Dedicated

It’s hard to think of an album that would be harder to follow-up than Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album Sour. Spawning four top-ten singles, earning Rodrigo three Grammy wins and breaking the record for the most weeks spent in the top 10 by any album released this side of 2000, to say the pressure was high would be an understatement. So, two years on, Rodrigo finally delivers her sophomore album GUTS. How does it stack up?

For any long time readers, you might remember that the very first article I wrote for this blog was my review of Sour (available to read here shameless plug). My thoughts were that while there were certainly strong songs, there seemed to be a lack of cohesion to them, especially from a production standpoint, leading to a muddled sense of identity across the debut. It’s almost as if Rodrigo saw my review and took notes (I’m sure she did not) since in many Guts does almost everything it can to double down on the success of Sour and make her niche and brand clearer than ever.

No one is saying this isn’t a smart move to make on a second album. Instead of dramatically shifting musically or aesthetically like her peers (think Dua Lipa switching to funk for Future Nostalgia or Billie Eilish pivoting to more real textures on Happier Than Ever) Olivia Rodrigo stands confidently in what made her last body of work so successful and hones in on it further. Beyond just the album being a four letter word with a cover showing Rodrigo on a purple background, the very DNA of Sour and Guts seem inextricably linked. The cast of characters is much the same, the no-good ex, the jealousy-inducing it girls and the all  typical foibles that come with girlhood growing painfully into adulthood. Furthermore, the sonic landscape is familiar territory for fans of Rodrigo’s debut with the crashing pop punk of smash hit singles like Good 4 U appearing again in the form of similarly bratty bangers like ‘get him back’ and ‘love is embarrassing’ alongside piano ballads which call to mind ‘drivers license’ the song that started it all.

As well as tapping into what made Rodrigo a breakout star, GUTS also shows an artist who has put time into improving their craft and in a lot of ways manages to not just do what Sour did but do it even better. What stuck out to myself and many critics as a strength of Rodrigo’s was the dramatic flair she brought to her writing and delivery. A Disney Veteran through and through there was no hiding the theater kid roots that bled through into some of Rodrigo’s most memorable songs and that carries across into this project too. Songs like the bizarrely named ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’ include appropriately melodramatic lines, perhaps the most memorable being ‘everything i do is tragic, every guy I like is gay’, and if that isn’t the struggle of the girl who did musical theater her whole life then I couldn’t tell you what is. Do some of the songs sound a bit like if you gave Rachel Berry from Glee an electric guitar? Perhaps. But who says that’s a bad thing?

Having said this, the predictable downside of a sophomore album so streamlined to follow the first is that there are moments where it does feel like we’re retreading ground that was covered already. This is not in itself a bad thing, but becomes notable when the retreading doesn’t add anything new to the conversation that we heard before. Maybe the place in the album where this is most obvious is in the track ‘pretty isn’t pretty’ a mid tempo track led by gummy guitars where Rodrigo laments the stifling societal conventions around beauty and ‘being pretty’. In addition to having one of the most run-of-the-mill instrumentals amongst the 12-strong bunch, ‘pretty isn’t pretty’ fails to deliver any of the bite or nuance needed for a track that’s going over a similar idea that her track ‘jealousy jealousy’ did better two years ago, down to the repeated word in the title even.

In fact, I’d argue that ‘pretty isn’t pretty’s most redeeming factor is that it directly precedes ‘teenage dream’, the album’s closer and one of the project’s standout tracks. The song is a now-classic Rodrigo-style ballad which explores the singer’s anxieties about aging as well as her longevity as an artist. Cleverly referencing the opener of Sour ‘Brutal’ where Rodrigo bitterly asks ‘where’s my fuckin teenage dream’, Rodrigo is now asking bigger questions like ​​”When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years and juststart being wise?” and “When am I gonna stop being great for my age and just start being good?” It’s in this song that condenses what makes GUTS such a strong album and follow up to Sour. There is reference to previous work, the crafting of a universe for herself both lyrically and sonically, as well as showing how she is still managing to push forward as an artist and individual. In addition to being able to play the relatable ‘isn’t my ex terrible’ lane, Rodrigo isn’t afraid on ‘teenage dream’ to acknowledge her own position as an incredibly idolized pop star in a world where fame and youth seem like the most powerful currency available and how precarious this can feel.

All things considered, GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo comes across as an incredibly stable and solid sophomore album, managing to solidify the sound she began to build for herself without allowing herself to become boxed in to the point where the originality that gave her her success feels compromised. I do have to say I’m expecting, and perhaps hoping, that album number three might give us that dramatic shift we’re waiting for, but we might have to wait until 2025 for that. And after all, if it’s heartbroke, dont fix it.