Every Single Album - 'Sour' | Every Single Album: Olivia Rodrigo

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard are getting back together for a special one-off episode on Olivia Rodrigo. They track Olivia's rise through Instagram and her explosion onto the music scene with "Driver's License," their expectations going into 'Sour' based off of the four singles she released, how Olivia was inspired by Taylor Swift, and some of their favorite songs and lyrics off of the album. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The ringer's music critic Rob Harvilla curates and explores 60 iconic songs for the 90s that define the decade. Rob is joined by a variety of guests to break it all down as they turn back the clock. Check out 60 songs that explain the 90s exclusively on Spotify. Hello and welcome to a super secret, not secret anymore, I guess, special edition of every single album. It's not a secret anymore. Olivia Rodriguez. I'm Nora Princeati. I'm back with Nathan Hubbard, and we're going to talk about Olivia's album Sour.

We couldn't resist. Producer Kaya is here as well. She told us that the album is great because it's full of bops. And that's pretty much it, right? Nathan, that wraps it up pretty cleanly right there. That's all we got to say. A star is born, part of the Taylor family tree. And we have to understand how this woman has delivered every song.

on her album into the top 30 Billboard 100 songs. I'm blown away. What's happening, Nora? Well, okay. So let's go from driver's license to now, right? So in January, driver's license, this song that, you know, a 17-year-old wrote in her bedroom, becomes the biggest thing in the world. Guess you did. If you said forever, now I drive alone past your street. And my sense was that based off of the reception to that song, which got like the most streams ever on Spotify in a week or something. Yes. Everyone involved in Olivia Rodriguez's career basically said,

we got to do an album. We got to capitalize on this. Which is kind of a tricky position to be in, right? Because it seemed like, I don't want to use the word rushing, but time was of the essence. And you have a really young person who has a show business background, right? People know Olivia Rodriguez from

High School Musical, the Series. I dare you to say that again that fast. How do you say it's that fast? High School Musical, the Musical, the Series. High School Musical, the Series. HMSTNTS. Which I have seen. But, Nathan, because when we got this album, there were three singles, but that was the context of how it got created. What were your kind of expectations? Were you a little like nervous

to hear the whole album? Or were you totally bought in, walk me through your Olivia journey, please. Well, I have daughters who are huge high school musical, the musical, the series fans. And they have been tracking the evolution of this artist

since she started dropping snippets of these songs on her Instagram profile. And you're probably with that Brunoi star. She's everything I'm insecure about.

We know, that driver's license made an appearance in 2020. We know that a number of the songs that ended up on this album were previewed almost like the perfect testing ground for music via snippets on

her Instagram profile. And yes, I was nervous. And yes, we have to talk about the fact that this album is 34 minutes and 40 seconds, and does that actually make it an album? And the answer

from my perspective is yes, because I think what we have is the first of the next generation of artists that are going to change the music business. She is the poster child for this collapsing window between discovery, creation, and stardom. Now, people are talking like, you know, driver's license hit in January and out of nowhere here she came and exploded. The point of of my background story here on being introduced, Olivia, is she had this entrenched pre-existing fan base that came out of the Disney world, not unlike Timberlake and Brittany and Christina Aguilera

and Ariana Grande before her. But the difference is that she has harnessed the power of the internet to sort of preview the songs and build a buzz around these songs, like really no one before her. I'm sorry, I'm cracking up because it's been like four months and you still can't say Aguilera. I can't. I have no idea how to say it.

Can I just call her X, Tina? Yeah, that's fine. That's totally cool. We're going to run with it. You have many other positive traits. But one of the things that's important in there that has nothing to do with Christina Aguilera, Aguilera, is that not only did your daughters and other Olivia fans

discover her and discover her music as she was posting those little snippets on Instagram, her producer and main collaborator, Dan Nygro, found her the same way. And DM'd her and was like, I think the song was happier, which is one of my favorite songs from the album was one he heard a snippet of and was like, whoa. I'm selfish, I know. I can't let you go. So flying someone crave. I might want to work with you. That's really cool.

And it's funny. that is a song that I tend to gravitate more towards the kind of pop-bunky energy, like, angsty, angry songs on the album. But that's one of the slower sort of sad ballads that really grabs me. So I think that origin story is so important to how we're understanding how people have found her and processed her because it's not just fans. it's people that she's working with, which to your point says so much about the discovery cycle, right?

Because it's coming from both ends. It's not just how you create an audience. It's also how you find people to work with. Yeah. And the thing about Olivia Rodriguez, and I think most musicians going forward, is that they will not just be creators of audio content. They're going to be creating content across multiple mediums.

And that is audio. but it's also video in long form and in short form, TikTok and the like, but also likely a third category, which is virtual or avatar-based for things like gaming and other environments. I mean, she is really the poster child of where the industry is going. To be a star, you're going to have to be good at creating content across all these different mediums. And she is inherently born to do that. it's so interesting kind of parsing through what generations and what chunks of which generations respond to her, respond to different parts of the album, to different ways that she communicates

because it really does feel like this sort of lightning in a bottle thing where she was she inspired first a Saturday Night Live sketch with driver's license. Wait, what am I listening to? Driver's license by Olivia Rodrigo, man. Sounds like it's just some teen girl singing in a room to the piano. And that's the beauty of it. You got a problem? She was also inspiring TikTok challenges and communicating with people that way.

Then she was on SNL herself and had a great performance. So it's like this clearly sort of cross-generational. appeal that is very much centered on, you know, young people, I think especially a lot of young women. But it's been so interesting to me to think about that in the context of the album, because there are, like, one thing that stood out to me was the number of places in which she kind of tries to tell us that she's like a student of the game. For sure. Right? Like, there are so many references that feel actually a little bit old. than she is. I think we both have, you know, we've talked to each other a little bit about this.

There's a lot of paramour. There's a lot of Avrilavine. That's a little bit, you know, I'm 26. So I'm close to a decade older than Olivia. That's more my age than hers in some ways, but it clearly seems like that's really important to her. She went out of her way to tell us she listens to Billy Joel, right? Yeah. Although we should talk about that. I know you have some questions about that. Okay, I do. Yes, I do. But I believe her in her overarching sentiment, but we'll get to that later.

But it's just... And maybe this is me, like, getting into my late 20s and being like, teenagers are scary and fascinating. But that combination of references... Seriously. But, like, the choices and the references I think are fascinating. The other thing that's so fascinating to me about this album is kind of the value system that maybe it's ascribed to Gen Z,

but it is so funny to me to kind of overlay sour onto some of that earlier Aver Levine Paramore stuff where it sounds kind of similar. But then to think about how the ultimate crime, the ultimate wrongdoing or bad thing in the context of Olivia Rodriguez

is like not, understanding your feelings, not being authentic about your feelings, and holding back and being kind of apathetic, which is, like, I just, it made me feel like the kids are okay, right? Like, there's been such a shift where the cool thing is to be willing to emote and to be emotionally honest. And, like, the most just crushing thing that she says about someone is you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me. Like, you're lying. and you're pretending you don't care. That's the ultimate sin.

And that just feels like, I mean, some of those paramoor songs, like for instance, I think we'll talk about how much the song good for you sounds like misery business. Well, they stopped performing that song because they felt like it was too mean. And I personally come down on the side of human emotions are ugly sometimes.

And I love that song. And I actually kind of think it's compelling that it captures that. But one of my biggest takes, takeaways from Sauer is just like this this worldview that I do think is central to people that age where being sort of emotionally attuned to other people and to yourself is really important. And I think that's very cool. Yeah.

It is. Look, she's 17 when she's making this music. And historically other pop stars who've come out at this age have been. been way less refined and way less polished in both their ability to communicate publicly, their ability to sing in most cases, their ability to talk about their feelings. I mean, can you imagine like a Disney star on any other era coming out with a debut album that had fuck and shit on every other song and talks about sleeping in beds with guys? And it just, it would have been, you know, I mean, it speaks to how much of a road.

has been paved for her to be able to come forward with a debut album like that. Now, I think what is so unique about her is her polish, is she feels incredibly comfortable with herself, at least with communicating about herself. She's certainly not comfortable with herself. She tells us that across the songs, but she's certainly comfortable enough to speak to her inner truth. And at 17, 18 years old, this is one of the most authentic albums that you're ever going to hear from somebody this age. the Billy Elish album comes to mind as being sort of a cousin in that way. When Taylor put out her first couple albums, she got the C word that we talked about for 15 hours in the podcast,

about how people would say some of this feels a little bit contrived. Now, whether that was right or wrong, we know that Taylor was in a different position. She was almost having to play a character within Nashville to make her way into a place where she could release a pop record like this. Olivia Rodriguez was born on third base. She came out of the Disney system ready to go. But it's been a long time since we've seen somebody this age

with such a developed set of abilities across, as we said, all of these visual and audio mediums, but also an ability to express herself. When I listen to this music, I don't know about you. When I listen to this music, we could talk for an entire podcast, like you said, about the influences. I mean, she interpolates New Year's Day for crying out loud. But like welcome to music for the last couple decades.

Yes, we're in an area of recycling. Forever. Yes, we're in an area of recycling the 144-5 chord progressions with new sounds and maybe sort of new words over them. It's been happening for decades and all of our favorite artists have done this. But it feels like what's different here is the way that she's able to give voice, as we talked about, give voice to a generation, right? This is, I think it's, rather than say her music is rooted in Taylor Swift, I

I think Olivia Rodriguez is Taylor Swift for a generation of people who were too young to get Taylor Swift when she was happening at the beginning in 2008. Well, okay, let's talk about this because I think it's one of the most interesting things. I don't think this album sounds like Taylor. I don't either. At all. No. Lyrically, thematically, sure. But the music doesn't.

It doesn't sound like her really whatsoever to me. And I actually think that that's a really good thing. Yes. don't get me wrong. I don't need to tell you that I will listen to Taylor until the cows come home. But what was so cool to me about hearing this album is that it sounds pretty refreshing. If you as I am and as a lot of people are, are used to hearing a set of sounds that's been curated by, you know, a fairly small group of people. Taylor Swift is one of them.

Jack Antonoff is certainly another one. And look, Taylor's a tough example in some ways because she's just been around so long and done so much that you can kind of find an example for, you know, for instance, like paper rings was Taylor's foray into kind of a pop punky thing. But that's not Taylor's thing. This sounds different from that sort of like propulsive, shiny, heavy synthy sound that she did a lot of with Jack in recent-ish years. it's definitely different than the stuff that she's done with Aaron Dessner. And it's not country. So, you know, if you go back further, there's differences kind of all across the board. And to close the loop on that, my point there is that it's actually really refreshing to hear something

that sounds maybe not brand new, but is using different influences than the ones that most people have drawn on. Sure. There are some, there's definitely some lord. So I'm not saying that it's a lot of. It's totally absent. No, yeah. And the multi-layered vocals sound like Billy.

And yes, she acknowledged the deja vu bridge with the, you know, yelling vocals are right out of cruel summer. Okay. But. Right. And the butt there. And part of this is really interesting to me is kind of who is responsible for some of the stuff that does sound like that early mid-2000s kind of girl with a crunchy guitar pop punk stuff? Yeah. Because if you go in TikTok, like, that's not the dominant sound that's, you know, on Spotify

playlists all the time right now. But if you go on TikTok, so much stuff is, here's a popular song. But what if we made it a pop punk song? What if we made it an emo song from the early 2000s? Right. Clearly, there is a large number of people. There are a large number of people for whom that really resonates with. and it's a sound that people in these little corners,

even if it's not, you know, Billy and the people who are dominating, like Spotify charts and stuff, are playing with primarily. It's something that's of interest. And I wonder how much of that is her. I wonder how much of that is Dan. I wonder how much of that is just sort of like a shared interest.

But that's fascinating to me, just because even if we go back to Paper Rings, that was a song that I remember hearing and wondering, I wonder if Taylor's, we'll do a little bit more of this. Right. And the answer to that turned out to be no, but maybe somebody else does, right?

That doesn't mean that that impulse doesn't exist in the music listening public. Yeah. And it's just very fun. Obviously, I think it, you know, speaks to my specific age range a little bit, but it's just, it's one of those, where does she go from here?

Never miss a moment to call me old. I appreciate that. That's not what I'm doing. I am like, I feel like the, I feel like the elder sister to Gen Z in this conversation. And so do a lot of my friends where we've had conversations about this album. And we've all joked about how much we love it. But how much we especially love, like, good for you is my favorite song. Is it?

Yes. A hundred percent. Like, more than driver's license, it's, I think it's my favorite song on the album, buy like a good chunk. But I also love jealousy, jealousy. Does that sound a little Fiona Apple-ish to you? Totally. Totally. And it also sounds a little bit like

some of Sky Ferreira's stuff, which same producer. But I've had conversations with some of my friends where we've laughed about how those seem to be our favorite songs. It does seem like there's another cohort that's really, really into the softer, more sort of emotive ballady stuff. And we have had a couple, I actually kind of exclude myself from this. Some of my friends have joked about, guys, remember when we felt everything that intensely? Like, oh my gosh, it's like a window into your past.

When that conversation was going on, I was sort of sitting there being like, guys, I'm still that emotional. It's fine. But does this feel for you, like the first. really huge album that is younger than you? That's for a generation beneath you? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Even... That's 100% true. Because even Billy... Billy Eilish is this, like, wonderful alien, you know? So I don't know that I ever have listened to Billy Elish and Ben, like, I can ascribe this to a particular, like, age range space time. It's kind of doing its own.

thing. So, like, Billy has often felt very new to me, but I don't know that I've ever been like, this is discernibly younger than me. There's something about this album that I think is really universal just in the feel your feelings part of it. But there are some elements of it where I think people in their, like, mid-20s-ish are like, oh, wow. Yeah, we kind of feel like, how do you do fellow kids?

But in a good way, I guess. Well, and the music is a reflection of that, right? Six of the 11 songs on this album are less than three minutes long. Like, the whole thing, like we talked about, is less than 35 minutes long. I mean, Taylor's Grammy-winning album was almost twice as long as this. And so in the same way that TikToks are these short little hits, right, these songs are a reflection of that. They're short little hits, right? she said she wrote driver's license listening to Gracie Abrams. Well,

Gracie Abrams doesn't have a freaking album out yet, but the stuff that you can find, guess what? All of her songs are less than three minutes long. And so it may be that there's this commonality in the themes, which is, you know, heartbreak and insecurity of those teenage years and, you know, all these things that we heard on a lot of Taylor's records and album sense. but the way that she's communicating them are even more earnest and vulnerable and direct and they're also being done in these sort of shorter, more digestible snippets.

I think she even wanted to make parts of, you know, the repeated piano note in driver's license that sounds kind of like the car door open sign. There's a part where it goes down a step. You said forever, now I drive alone past your street. And she was thinking, I believe she said this when she did Diary of a song with The New York Times. She said that she kind of imagined that as being a potential cue for people to make TikToks with where like that could be the sound that tells you that the switch, whether it's an outfit change or whatever, is what's coming.

I wanted it to go. I wanted it to be like a little like thing in it because I wanted people to make TikToks where they could like transition into it. And I thought that if there's a little thing that would be a queue and people did make TikToks like that, so I'm really happy about that, but it goes, and therefore every single song on this album is currently a TikTok trend. Like, it's all being made in that thing. But we have to just talk about the driver's license drama for a second

because this is one of my favorite things about this album, is that all of the characters who are associated with this song, and in other ways, you know, some of the other songs on the album, Trader and elsewhere. Like they tried to build a little series of cottage dramas on top of this song. But it was so big, it just completely drowned them out. Have you heard the song that Joshua Bassett released? Yeah, lie, lie, lie.

Yes. It fucking sucks. Yeah, it's like C minus Timberlake. It's just spiteful and lame. You know, yeah, it steals the in sync line by, bye, bye, by. It's terrible. It's basically him defensively being, no, I'm not. No, I didn't.

It's just like, oh, God, the worst. Well, or is it that or is it opportunism, right? Because I do think that one thing, well, sure, that's the right answer. But it didn't work because- One thing we do have to circle back to is that you were making the point that, you know, this is remarkably sort of, she's remarkably authentic and able to communicate that in the way that she talks to people. And one, we have to talk about how, while I don't think that the sounds of this album are anywhere near as derivative of Taylor, as they've in some ways been made out to be, the playbook that she is using to communicate with people is very learned from Taylor and other people.

But I think Taylor is a really key influence there. Give me some examples of that. Well, I mean, simply the creation of this. little world of characters who are from her real life who have to do with her romantic life and who are potentially inspiring these songs and making the song effective by using little

details, right? Right. Because there are other reasons that Lai Lai is not an awesome song or Sabrina Carpenter's song Skin I think is good. Oh, come on. Better. It's not special. Maybe you didn't mean it. Maybe Blonde was the only rhyme, the only rhyme.

I mean, she says you can't get under my skin, but here's a reaction song to something you wrote that got under my skin. I don't hate that song. I think it's fine, but whatever. Neither one of them is anywhere near as potent as driver's license, and a large, like a very, very, very large part of that

is because there's no specificity in those, which is kind of hard to do when we know exactly what they're supposed to be about. Yeah. But it's just like, oh, all you do is lie, lie, lie, like, whatever. I'm going to tell my side of the story. Right, exactly. And like, it's like, kiss your ass goodbye.

It's like, get the fuck out of here. I hate that song. Wow. Yeah, I really. I had a really strong reaction to the way these two responded because it just, it reeks of like jealousy and to your point. Like, it's so contrived and opportunistic and everything that, you know, that as she says in driver's license, everything I'm not.

Well, but okay, the other thing that we're going to need to touch on is that I agree with you that Olivia has not gotten the C word contrived in the same way that Taylor did initially. But when we posted that we were going to do this podcast, when I asked people for questions, when I've like poked around the internet a little bit, the phrase industry plant comes up an awful lot. Industry plant. Which like I'm not totally sure what that's really supposed to. mean, like, she's a showbiz kid with a background in this. And if there's a point to be made about, you know, how hard it is to break through and the illusion that the industry does often like to create of people plucking singer-songwriters out of obscurity and all of a sudden turning them into a polished, ready-for-startum celebrity. Like, yeah. Yeah. That's, that's,

that's a fake idea that doesn't happen very often. But it just cracked me up because it was like, are we ever going to be done with this? She's worked really hard for a long time. She's a talented kid and it's all coming together. Like nobody, nobody created Olivia Rodriguez-Rodrigo in the lab to be like, we're still waiting for Lord's album, so we need something. Right. It just massively undermines what's happening on both sides, A, the talent and the work that she put in, but also be like in this age of transparent. You can go on to Spotify right now and see how many streams

each of her songs. Like people are listening. This is a human driven thing. It's not a, you know, people aren't forcing this down the throats of radio. In fact, a number of these songs are getting into the Billboard like number one on the Billboard 100

charts without radio. Also, how can you listen to the bridge of driver's license and not understand that that is real pain people. Come on. It's got 803 million streams. I mean, get out of here with this.

It's truly a phenomenon. I do want to ask you something, though. Did you listen to any of the songs that came out of the high school musical soundtrack stuff? Like, did you spend any time with all I want? So I'm glad that you brought that up. My interaction with high school musical

and musical the series is that a while back, I spent a very lazy Sunday visiting my best friend at grad school and we sat on one of her friend's couches and just watched several episodes of that and ate ramen noodles. And it was a great day. But I think that was the only time that I've watched it. And I hadn't heard much of the soundtrack. I think I'd heard all I want a couple times. preparing to do this, I went back and listened to it, listened to a couple other songs.

I really like that song. I think it's really good. Oh, I love it. Listen, it's got heavy undertones of glitter in the air by pink, which is one of my favorite pink songs. But I like all I want. And that was really the breakout hit from that show. And I think that as we talk about our origin story,

that's really what broke her, right? Is people heard that song and she got signed right on the back of that and here we are. Which she wrote. And I think there was another song that she and Joshua Bassett. Yeah, they had together.

And it seemed like that was sort of targeted as the one to maybe be a hit. Right. And then all I want was just too good. All I want was just the one that people really sing their teeth into. Let's hold on. We shouldn't get off of this before fully closing the loop on this little love triangle.

I maintain skin is okay. It's not very good. But I think you're misplacing your lie, la, la animosity onto skin. No, I don't like skin either because it just sounds like somebody plugged in, you know, like amateur hour Max Martin as producer, into the song and was just like, we got to get something out

because we got to be part of the drama. Well, right. So, and that was why I wanted to close loop on this just to get in that she hasn't totally, Olivia hasn't totally escaped the idea that she's sort of part of the construction of this drama as well, which I don't really believe.

But what if we just settle on Lai Lai's, like, C-Mines, Timberlake? I think Skin sounds a little, bit like B minus Carly Ray Jepson. Okay. I mean, that's fine. Look, Lail Lai's had 21 million streams. Skins had 75 million. So people are voting. C minus Carly Ray Jepson is fine with me.

I said B minus. Well, okay, then we still are a grade apart as usual. You always give grades too high. I gave Josh. I gave Josh a C minus. You give him an F. That's just an F. That is an F. F. F. F for lie, lie, lie. I do think Olivia really did something very clever, though, in that, in the Good for You

music video, I don't know if you caught this. This is another from the Taylor Playbook, right? Because this is a great Easter egg. Okay. In the music video, for Good for You, she's wearing the cheerleader costume. Yeah. That looks exactly like the one that Mandy Moore wears in the Princess Diaries. Nice.

Where the boy that she and Mia Thermopolis, aka Ann Hawth. A.k.a. Anne Hathaway. I'm speaking too fast because I'm too excited. Christina Aguilera. The boy that they fight over is named Josh. Oh. So the cheerleader thing you think goes back to Mandy Moore, not to the Shake It Off video. It's exactly the same as the one that Mandy Moore wears.

Like same color scheme, same pattern, same everything. Here's the thing that I want to ask you about this album. Does it belong in the conversation for album of the year? At 34 minutes and 40 seconds, is it going to go head to head with the J. Cole album with the Lord album that you are definitely going to get with the Billy Elish album that is dropping soon? And by the way, you know, with Evermore.

I'll answer this a few ways in an attempt to be honest, but not cop out of an answer here. Yes. I think she will do very well in Grammy nominations. I think she certainly, I mean, song in the year,

new artists, album, when nominations come out, I think she should be having a pretty good day. I also have basically no issue with the fact

that the album is short. Really? I actually think that's pretty nice. I think a lot of artists could occasionally spare to, you know, have a more disciplined approach to cutting songs that aren't up to snuff. And I think they did a pretty good job of, I imagine they did a pretty good job here of not falling into the trap of saying, we need 16 songs to put out so that it looks like this super meaty thing.

It's a really good album. It's a good album with a lot of good songs on it. I think that they also, what is one sort of. clue to me there. I think they chose the exact right singles. I think all three singles are among my, I don't know, five or six favorite songs on the album. Okay. Which says to me that it might have been harmful if there were five more songs on this thing, right? And this is an album that, I mean, these were, these were old songs that she'd already sketched out in a lot of cases, but they made this thing really fast. Well, that's the question. I mean, that's, look, they made it fast. The songs are

short. Earlier in this podcast, I made the argument that that's just how the kids these days are communicating and how content is actually going to be created. But there's no doubt that this was an album that was rushed to creation to keep up with the explosion that was happening in the streaming world. Does that give it a knock for you? It really doesn't. It really truly doesn't. Because I think if you go into the songs that are my favorite songs or the biggest songs from this album, they're not like little vibey pieces.

You know, they might be under three minutes long, but there are bridges on this album. Yep. On songs on this album, there's shape. When we talked about Taylor off and something that we would say because she said it is that she would occasionally look at a song and go, is that quite enough song? Yeah. And if you take something like, okay, jealousy, jealous. is two minutes and 53 seconds long.

But there's that really cool, crunchy kind of atonal bridge section that takes you somewhere else and then brings you back for the end of the song. And that's what I care about. I care that she's building little emotional journeys for us in these things. And I think they're doing that very effectively.

Do I think that means that this album should necessarily beat Jay Cole beat all those other records? I don't know. And I also think that there's I don't know that it's unfair. I think it's inevitable. But I get a little nervous sometimes

when I see parts of the reception to sour, kind of treating it as already set in stone that this is going to be someone with a, you know, a tailor-like career. Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. Is she a huge star? or is she having a moment during a period in time

where we, the collective we, binge on shit? We binge on shows, we binge on news stories, we binge on music, and frequently then we tend to spit it out and move on. I mean, she's got less than 11 million followers on Instagram right now. Taylor has 160 million. Billy Eilish has 86 million. Is she a star, or is this a binge moment?

I don't know that that binary is right, right? Like, I think she, I will be so excited to hear her next album, right? But what listening to this made me think about was, okay, is this necessarily, is this something that belongs in a conversation with Marin Morris's debut album, Dool-Ape's first album? Like, those were great records that did super well and gave those people very, viable big careers. Very few people are going to have Taylor careers. Yeah.

Like very, very, very few. I don't think that that's fair pressure to put on someone. By the way, Taylor's debut album is like unbelievably impressive to me and was smart in the way that it fit in with what people were looking for and all these different things that we've talked about. No one knew Taylor's career was going to be Taylor's career in 2006, right? Yeah. But there is some anointing.

There is some anointing going on, even with Taylor. She posed with her at the Brits. You know, she posted the, I'm so proud of my baby on Instagram. She is doing some sort of torch passing here. She did not post when the album came out. She said, I say that's my baby and I'm really proud. Well, she didn't, she didn't when the album came out. But like, she's heard it for crying out loud.

And she'd heard it by the time they posed with each other at the Brits, right? Certainly. There's also, I mean, the fact that one step forward, three steps back, which first of all, you have 13 essentially in the title. Called you on the phone today. Just ask you how you were. Interpolates but doesn't sample the piano part from New Year's Day. There's glitter on the floor after the party. Girls carrying the shoes down in the lobby.

has been taken as kind of a sign of allyship, right? Because you're crediting the song writers. You're not crediting the master recording of it. That's right. There's kind of a choosing sides thing that's gone on. And I think it seems like that's a really wonderful source of inspiration for her. Right? Like Taylor Swift has been producing music for almost all of Olivia Rodrigo's life.

Yeah. Like, I have said things like I grew up with Taylor. That's sort of true in the way that people say it. Olivia has literally grown up with her. Yeah. Basically every sentient ear of her life. And I've seen her do interviews where, like, she did some, she did the song association thing with, shoot, maybe 17 or L or some magazine.

She'd get a word. And every single word she was coming up with a Taylor song. Like, she clearly comes by this very honestly. And to go eyes, hand on my thigh, you can follow the sparks, I'll drive. Lyrical smile, and the go eyes, hand on my thigh, we can follow the sparks, I'll drive. I told you, it's all going to be Taylor Swift. I feel bad. I want to branch out, but I just have her, like, lyrics, like, tattooed in my head.

But it doesn't mean that she, when she's, you know, a full-fledged, not adult, but young adult. Yeah. forging her own career path is going to be a carbon copy or that it's really helpful to put the weight of those kinds of expectations on her. Yeah, I agree. I just think most of the other artists that Taylor has crowned, she's considered peers. Heim, right, Haley Williams and Paramore, they've been sort of part of the squad.

This is the first time where, just like you have started to communicate through the course of this podcast, it's felt like she's really bringing on a next generation artist and saying, you know, here is one of the branches of my musical tree. Yeah. That puts a lot of pressure on her. That puts a lot of pressure on her. I mean, Billy Elish's next album, tons of pressure on her

just because of all the Grammys and awards that she won. But boy, even Billy didn't have, you know, the queen of music saying this is the next thing. Right. I mean, I even think, like, Duleipas talked a lot about part of the reason that future nostalgia ended up being such a sort of upbeat, let loose, almost silly kind of album was because she felt so much pressure to make the second one. Yeah. And it just felt like this really tortured thing. And that was her way of coping with it, essentially, was just to say, we're going to get wacky.

We're going to do some, like, I'm going to dress up like Jane Fonda. and do a workout video and great, and I love that record. But that's a real thing that people feel is just that having to top yourself is really hard. And so some of the, some of the Taylor comps, I just imagine must be nerve-wracking,

even though obviously she comes by her interest there very honestly. And it does seem like Taylor has found this, you know, has kind of crowned her, like you're going to carry it on in some ways. So I'm so interested in your feelings and producer Kai's feelings that the upbeat songs on the album are the ones that you're drawn to more so than the ballads. Because there was a lot of chatter. I mean, one of the industry plant conspiracy theories was driven by the fact that they had put out a couple of these more up-tempo songs as singles. And then people got the album and went, wow, there's just a lot of ballads on here.

I'm personally drawn to some of the ballads. So I want to know how you feel about songs like Trader, about songs like Enough for You, about songs like Favorite Crime and Hope You're Okay. Did those resonate with you? Are there skips on this album? I listened to it very happily all the way through, which, again, is another reason why there's absolutely nothing wrong

with a 35-minute album, and really a lot of artists should take that to heart. My favorite downtempo one is happier. I just love, that's actually the one where I get the most lord, particularly liability. Another song I love, so maybe that's part of it. So they pull back, make other plans, I understand, I'm a liability. But one, I love the persona in it where she's super, super feeling, but she's also really mature.

Like, this is one of the ones where I was listening to it and being like, Gen Z's cool. Like, they get it. They totally get it. Because she's talking about this girl and she's like, I bet she's kind. I bet she's pretty. This is hard for me and I don't want to feel replaced. But I'm not wishing for you to have a terrible rest of your life, right?

And that's like, that's kind of commendable perspective. And I also just, I like a waltz, you know? So that's one that really works for me. Hope You're Okay is not my favorite. I knew a boy once when I was small. A toehead blonde with eyes of salt. You played the drum in the marching band. Is it because it has the exact same chords

from the better Oblivion Community Center song, Service Road mixed with the guitar from I Know the End and you don't like Phoebe Bridgers? I love I Know the End. I love Phoebe Bridgers. That is not the reason. It's crazy.

It is a Phoebe Bridgers song in a lot of ways. Yeah. But I know the end has more, I know the end just does more with it. Somewhere in Germany, but I can't place it. Man, I hate this part.

Texas, close my eyes, fantasize. It has more of a high, it has more sort of diversity through the song in different ways that it sounds. Favorite crime? I really like. None of these songs I actively dislike. Okay. But of the ballads... They're not lie, lie, lie, lies for you. I get it. They're not lie, lie, lie. There are no lie, lilies. But what about Trader? I mean, Traitor's got the fix-you chords. It's got some No-One by Alicia Keys vibes. Yeah.

It's got some searing lyrics. What about Trader? So the song is, it's in the same category as like enough for you for me, where I'm never going to have it on repeat, but I also won't skip it. The thing that I will say about Trader that I love is, first of all, I think the lyric, ain't it funny, feels like a subtle paramour reference to me. Totally. It's definitely a Taylor one in theme where it's just so. direct. And it's just so emotionally honest, like the fact that, okay, it's a song called traitor, right? This really like charged, you're the worst thing possible kind of word. And then

the twist, this person didn't cheat. And that's such a real feeling, right, of being like, don't even talk to her. Yeah. Like, I hate that. Yeah. And I love that she went at that and didn't flinch. I think that's really cool. I can't believe also, though, while we're not having this conversation, we're not talking about brutal, because I also love brutal, which is the other side of the coin.

Yes, but the reason that I asked you about this is the confounding thing in my head is, can Olivia Rodrigo go out and play an arena show yet? Does she have enough material to carry a big venue like that? I don't know the answer. Does she have to be the, you know, opener before Taylor comes on for the stadium tour? Or can she literally go carry a room just on this album alone?

I'm not sure. You would maybe say yes if she does some covers and pulls in the high school musical stuff. But then you go, there aren't as many up-tempo songs. Could she carry a full room that way? How do you feel about that? Well, so, I mean, opening those stadiums, shows is both like the greatest thing ever and maybe not actually all that awesome in a few different ways, right? Because no one in the world is going to be like going on tour and

opening for Taylor Swift seems bad. That's obviously awesome. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do though, right? Because you're playing it's light out a lot of the time. You can't use the video boards in the same way. People are filing in. They're not necessarily. like all eyes on you totally totally honed in. But let me ask you this. Is she going to play Coachella? And if she's going to play Coachella, what line of the poster

will the name Olivia Rodrigo be on? Oh, wow. The second. Okay. So you say, yes, she's going to play Coachella because that's more a forum that will work for her.

I could see her going out and doing a bunch of festivals. That was what I was going to say is that like if, if Taylor wants her to tour with her, whatever Taylor does next, that's awesome, and I'm sure they'll find a way to make it work. But this is another example of where it's like,

she doesn't have to be so a part of the Taylor lineage and like this seminal figure off the Taylor tree where everything she does has to stem from that. I need to stop using foliage words. But I hope that she tours and performs this music live in a way that works well for it. You know, I'm not sure that this album, obviously some of the songs would work really well, but I'm not sure this album as a whole would be best suited to be, to be played at, you know,

6.30 p.m. in NFL arenas. Like, and that's fine, you know, she doesn't have to go do that. She can do something else. She can play Coachella. It would be sick to see her at Coachella. Yeah. A little worked up. It's all right. I mean, listen, I got worked up about Bassett and you get worked up about how she played. That's why I asked you the question. I think that we need to have a conversation around the best lyrics from this album, because my own belief is that there isn't anything musically in here that sends me over the moon. But I think when you combine really solid melodies and harmonies and arrangement that has great space that allows for that intimacy, it's hard to not feel close to her based on the way that

you know, the song sort of disappear and let her vocal come to center. But the thing that does it for me is I'm just perpetually stunned at the sophistication of her writing, the lyric component of it. And I know that Dan Nigro had something to do with some of these words. And indeed, the Billy Joel reference apparently was his.

I just want you to know that. I know you were very confused by that. Let's just clear that up because that came from our text thread. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were really troubled by this line. And we'll use it as a jumping off point to talk about our favorite lyrics.

Okay. That sounds like a good plan. The thing that struck me, and I was talking to my friend DJ Bean about this, was that in deja vu, there's all these Billy Joel references. But the line is that this guy, Josh, whoever, is telling this new girl that he loves her

in between the chorus and the verse of Uptown Girl. No, I bet you even tell I'm all you more. There's nothing in between the chorus and the verse of Uptown Girl. It's, I'm in love with it, da, da, da, da, da, and that's the new verse. There's nothing there. There's no room to do it. You can't do it.

Right. Well, there's two things. One is, I mean, she could just be referencing the fact that heading out of the pre-course and into the chorus is he's saying, I'm in love with. But what she really interestingly does is, did you catch the Easter egg? She whispers, I love you, underneath those lyrics in the song. Yes. So cool. It's a pretty cool Easter egg.

But apparently it was Dan who introduced the Billy Joel lyric. And I think they both talked about glee in that song, and neither of them have seen glee. So maybe they are industry plants. Oh, I guess we're wrong. It's all fake. Shoot. Damn it. No, they seem like really wonderful collaborators, actually.

I love that. Well, so, as we talk about lyrics then, what are your favorites? All right. So, I was sort of chuckling to myself as you were talking about how blown away you are by the sophistication of a lot of writing. For a 17-year-old, let me be clear. Well, sure. But I think... Oh, boy.

You're about to crush me. Well, no, I'm not. I know this. I know this move by you. Here comes. No, you totally don't. Stop it. You have no idea what I'm going to say. So much of me wants to choose something from happier, which I think is like this really sophisticated version of it. But you know what it is? It's I can't even parallel park. And I'm not cool and I'm not smart and I can't even parallel park.

Okay. Yes. It's so good. Yeah. What's yours? I am torn between a couple. I mean, I love the where's my fucking teenage dream. age dream. If someone tells me one more time, enjoy your youth, I'm going to cry. I just love it. Brutal is so good. Yeah. Yeah, the way it's delivered, I just love it. If someone tells me one more time, enjoy your youth, I'm going to cry. It is that sort of speaking to how hard it is to be a kid right now, where everything that

you ever do is permanently emblazoned on the internet. And how dumb adults are. Yeah, adults are idiots, and it's not easy to be a kid right now. I think the hook from traitors amazing. We already talked about it. It took you two weeks ago off and date her. I guess you didn't cheat, but you're still a traitor. Like, that is the best knife of the whole album for me.

I love that. It took you two weeks to guess you didn't cheat, but you're still a traitor. But I also like, I'd say you broke my heart, but you broke much more than that. Now I don't want your sympathy. I just want myself back, which is one of my favorite moments of any of the songs on their album. So I think that this is her biggest forte. And there's one of the thing that we need to speak to here, by the way, before I forget, which is the conspiracy theory that there is another album out there called Sweet.

And my own feeling on this is it is so clear that they scrambled just to get this together that there is not a second ever more in waiting that's going to be dropped miraculously at the end of the year. sure she has a lot more songs, and I'm sure she's going to be in the studio at some point in 2021, starting to get to work on that. But I do not believe that there was some mastermind plan to have two albums that sort of get pushed simultaneously. They scrambled to catch up to the stardom that was exploding in front of them. What do you think? Totally. I totally agree with that. I mean, she has spoken about kind of wanting, you know, this is another thing that you could compare to Taylor where I think she's said some things that seem purposefully designed in interviews

to serve as reminders that I don't just write breakup songs. Yeah, I went through that and I wrote a lot of stuff about it and we used that, but I can write about other things. I think, you know, hope you're okay being the closer. I think to me shows a little bit of that desire to be like, oh, you probably think this song is going to be like a letter to the X, but it's actually about all these these kids that I used to know. That's another reason that I think jealousy, jealousy is really wonderful and brutal is really wonderful is just because it does show her writing about something else. And it's especially potent as angsty as we can all be about breakups.

Being angsty about just being a teenager in the world is also, I think, pretty universally compelling. So I think just the fact that she's out there making sure that she's saying, I don't just do this probably means that there's no conspiracy here where there's a second album. But I do think that she wants to write that material in the future. Maybe she's setting out to write sweet the album right now. But I don't think that they, like they were trying to meet demand, you know? Yeah, that's right.

Can I tell you just before we move on, I did want to mention, I didn't do this because it's not exactly like the most. sort of groundbreaking or different lyric. But there was a little part of me that was tempted to choose all I want is love that lasts is all I want too much to ask from all I want. I just think that it's so simple, but it really hits. I think that's a wonderful lyric. I just wanted that on the record. That's like you choosing the song from Valentine's Day.

Okay, which, God. Because you love that. I can't believe it. We're back here. Yes. He's so happy with himself. Yes. I can't believe this. What are your three favorite songs? I mean, I'm going to totally disappoint you, and I think I'm going to get made fun of on the internet.

And I don't care because my three favorite song, fucking A. I mean, I'm, I guess the Riot Girl stuff just didn't resonate with me as much. Like, I really love favorite crime. Like, I think that's my favorite song on the album. Well, I hope I was your favorite crime. Driver's license is through the roof, so I don't even know. Go ahead. I'm interrupting you. But do you think that favorite crime, we got this question?

Does favorite crime seem like the reverse perspective of Getaway Cardio? Oh, I think about it. I definitely think about it. I just like the song. And I really like Trader. I don't even know what to say. about driver's license. I think you actually have to take that out of the album because it's just so

like I think I love it but at this point it's maybe like too big to really be considered as part. It's taking on a life of its own. Yeah, it's too big to fail. Yeah, exactly. It's too big to fail. I don't know what it is at this point. It maybe has just been played so many times

that it's tattooed in the inner workings of my mind. I like that song. But I like Trader a ton and I really like enough for you. If I had never satisfied, but I don't think that's true. Because all I ever wanted was to be enough for you. If I had to pick three, I'd pick those three. Okay, wow.

So we have totally different favorites. Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you're taking driver's license out of the equation, because I go, good for you. Oh, it's so hard. See, again, this is the benefit of having a short album is that it really makes...

The content is good. But it's good for you. Okay. Jealousy, jealousy. Oh, my God. And then happier. But it's really hard for me to not... Brutal and deja vu.

And then brutal and deja vu around out the top five. I'm wishy-washing on the top three, but the top five is actually pretty easy. You can't pick half the album is your favorite song. Without driver's license. Yes, I can because I planted my... flag in this podcast as saying that a 35-minute album is totally fine and good because it allows for this. You just picked 17 minutes of the 35-minute album. Okay, that's fine. So this is like all the people who did

the Taylor Swift draft and allowed themselves to pick 20 songs. No, that's not the game. All of your drafts are wonderful. Nathan is just being mean. Okay, so again, rank them for me, though. Good for you? Okay, but we're not, so we're not including driver's license in this? No, no, we can't. Because we don't know. Like, we might be just super drunk and high on driver's license. We've been inspected. Yeah.

Got it. We're on a four gummy tear on driver's license. So we have to take that out of the equation. Stop it. Nathan, children listen to this album. They're going to hear a lot of the F word. All right. Good for you is number one.

See, I'm already flopping. Now I think brutal is my second favorite song. All right. happier, jealousy, jealousy, deja vu. Okay, fine. Here's what you have to do then. If you're going to select a lot, I'm going to make you cut a lot.

You have to cut three songs. You have to turn this back into an EP. You have to cut three songs. Go. Okay. All right. All right. I'm cutting.

Hope you're okay. Enough for you. Shoot. Yeah. Those are not particularly... Phoebe Bridgers would like a word. No, she wouldn't. She got the words out in the song.

It's great. I'd rather listen to that one. Those two are fairly straightforward for me. Not that it's easy. Okay. That I know. Man, now this is really, really, really hard. It's not hard for you to cut one step forward, three steps back.

I just love having New Year's Day in there. But that is, I think, the third one. But you can go listen to New Year's Day. I know, but I think it's really lovely that she chooses that song because it's about Taylor's sort of finally solid and healthy and stable relationship to do this song where some of the lyrics sound like Dear John, right? That's the one with which lover will I get today? Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone tonight?

It doesn't, you don't feel any of that. Yeah, I do. I do. I just think on this album, if I had to cut, I would cut that. I think I agree with you if I have to cut three and I have cut, hope you're okay and enough for you. that would be the one. Okay.

All right, good job by you. Are there any other questions that we got tweeted and Instagram that we need to address? So we've kind of covered most of it, but let's just run through a couple because people ask really good questions. They did.

Madeline asked the question about favorite crime being the other perspective of getaway car, which I think, I don't think that's on purpose, but I think it totally works and it's fun. And you have siren sounds,

versus there were sirens in the beatier heart. That's cool. Yeah. I answered this, but I want you to answer it. Well, I guess you just did. But I'll rephrase it. Nikki asked, true or false, the three singles are all in the top five of the album. I think it's true. They're not your favorite songs, but do you think they were the right choice as singles?

Yes. One million thousand billion percent. They did a great job on that. There is no me on this album for them to put out. confuse the world. Oh, my gosh. David Potts, what guidance would you give Olivia if you were her manager?

Oh. So this is, I've been thinking a lot about that actual idea because I think that any manager who has managed somebody over the age of 25

would be worried about overexposure in this moment. And I think it's still potentially possible for somebody to be over-exposed. But I think that the consumption of music and content at this point has turned us into a place where nobody's going to make an album and go away for two years the way that Taylor Swift did

after reputation. I just don't think there's space for that because the news cycle just sort of eats up and moves on. And so my advice to her would be, first and foremost, she's got to nail the tour. And I really think putting her out on festivals would be a fascinating thing because it would let her cut her teeth. It would let her not have to draw a huge crowd. And it would also take some pressure off creating enough content to really carry a big show. There's a lot of people who will buy tickets.

The question is, is the show going to be awesome? And I would just put her in a festival with some other artists. But more so than that, I would have her continue to find ways to stay. in the dialogue and in the conversation, but was shorter from stuff through TikTok and Instagram, because there's going to be a moment here. When you have 11 songs in the Billboard top 30, there are going to be some people who burn out on her.

And so probably going to Utah and continuing to film the series and focus on the acting for a little while is about the best thing she can do while popping up every now and then on social media to stay in the dialogue. I basically agree with that, although I don't know why. I've gotten a little bit of a sense

just reading between the lines, which of course is always sort of fraught territory from interviews that she's given where she talks a lot about really loving that people are getting

to know her as a singer-songwriter because she feels like it's more her. And it is at least given me the thought of they're trying to get her out of the show.

They're trying to not do so much of that anymore. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, she's going to go to that David Russell movie that Taylor just joined on probably in like a week. I mean, she don't want to be in Utah. Two weeks from now.

The only person who's not going to be in that movie is Joe Alwyn. Yeah, exactly. Oh, boy, there you go. Once again, the slander. I love Joe. I'm sorry. I can't help it. I'm just, I can't help making jokes.

If I was her manager, I'd want to get her out of Utah, out of Disney. Thank you, Disney. I mean, no harm. We'd happily come back and do something again. but I want to get her out of Utah with Joshua Bassett, who is bitter enough to release Lai, Lai, Lai. I mean, get her out of there,

and she's too big for him. She is at this point. Like, you can't go back once you've sort of broken out in that way. It's just going to be weird. Right, because she won't be Nini anymore. She'll be Olivia Rodriguez. But that's a really good segue to Abby's question, which is you talked about how knowing the inspiration

for some Taylor songs kind of made you like them less Alic City Man, innocent being about Kanye. Do you think knowing that a lot of Sauer was inspired by the Joshua Bassett drama impacts how you feel about the album or any of the songs? No, but the Al City reference is exactly how I feel about Joshua Bassett's song.

And the Sabrina Carpenter's. I have much more affection for Al-City songs than I do for Lai, Lai, La. I do too. My point is just like when the dude wrote the like, remember when he came back and wrote the like, oh, Taylor, I was so enchanted. The super cringy, enchanted cover.

Enchanted. Yeah, that's what Lai, Lai and skin are. They're this super cringy, like, dude, just let it go. Just let it be out there. Be part of the story in that way. You don't have to come back and try to top it. You've failed massively. So that's how I feel about it.

No, I think you need a backstory and a narrative. I mean, in the same reason with Taylor songs, I think the Jake stuff on All Too Well, part of the reason all too well is so awesome is because we know about the Jake stuff. part of the reason, right, dear John, is, that stuff I think is helpful to the narrative of the song because you can sort of see these dudes with punchable faces getting punched.

I agree. I don't know if I, maybe I agree in a slightly different way where I just think that it doesn't sound, you know, there's some debate over how purposeful this stuff is, right? Does she swear on this album specifically to distinguish herself from kind of the prototypical Disney star? right? But it doesn't sound like that. Yeah, there's no twang. Yeah. So it doesn't bother me at all, even though yes.

Like, also, being 17 and having done boyfriends that don't deserve you and are way lamer and release songs like lie, lie, like Taylor's old as time. She'll be fine. She'll be great. So no, I like having the backstory too. All right. Last question from Jenna Luther Beach. Is Taylor holding back her re-record to give Olivia a space to shine.

I say no. No. No, no, no. Taylor is happy to have branches from the tree, but Taylor is on a mission that has her with lasers in her eyes in the best possible way to get these re-recordings out as soon as possible and start taking money from somebody else's pocket and start putting it into her own. And more important than the money for her is the ownership. And it is working on Fearless. If you go and look at the streaming numbers, everybody is streaming Taylor's version. Very few people are streaming the old version, the not Taylor's version. And that is going to happen with 1989 and speak now and reputation and the like as she releases

them as fast as she can. She is very much interested in empowering other artists. She's doing a lot of work on that front, both overtly and behind the scenes. But priority number one at this point is for her to get control and to complete this mission. Yeah, I agree with that. And also, Taylor and Olivia can get their Ws at the same time, you know? That's the thing. It's not a zero-sum game. It's not a zero-sum game.

And I actually think that that's a really relevant point to what we were talking about in terms of the content creation cycle and the need, or at least the ability, to put out lots of little bits and pieces of things. because the way that people consume stuff, and this is why the idea actually of an industry plant is so silly, is that that's not really how people listen to stuff. That's not really how people consume music right now.

People can choose to hear what they want to hear and kind of siphon themselves off from what they don't. Right? So somebody who's a massive Lord fan, now they might like Olivia too, because there's certainly some similarities. but if somebody's, you know, sort of core driving need

is that they really want a Lord album, something else that's vaguely similar, they're not conditioned to accept that. They want a Lord album. Yeah. At the same time, it's less about, like, mainstream appeal,

unless you literally are Taylor Swift or someone, you know, of that elk, mainstream appeal is not what it used to be. Like, monoculture is not existent in the same way. So that if you can have your group of people who's really invested in making TikToks and following your every move and consuming your stuff, like, you can build a career off of that. And that's really awesome. But it's not, I don't think it's transferable in the way that something like the idea of, oh, well, there haven't been enough albums recently. So

let's create an Olivia Rodriguez out of thin air. Or something like should Taylor not, you know, do you not want so much stuff in the water stream at the same time? Like, that's the type of thing that makes a difference on who has a number one album in a particular week, right? If two things get released at the same time, I don't think it really matters all that much beyond that. Well, I think the, you know, we've talked a lot about comparing this young woman to other artists. And the analog that I think holds the most is Alanus Morissette. Elena's Morissette was on a Nickelodeon show, so she had some exposure to sort of TV. She didn't have a ton of fame, but she used that as a bit of a springboard to build this album that

really paved new roads for music, period, but especially for female artists. And I look at Olivia Rodriguez right now, and I think she's in the same boat. She's young. She's 19 or 18. She's exploding every single one of her songs is a hit. By the time this is said and done, she will own a ton of records, not just for a debut album, but for any female artist and maybe any artist, period. And so the question is, how is she going to handle this fame? And as we discuss, the enormous pressure that's going to come for what do you do next? How do you build a career from here? And so let's hope that she has great people around her, she certainly seems to be more of an adult than you would expect for a 17, 18 year old young adult and to be more comfortable with fame. But I just don't think

anybody, any human being is ready for the onslaught that is here for her. So as fans, let's hope that she's well protected, both in her career and her mental state. But when you look back on Alanus, Alanis had a hard time getting out of the shableness. of jagged little pill, and let's hope that there's sweetness that follows sour. Wow. What a wonderful way to wrap us up, Nathan. And I'm excited no matter what comes next because then maybe we can do another podcast about it and hang out again, which is my favorite thing. Me too, Nora. Last thing before we go, I just want to make sure. Can you parallel park? I am awesome at parallel parking because I am old enough that I actually had to learn to parallel

Park without rearview cameras. So I had to pass the test and that meant I had to practice. So I'm super awesome. Good brag. I can also parallel park for the record. And I think I'm pretty good at it. That's how we're going to end this pod on Olivia Rodrigo is a flex from each of us on parallel parking. Yes. The answer is yes. I wanted that on the record. Nathan, a joy to podcast with you. See you soon. This has been a special episode of every single album covering Olivia Rodriguez Sauer. For Nathan Hubbard, I'm Nora Prince, Iotti.