I'm not cool, I'm not smart, I can't even parallel park

Current impression of Olivia Rodrigo, the current queen of pop.

1)

In “brutal”, she blames herself for making her world cruel. She feels like she’s not good enough, feels pressured by people’s expectations, hates all the bitter songs, has no friends, and feels like she can’t do anything. She can’t even parallel park.

I’m not cool, I’m not smart, I can’t even parallel park. - [brutal], SOUR(2021)

“deja vu” is a song that accuses her ex-boyfriend of repeating things they enjoyed together with his current girlfriend. They’ll watch Glee reruns, listen to Billy Joel, and change clothes together.

The song doesn’t offer any real insights or conclusions. The most essential truth in the song is that she feels incredibly pissed off as she imagines her ex-boyfriend’s current relationship.

So when you gonna tell her? We did that too / She thinks its special. But It’s all reused. - [deja vu], SOUR(2021)

“brutal” made me think about my early twenties. I realized that I was the one making my world cruel. I also felt that I needed to be more cool and smart.

“deja vu” was subtle. I could also be the one repeating things. It’s possible that everyone is repeating their dating repertoire, and she might also discover her current boyfriend repeating stuff in his latest relationship, so why be so angry… That’s what I thought.

Of course, the more I think about the song, the more pissed off I get, and if I think about it, I might have had a perspective of “You’ll understand when you’ve lived a bit more” towards her.

I might have become cooler or smarter than her age now. But looking at her frustration towards her ex-boyfriend, which I found unfair, while she’s still bothered, I might not be able to understand her current sentiments and could only understand them in the context of my past.

Fortunately, I still can’t parallel park.

2)

One of the emotions that she expresses very well in her music is ambivalence. It’s well demonstrated in “get him back!”. She expresses ambivalent emotions, but what she’ll do about it is unimportant. I want to hurt my shitty ex-boyfriend right now, but I also want to treat him well and make him lunch… It’s just the emotions in the song.

Oh, I wanna key his car. I wanna make him lunch. I wanna break his heart. Stitch it right back up. I wanna kiss his face. With an uppercut. I wanna meet his mom. And tell her her son sucks, yeah - [get him back!], GUTS(2023)

Meaningless lyrics express anxiety or destructive states, and these emo sounds - the most intense points of recent popular music are intertwined with her music’s sentiments.

The most borrowed aspects of her image by the public are the moments where the very anxious-looking scenes of a crazy American high school girl are shown. Like on the “all-american bitch” SNL live stage where she jumps on the table, stabs and smashes a red cake with a knife, and spreads it on her face, smiling widely towards the end of the stage, or in the “good 4 u” music video where she happily runs around the burning house and screams. These moments of her music’s sentiment match the public’s and the zeitgeist’s interpretations.

However, this is different from her intended purpose. She says her music is closer to female rebellion music, for lack of a better description. [“All-American Bitch” was my stab at trying to write a song like that. - [Olivia Rodrigo on the Meanings of “Guts”], THE NEWYORKER(2023.09)]

I feel a lot of kinship toward women, and I love writing songs about these female feelings of anger and resentment that aren’t so easily expressed in everyday life. - [Olivia Rodrigo on the Meanings of “Guts”], THE NEWYORKER(2023.09)

She says the most amazing moment during live performances is when the audience resonates with her music.

My favorite songs to sing are the really angry ones, especially on tour. I love looking out in the audience, and sometimes I’ll see these girls and they’re so young, they’re seven or eight, and they’re screaming these angry songs and getting so hyped up and so enraged, and I just think that’s the coolest thing ever. - [Olivia Rodrigo on the Meanings of “Guts”], THE NEWYORKER(2023.09)

She also cites the Glastonbury stage in 2022 as her most memorable live performance. It was at a time when the Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion in the United States was overturned after 49 years. She expressed her anger by calling out the names of the Supreme Court justices who supported overturning the ruling and dedicated a Fuck You to them. She was very, very pissed off.

In summary, interpreting her intense emotional expression in her music as “I don’t know what to do” is just a market perspective. She’s an artist who hopes her music will lead to resistance and spread.

trivial

In fact, this article mainly discusses the songs that best reveal her current identity, but in reality, many of the lyrical and calm songs on her album are good. “happier”, a song that was a turning point in her career, “drivers license”, and “lacy”, which she wrote while taking poetry classes at a local college.

She’s currently on the GUTS world tour and touring North America. There are rumors that there might be an Asia schedule around the end of 2024.… I’ll definitely go if she comes to Korea…

(End)