Gaining fame from her career on Disney channel and eventually releasing “SOUR” in May 2021, Olivia Rodrigo came out with her second album, “GUTS,” on Sept. 8, 2023. The album has a tracklist of 12 songs, and her single “vampire” hit number one on the Billboard Top 100 in July 2023 when the track was released.
Rodrigo shows a lot of versatility throughout this album as sonically, this album contains both ballads and rock songs. Rodrigo provides her fans with a sad “breakup album” with “SOUR” but “GUTS” represents the aftermath of a breakup and relatable topics that she didn’t get to cover through “SOUR.”
The second track in the album, “bad idea right?,” was released as a single on Aug. 11 2023, and delivers fans with a glimpse of all of her true “spilled guts” compared to the sour feeling she had due to heartbreak. I loved how this song allows for listeners to clearly tell in the beginning of the album how “GUTS” differs from “SOUR.”
The fourth track in the album, “lacy,” is an extremely vulnerable song as Rodrigo shows her insecurities, jealousy and her urge to compare herself to all the “perfect” women in the world. Rodrigo shows her envy to be “lacy” through the lyric “the sweetest torture one could bear.” Fans debate the true meaning of the song and who Rodrigo could be referring to when she sings about “lacy” but I think that it is truly a metaphor for how easy it is to envy women and how throughout life, there will always be a “lacy” present. I really love this song as Rodrigo consistently has a soft and almost hesitant tone throughout the song and it establishes how even successful pop stars such as Rodrigo feel jealousy.
My favorite track on the album is “making the bed” as it encapsulates how quickly Rodrigo became a popstar and how overwhelming it all had felt for her. It beautifully elucidates how even with the life that Rodrigo has and how much fame she has received, she still struggles with all the negative sides of being in the music industry and it truly represents how young Rodrigo is and how much she is compared to other talented music artists (despite her being much younger than them).
Rodrigo ends the album with “teenage dream” which reflects back onto a track from her previous album, “brutal” as she references what a “teenage dream” is once again. “Got your whole life ahead of you, you’re only 19” illustrates how Rodrigo worries about hitting her peak so young and the worry of not succeeding and not being a “teenage dream” as she “fear[s] that they already got all the best parts of [her].”
Essentially, Rodrigo has gotten positive feedback after releasing “GUTS.” Rodrigo has announced that she is going on a world tour that begins on Feb. 23, 2024 in Palm Springs, California.
*Editor’s note: Hannah Thompson is a student writer. All views expressed in the commentary are her own and are independent of the district, Rouse High School and the publication.