She's Been Through It

Olivia Rodrigo found a winning formula, but she's not content to repeat it.

- CRAIG JENKINS

"DRIVERS LICENSE" BLEW UP so quickly it rocketed Olivia Rodrigo out of a starring role in Disney+'s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and into the rare air of chart-topping singer-songwriter on the first attempt. This doesn't usually happen. Graduating from the junior division takes years of fine-tuning. A No. 1 single eluded Miley Cyrus prior to "Wrecking Ball, Selena Gomez got there a decade into her career with "Lose You to Love Me," and Ariana Grande wouldn't take the crown until "Thank U, Next." The ubiquity of Rodrigo's 2021 debut album, Sour, is a uniquely 2020s phenomenon: a byproduct of the power of social media to spread trends like aerosols and a classic case of music connecting with the public off the strength of its unvarnished emotion. With TikTok as the accelerant, "Drivers License" and "Good 4 U" drifted across demographics, and what hooked people was their agonizing honesty, righteous rage, and convincing delivery. Having grown up on Taylor Swift, Rodrigo used her upper register like a weapon the same way "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" drilled its point into your head. Sour offered massive hooks and dynamic tension-the frustration released in the choruses of "Good" and "Brutal," the patient crescendos and bridges in "License" and "Deja Vu"-that suggested even greater depth on the horizon.