Olivia Rodrigo's 'GUTS' Pushes the Boundaries of Teen Angst
Since releasing her debut album SOUR in 2021, Olivia Rodrigo has become a pop star entirely in her own league. She’s captivated audiences with her clever songwriting, stellar visuals, and creative finesse to make teenage angst relatable to everyone from teens to twenty-something teenage girls to even people older than that. She’s broken practically every Spotify and Billboard record on the charts. But over the past two years, just as much as they’ve been enjoying the ride alongside her, fans have been waiting with bated breath, wondering what she could possibly put out next and, perhaps even more importantly, if it would top the brilliance of SOUR. Weeks after GUTS was released on September 8, 2023, it’s clear that Rodrigo took everything that we loved about her debut and made it even bigger, bolder, and better.
As someone who’s a few years older than her, it’s been interesting seeing Rodrigo’s development in the industry over the past few years, from her start on Disney Channel’s Bizardvaark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series to becoming the face of 2020s pop. With a load of accolades under her belt and plenty of curse words filling up both of her album runtimes, she’s made the transition from Disney star to pop star a successful one. But she’s also never shied away from who she is, unpacking and exploring the joys and downfalls (mostly downfalls) of modern teen life in her music.
GUTS is no different, acting in many ways as a companion work to SOUR in its high-quality songwriting, production, and themes. At the same time, I feel like she’s only gotten better at exploring teenage angst, heartbreak, and growing up. Before listening, I thought these things would get old and sour quickly (no pun intended) after already doing it once.
But truthfully, this album takes what we already knew and makes it even more. With moments of folk and rap sprinkled in, the songs are more punk, more rock, more honest, more vulnerable. Here, the influences are less Taylor Swift and more Avril Lavigne and other pop-punk artists of the late 90s and early 2000s. “all-american bitch” sounds straight out of the opening scene of 10 Things I Hate About You. “vampire” devolves into a rock opera reminiscent of Queen. “ballad of a homeschooled girl” would belong just as well on a Paramore album.
Not to mention what Rodrigo feels compelled to share, making the album that much more confessional. In songs like “logical” and “get him back!” (which I interpret as sister songs about the same person), she talks about the downfall of a relationship she had with an older man, who admonishes her for not being able to give him a blowjob, among other tactics of manipulation. This is an album about love but also about sex, deceit, and the ways in which relationships can be used against us. Welcome to adulthood, Olivia.
It’s easy to love these high-energy, pop-punk moments, which makes the ballads that much more heartbreaking. If I thought “traitor” and “hope ur ok” from SOUR were bad, I wasn’t prepared for “lacy,” “the grudge,” and “teenage dream,” which all made me incredibly existential and nostalgic. These are beautiful songs, but also heartbreaking, and she somehow manages to make the hurt more potent on this project too, which, if you’ve listened to her debut, is truly a rare feat.
True to Rodrigo’s word, there isn’t a happy song on GUTS. But there are fun moments, like when she playfully considers getting back with her ex on “get him back!” regardless of her friends’ opinions, or pretty much every self-aware, ironic lyric that transforms her pain into a clever punchline. If it feels darker and more raw, it makes sense, a sign that, like the rest of us, she too is growing up.