By, Natalie Tye
After SOUR, Olivia Rodrigo was faced with an expected mountain to climb. Many potential pop legends have lost their name to time, suffering from the infamous “sophomore slump,” a term coined from the constant instances in music history of one-hit wonders and early high expectations that led to famed falls. With the release of GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo proves to the world she’s staying in power.
Right off the bat, GUTS feels reminiscent of an early 2000s coming-of-age film. The tracks “all-american b***h” and “bad idea right?” send the listener off to the races of their own imaginary 19-year old lives. They create a dizzying atmosphere with the ever-changing beat and the lyrical imagery of a teen teetering on the edge of doing something crazy. We’re almost 6 minutes in, right past blaring electric guitar solos and discussions about accidentally-but-not-actually hooking up with an ex, and it’s already apparent Rodrigo never intended to make a SOUR 2.0. GUTS breaks the cookie-cutter pop mold Rodrigo perfected on SOUR, carving its own unique path towards teen rock greatness.
GUTS takes a temporary pause with “vampire” and “lacy” to explain some of the not-so-bright moments in Rodrigo’s recent history. The suddenly silenced crescendos in “vampire” mixed with the stripped-back softness in “lacy” tell the tale of a girl who has been both deceived by love and deceives herself into not feeling worthy of it.
After a quick energy revitalizer in “ballad of a homeschooled girl” (which contains some of the more humorous outlooks on love, like “Every guy I like is gay”), we return to an introspective side of Rodrigo with “making the bed,” a standout on the album. “making the bed” shows Rodrigo questioning where her motivations went, reflecting the experiences of many teens growing older and realizing they don’t find happiness in what they used to (see: overjustification effect, the phenomenon where an activity you enjoy becomes less fun after being rewarded for it).
The back half of the album begins with “logical,” a ballad that feels like a rejected draft from SOUR, and thus the weakest song on the album for me. It is also, unfortunately, the song that caused me to see how unnecessarily long some of GUTS’ outros are, with this one in particular rounding out near 4 minutes.
Things ramp up again soon with the bouncy tracks “get him back!” and “love is embarrassing,” with the first perhaps stumbling a bit through a rocky outro that reminded me of a Kidz Bop choir. “the grudge” puts Rodrigo’s budding lyrical relatability in the driver’s seat, as the listener relives with her the love that made her doubt love as a whole.
“pretty isn’t pretty” and “teenage dream” close it out with a demonstration of the highs and lows of this record. Where “pretty isn’t pretty” fails to feel like anything more than a 2000s soft rock copycat with a message that I’ve heard before, “teenage dream” takes the reins and reintroduces the listener to the heart of the album: a 19-year-old girl who runs life a little sideways. This song serves as a reminder through the chaotic upbeat sound that there is a new adult warily starting to find her place in the world.
With the roaring success and popularity of this album, Rodrigo manages to not just avoid the sophomore slump, but make people question why they ever doubted her return in the first place. It is with that I say adieu to GUTS and pray her next album comes descending from the pop heavens sometime soon.
