Olivia Rodrigo’s Teenage Angst Is Not Just for Teenagers

It might be easy to dismiss Rodrigo’s popularity among adults as the product of an SNL-type meme, or the result of a cultural and generational nostalgia for youth. Upon a closer listen however, it becomes apparent that what people are really drawn to is music written by a young woman in control of her own narrative and artistry, a rarity in the music industry today. 

Though the songs on Sour display impressive musical breadth—the album’s opening title “brutal” utilizes an angry, Sleater-Kinney-esque guitar while a later track, “deja vu,” leans more into anthemic pop—they have a more narrow lyrical and thematic focus. The stories Rodrigo tells feel specific to teenage girlhood: recovering from a first break up (“Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me”), a disillusionment with youth culture (“And I'm so sick of 17 / Where's my fucking teenage dream?”), the experience of growing up online (“Com-comparison is killing me slowly / I think, I think too much about kids who don't know me”), and other particular anxieties of being an almost-adult (“I'm not cool and I'm not smart / And I can't even parallel park”).

At times, the singer makes use of specific cultural references that underscore her age. In “deja vu,” a cheeky, indie-pop song in which Rodrigo insists that her ex has no original moves, she reminisces about “Watching reruns of Glee / Being annoying, singing in harmony.” That Rodrigo has managed to make teen girl narratives legible to such a wide audience is both impressive and a testament to our specific cultural moment: at a time when many of us have been stripped of our mobility, personal freedoms, and economic stability, it makes sense that teen angst hits different this year.

Rodrigo’s wide appeal and commercial success have caused a much needed re-examination of what power for young women can look like. The subject of personal and artistic power  for young female artists has been sitting center stage for months now, due in large part to 2021 documentaries such as Framing Britney Spears and Demi Lovato: Dancing With The Devil, which recounted both artists’ struggles with addiction, breaking from the Disney mold, and being taken seriously as teenage musicians. (Notably, Demi Lovato came out as non-binary this month, after the documentary had been released). These documentaries underscore how many of the teenage Disney-stars turned pop stars of the 2000s and 2010s such as Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, and Miley Cyrus were forced (often by older male music executives) to undergo a "transformation" from young, innocent Disney princess to sexy, adult woman in order to be palatable to older audiences. These transformations often intentionally lack subtlety: in 2000, 18-year-old Spears proclaimed “I’m not that innocent!” while clad in a skin-tight latex bodysuit, while Miley Cyrus’ first post-Disney album was aptly titled, Can’t Be Tamed. 

These stars’ popularity came from a cultural fascination with the perceived oxymoron of a young woman who seems adult, and therefore, powerful. Rodrigo’s music flips this script by suggesting that teenage girls obtain power not by cosplaying as grown women, but by remaining authentic when sharing their story: high school boyfriends, broken teen dreams, and everything else that might entail. In a recent interview with NYLON, the artist spoke to the importance of authenticity in her music noting, “People always ask me, "Oh, did you say fuck in ‘drivers license’ to show that you aren't just a Disney star?" It’s cool that people might think that, but I’m just making music that I love and that I feel passionate about. It’s who I am. I have a dirty mouth.” Rodrigo’s music doesn’t run away from the messy chaos of young adulthood but embraces it, insisting that young women can be angry, sad, crass, confused, and hopeful all at once. The artist sang “fuck” for the same reason she lamented her parking skills: she knows who she is, and she’s not afraid to be loud about it.

Rodrigo is in control not only personally, but artistically: she writes all of her own songs, unlike many of her Disney actress-turned-pop-star predecessors. In this regard her music resembles that of Lorde, who––albeit with a darker, more haunted sound––also used her 2013 debut album Pure Heroine to explore ideas of suburbia, high school party culture, and teenage mental health. Though musically quite different, Rodrigo’s artistry also resembles Billie Eilish in a number of ways: both are teenage singers who write their own music, and whose lyricism pulls from the particular angst of teen girlhood. Earlier this month, Eilish put her own twist on the typical teen girl transformation. Though the 19-year-old singer rose to fame largely from her 2019 hit "bad guy," where she distanced herself from both her literal gender and the sweetness and innocence typically associated with young women, in a recent photoshoot with Vogue, the singer posed in a long blonde wig and delicate pink dress proclaiming: “It’s all about what makes you feel good.”

Sour also recalls much of Taylor Swift’s early discography; Rodrigo makes this influence explicit by sampling Swift on her track “1 step forward, 3 steps back.” Though currently 31 years old, Taylor Swift has also been included in the discourse about teen girl musical agency as of late. In April, Swift released Fearless (Taylor’s Version), a re-recorded version of her 2008 Fearless album in which the 18-year-old reflected on the trials and tribulations of young love in classic hits like “Fifteen” and “You Belong With Me.” Though the decision to re-record her albums was born out of a desire to regain the legal rights to her music from executive producer Scooter Braun, Swift’s public insistence that her “musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it” turned a battle for legal power into a metaphor for creative and personal control. And it worked: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) was critically acclaimed, hitting number one in the U.K. the week it was released.

Though Rodrigo and Swift utilize similar musical motifs such as the growing pains of teenhood and high school heartbreak, the two albums ultimately differ in thesis. Swift’s lyricism often falls into an I’m-not-like-other-girls-esque trap, suggesting that her songs are only special or interesting because they’re about her, specifically. In the music video to her catchy hit “You Belong With Me” for example, Swift insists her crush should dump his girlfriend (also played by Swift) because “She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts / She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers.” In her “deja vu” music video, Rodrigo puts a twist on the classic teen love triangle by blaming her ex for how things went down rather than his new girlfriend (who looks almost identical to Rodrigo.) Lines like “Do you get deja vu when she’s with you? / Do you call her, almost say my name? Cause let’s be honest, we kinda do sound the same,” speak to the universality of certain teen experiences, rather than place Rodrigo on a pedestal. 

The way teenage girls feel—the instinctual honesty, the refreshing lack of irony, the almost-painful sense of urgency—can be beautifully intense. Thanks to Sour, it can also be universal. Rodrigo allows everyone to feel as deeply as she does, and Sour’s success hints at a future where young women in music can find creative and professional success by remaining in control of their story and art.