It’s fascinating but not surprising to me that the confines of adulthood don’t honor the weight of relationships ending. There is no PTO for heartbreak. The one faction of people who do have the freedom to bask in the drama of it all is The Teens. At the moment, none is better at turning it into something significant than eighteen year old Olivia Rodrigo.
I’m a sucker for any story that builds a home for itself in the theatrics of unrequited love and Rodrigo’s debut album, SOUR does just that. What really astounds me when listening to the album is not just the songwriting, the production, or the vocals it’s the insight the songs are rationalized with.
My favorite examples being, “Know that I loved you so bad/ I let you treat me like that/ I was your willing accomplice, honey,” she laments on favorite crime. It’s nearly impossible to see one’s own culpability when you feel as though something was done to you. To have this level of emotional intelligence as a teenager seems like the listener is not only being given the gift of the music but also a secret ingredient to personal growth.
On “enough for you” a song that illustrates the pain in tirelessly striving to be good enough for someone else she sings “You say I'm never satisfied/ But that's not me, it's you/ 'Cause all I ever wanted was to be enough/ But I don't think anything could ever be enough/ For you, enough for you”.
If someone told me this album was co-written by a therapist, I would believe them.
While pride as a coping mechanism can play such a role in real life, the absence of it takes on a life of its own on SOUR. With not an ounce of soul-baring lacking, a listener could close their eyes while any of its songs play and visualize Rodrigo’s heart on her sleeve.
She rides each wave of emotion out manipulating pop’s malleable outlines in the process. On “brutal” an energetic pop-punk track she detonates her frustrations over other’s perceptions of her as well as how she perceives herself. She wears the pop-punk crown well while effortlessly transitioning to the slower ballads like “traitor”, “happier,” “enough for you” and my personal fave, “favorite crime.”
My only not-so-favorable critique of the record is that a lot of it feels like she’s trying on the vocal stylings of other artists: Taylor Swift, Lorde, Bon Iver, No Doubt, the list continues. However, Rodrigo is young and she’s only just begun so I’m keen to offer the benefit of the doubt here. I will contest my own critique in that her imitation is born out of homage and inspiration and soon enough she’ll be imbuing the sounds of those that came before her with more of her own idiosyncrasies.
Love might be a universal language but heartbreak is the subtext. It has the ability to both haunt our experiences or push us to surrender to love that feels right and Rodrigo speaks it at an expert’s level. Because of this, despite her newness and her youth, SOUR’s lyrics, harmonies, and wisdom know no age thus emphasizing its place as a timeless debut album.