From ballads to her further exploration of pop-rock, Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS album is her latest searing musical journal.
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When Olivia Rodrigo named her new album GUTS, she wasn’t kidding. The highly-anticipated sophomore album of the Fil-Am superstar sees her figuratively spill out her guts as she reflects and looks back on her life in the past two years. From dealing with anxiety to reflections on an ex who mistreated her, Olivia goes in with her trademark unbridled honesty through songwriting and the bold originality of her sound. This is a step forward for a young woman who was thrust into the spotlight at a young age and isn’t afraid to share what many young people go through.
In twelve songs and 39 minutes, she had us going through it. And while all the tracks spoke to us, we chose our favorites from the LP that just hit differently and may well be essential listening to understand the vibe of GUTS. Here are six tracks of the album that did what needed to be done.
LACY
With a guitar mainly backing her, Olivia tickles the ears in this acoustic track as she sings to a figurative “lacy”. The song sees Olivia narrate how seemingly perfect lacy is and how her life feels like it’s running towards everything lacy has. While some may see the figure of this song as a real person, it can also speak to our anxieties and desires of wanting something we feel makes us better, even if that isn’t the case.
MAKING THE BED
The struggle of feeling as if the entire world is against you, yet you wake up every day doing what you gotta do to survive is real. And Olivia puts that into song with this tender rock ballad about the pressures of life. As Olivia notes, there are times when our lives feel like they don’t make sense or our backs are against the wall, but we still have to make our bed because no one else is going to do it for us.
LOGICAL
Olivia’s pen was penning when she co-wrote this song. As seen in vampire, a good portion of this album revolves around Olivia’s breakup with an older man and the ensuing fallout. And logical is a masterful exploration of that. As with any toxic relationship, Olivia narrates in this piano ballad how she turned her world upside down for a man when, in hindsight, the relationship never made sense. As much as we avoid it, there are times when we fall prey to a kind of love that blinds us to reality or seeing that something is not right. And don’t get us started on that bridge.
THE GRUDGE
With betrayal and breakup eventually comes acceptance and moving on. But reaching that phase can be grueling. This is what Olivia touches on in this oh-so-relatable track of how having that baddie persona on the outside doesn’t always translate to being in a healthy place emotionally. As she sings, “It takes strength to forgive, but I’m not that strong.” the grudge is Olivia’s ode to the struggle of forgiving the pain your ex caused you, especially when it cuts deep.
PRETTY ISN’T PRETTY
Olivia has been lauded for making music that speaks to what many Gen Z go through. Such is the case with the penultimate tracks of GUTS. Like with the tongue-and-cheek all-american bitch, Olivia calls out toxic and unrealistic standards. We are often bombarded with messages of how we need to look a certain way to be accepted to the point where we end up warping who we are. Olivia isn’t here for that mess as she makes it known the damage this kind of mentality can do and how, at the end of the day, you will still be compared to an even higher standard.
TEENAGE DREAM
In brutal, Olivia asked where her teenage dream was. In the final song of the LP, she lays down the stark terms of what the teenage dream currently looks like for her and many others. Starting with a piano before closing out with a sizzling rock instrumental, Olivia hits the nail on the head the anxieties many of us face in a world that can often be unwelcoming. This song is realer and real as she closes out her sophomore effort wondering if life won’t get better as she gets older.
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