Album Review: Olivia Rodrigo Wants You to Ditch Your Gaslighting Ex-Boyfriend on ‘GUTS’

Olivia Rodrigo started her music career in a blaze of glory, releasing “drivers license” to critical acclaim alongside her freshman debut SOUR. Now, the singer has taken a more mature, stylized approach to her new release, GUTS. 

Written by Rachel Joy Thomas

Photo courtesy of Geffen Records

When Olivia Rodrigo first released “drivers license,” she couldn’t have predicted its immense popularity, critical acclaim, and widespread use across TikTok and Twitter. The unexpected hit circulated the internet like a new driver looking for a parking spot, garnering the support of a previously acquired loyal Disney fanbase and a new group of angst-driven teens. Continuing her success, Rodrigo released her freshman album, SOUR, to continued popularity. The freshman record made an impression at the 2022 Grammy’s, with Rodrigo gathering three trophies for her debut, including Best New Artist. 

Two years after “drivers license,” Rodrigo took to social media to announce a new album with animated, punchier songs. Rodrigo stated the album has a double meaning, saying “‘Spill your guts'. 'Hate your guts'. It means bravery, but it also means intuition, like listen to your gut.” Aptly titled, the album takes a more graphic, explicit approach to expressing the insights Rodrigo gathered from new relationships and soured appetites for old flames, while simultaneously struggling with that wisdom. 

Announcing lead singles “vampire” and “bad idea right?” before its official debut, Rodrigo teased two sides of GUTS that encompass the rest of the release. Rodrigo first released “vampire,” a tried and true power ballad, to critical acclaim. With a simplistic string of piano chords in F major, she quickly builds up the song, increasing gravity as she sings heartbreaking lyrics about the subsequent end of a relationship. Rejecting her doe-eyed manner in a relationship with an ex-lover, she chastises herself for trusting and caring for another while asking, “How do you lie / How do you lie / How do you lie?” further building momentum while incorporating synthesizers and electronic drum sets to a deafening conclusion.  

In contrast, the album's second single, “bad idea right?” showed a more cheeky and messy side of Rodrigo’s multi-faceted persona. Almost ignoring the agony of “vampire,” “bad idea right?” laments as Rodrigo warms up to someone whom she knows isn’t the best company. She asks herself rhetorically, “Seeing you tonight / It’s a bad idea right?” before caving to her overbearing attraction to her shitty ex.

The thematic mix on Rodrigo's new album exemplifies the battle between conflicting emotions in a breakup. Often, the songs flip from longing to gleeful anger on the tracklist, cleverly reflecting the back-and-forth nature of Rodrigo’s relationship with her subject. 

Her strongest songs lean into the teenage penchant for cynicism, including upbeat tracks “get him back!” “all-american bitch” and “love is embarrassing,” which delve into more explicit vulgarity and invigorating revenge fantasy. For instance, in “all-american bitch,” Rodrigo sings, “I'm a perfect all-American bitch / With perfect all-American lips / And perfect all-American hips,” a reference to Joan Didion’s book, The White Album. With scathing sarcasm, Didion pokes fun at the idea of a perfect woman — a societal standard that Rodrigo knows all too well and explores later on GUTS. The song cuts its lyrics with screams to root out any “negative” thoughts and while inherently negative, it mocks society's patriarchal standards by pretending to conform to them. 

Photo courtesy of Zamar Velez

“Lacy” offers an exciting and potentially homoerotic perspective in the form of a soft ballad. As a refreshing mix between envy and love, Rodrigo muses on an obsession with the beautiful Lacy, breathily singing, “Lacy, oh, Lacy, I just loathe you lately / And I despise my jealous eyes and how hard they fell for you.”Rodrigo plays up her anguish over the “"Bardot reincarnate” that’s caused her such ire. While not specifically naming who “Lacy” refers to, fans have speculated that the song could be about Sabrina Carpenter. While an introspective theory on the illusive “Lacy,” the mix of envy and blinding idolization also can be interpreted as a love-song.

“Ballad of a homeschooled girl” delves into the angst and social anxiety of the typical teenage experience. Commenting on the difficulty Rodrigo feels fitting in, it emphasizes various mistakes Rodrigo makes, saying “I told secrets I shouldn't tell / I stumbled over all my words / I made it weird, I made it worse.” “Ballad of a homeschooled girl” feels like a deep dive into the most prominent insecurities Rodrigo faces, both in the spotlight and as a regular girl living in an intricate world filled with social pitfalls. As a reference to the popular 2004 movie, “Mean Girls,” Rodrigo sings “Each time I step outside, it's social suicide / It's social suicide, wanna curl up and die.” 

Deeply introspective yet reflective of the teenage girl experience, “pretty isn’t pretty” transports listeners into a 2010s teen movie. With lyrics like “When pretty isn't pretty enough, what do you do? / And everybody's keepin' it up, so you think it's you,” the song pairs well the general ambiance of 2000s movies especially with the summery yet contemplative chorus alongside the flowy strumming of an acoustic guitar. The poignant lyrics identify the feeling of inadequacy to a tee that’s often described before the magic transformation. This time, though, there’s no transition, only the deep contemplative feeling of a girl who doesn’t feel pretty. Thoughtful yet simplistic in lyrics, it represents the lonesome angst of someone experiencing the brutality of a judgemental world and slowly succumbing to it. Rodrigo asks, “When pretty isn’t pretty enough / What do you do?” 

The album, with its variety of fun songs alongside melancholy, deafening anthems, does have weak points. Tracks like “logical” and “teenage dream” feel like steps back toward her previous era because of their excessively cheesy lyrics and more juvenile themes. To put it bluntly, if you put other songs like “vampire“ and “the grudge“ in a playlist with some SOUR songs, you may be unable to tell where SOUR ends and GUTS begins. 

It’s not inherently problematic that Rodrigo hasn’t shifted away from her core audience or changed her music. Challenging the notion that feminine artists must enter new ‘eras,’ Rodrigo notably stuck with her signature purple motif, sporting a familiar album cover and similarly stylized album title alongside all lowercase song titles. As a notably consistent pop-rock star, Rodrigo performs better on her more expressive, punk-leaning songs featured on GUTS than those overwhelmingly similar to her freshman album. There’s something more attractive about an artist's fun, exuberant confidence coming into her snappy style than continuing the status quo.  

If SOUR was an impressionable high schooler whose shady ex crushed their heart for the first time, GUTS is a college freshman stepping into a frat party for the first time, seeing that same infamous ex wave at them from the messy kitchen. In a sense, Rodrigo’s personality feels more knowledgeable regarding the mistakes of love affairs and subsequent heartbreak, but she’s still a little messy, just like her audience. Relatable, potent, and reliably cohesive, GUTS is a suitable, albeit extremely similar-sounding sequel to SOUR in every way.