Olivia Rodrigo may just be a rockstar disguised as a pop princess. Ahead of the Sept. 8 release of her highly anticipated sophomore effort Guts, the 20-year-old singer-songwriter revealed details of the edgier direction her music will take on her new album (hint: it’s a lot closer to “Good 4 U” and “Brutal” than the other songs on Sour) in an in-depth interview with the New York Times, published Thursday (Aug. 24).
For instance, the publication reports that the new record’s first track “All-American Bitch” features fuzzy power chords and several f-bombs, while “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” finds the young star chanting a “litany of embarrassing party fouls over a springy bass line” while letting out cathartic screams. A few of the 12 tracks on Guts were recorded the old-school way: live, and with a full band.
As NYT puts it: With Guts, Rodrigo is “Trojan-horsing in rock’s musical brashness and emotional spikiness under the cover of pop stardom.”
“For me, that’s what music is, it’s expressing those feelings that are really hard to externalize, or that you feel aren’t societally acceptable to externalize,” Rodrigo told the publication. “Especially as a girl.”
But while her musical heroes include Jack White and Rage Against the Machine, the three-time Grammy winner said her rock tendencies reflect a more feminine side. Think: Gwen Stefani and Alanis Morissette, or newer tastemakers like Soccer Mommy and Boygenius.
“[I] always loved rock music, and always wanted to find a way that I could make it feel like me, and make it feel feminine and still telling a story and having something to say that’s vulnerable and intimate,” Rodrigo said, noting she looks up to women who make rock music without “trying to recreate a version of rock music that guys make.”
So far, Guts is preceded by two singles: “Vampire,” which debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, and “Bad Idea Right?,” which dropped earlier this month and crowned the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. The tracks mark Rodrigo’s first releases since the album that made her a household name, Sour.
In the new interview, Rodrigo touched very lightly on one of Sour‘s biggest musical inspirations, Taylor Swift. The former Disney star was once very vocal about her adoration of the “Anti-Hero” singer and even gave Swift writing credits on both “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” and “Deja Vu” off her 2021 debut.
Asked if she had attended one of Swift’s Eras Tour shows, Rodrigo simply said: “I haven’t yet,” quickly adding that she’d been busy. “I’m going to Europe this week.”
