modern America. She croons, “I feel for your every little issue / I know just what you mean,” which displays how in American society women are supposed to empathize with men constantly, despite a lack of reciprocity from the same men. The chorus adopts a pop punk style and is about how girls want to act while the verses are sung to calm guitar melodies and represent how women are expected to act. Women are stereotyped to always be friendly and helpful and never emotional or angered, “I don’t get angry when I’m p*ssed / I’m the eternal optimist”.
Despite its title, “ballad of a homeschooled girl” is not specific to just homeschooled girls, but adolescent girls as a whole. The song starts with the heavy sound of drums as Rodrigo sings how she “[Doesn’t] think [she] [gets] along with anyone”. In the chorus, the speaker recounts all the embarrassing things they’ve done as they navigated their late teen years; “Tripped and fell…Stumbled over all [their] words.” These things make them “wanna curl up and die,” a feeling relatable to many teenagers when they do something they regret. The speaker laments how “each time [they] step outside / It’s social suicide.” The third time they sing the chorus they have a lilt to their voice, sounding exhausted at making the same mistakes over and over.
The eleventh song on GUTS, “pretty isn’t pretty” explores the many emotions that go with how many girls feel about their appearance. The song has a backing of a drum beat and begins with the speaker explaining how they “Bought a bunch of makeup / Tryna’ to cover up [their] face.” They state how they feel that “There’s always something in the mirror that [they] think looks wrong,” a universal feeling for women. This track also alludes to the ways beauty standards are shoved upon girls of all ages, but especially those between thirteen and twenty, “It’s everything I see / It’s on the posters on the wall, it’s in the sh*tty magazines / It’s in my phone, it’s in my head.” The bridge continues this theme, discussing how this impacts women, “I chased some dumb ideal my whole f*cking life.”
The New York Times compares Katy Perry and Olivia Rodrigo’s tracks that share the same title, “Teenage Dream”, “Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’ is a naïve cupcake, an exhortation to live, laugh, love. Rodrigo’s is a morbid piano [complaint] about the falsity beneath all that. The dream is a mirage, and Rodrigo is pulling back the curtain on it,”
This description accurately shows the differences between the two songs, Perry’s is upbeat and about a teenage romance, whereas Rodrigo’s is about the anxiety of the teenage years. Media often only focuses on the positives of being young, and Rodrigo’s song fills that void, showing the struggles and fears of growing up which are relatable to many women. One of these fears is that the reader has already hit their peak and can only go downhill, a sentiment shared by a lot of young women, “But I fear that they already got all the best parts of me.”
Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS is an essential soundtrack for teenage girls and young women because of its deep lyrics and catchy melodies. Many women will find this album relatable and rejoice to have a collection of music that displays their experiences. Throughout GUTS Rodrigo paints an accurate image of the teenage experience, filled with love, heartbreak, anxiety, and reconnecting with an ex lover.
