“Good 4 U”. “Drivers License”. “Deja Vu”. “Vampire”. Do these names sound familiar? Olivia Rodrigo is a singer-songwriter whose singing career has taken off ever since her first single, “Drivers License”, dropped on January 8, 2021. She is the artist of all those songs as well as 20 others.
Olivia started her singing debut as a co-star in the Disney series, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, where she sang many songs the most popular of which is, “All I Want”. At 15, her career in singing was just getting started.
17 years old, Olivia Rodrigo was topping Billboard charts with her hit single, “Drivers License”.
“Olivia Rodrigo is a rockstar version of Taylor Swift. She’s everything Taylor Swift is but better.”, said sophomore, James Banister. Currently, his favorite song of hers is “Vampire”.
SOUR and GUTS are Olivia’s two albums. SOUR is her first album containing 11 tracks and GUTS has 12 tracks. Each album was preceded by a hit single. SOUR was preceded by her most popular song still, with 4.2 million page views, “Drivers License”. Guts was preceded by “Vampire”. Each of these singles gave her fans a little taste of what was to come in the albums that would follow.
While Olivia Rodrigo has become quite popular, not everyone is a fan. Brylee Davis, a senior, said, “I don’t like her she’s overhyped.” If Brylee had to choose a song it would be “Good 4 U”, but she thinks that it is overplayed.
Whether you’re a fan or not, Olivia Rodrigo is taking the musical world by storm. She has received many awards for her talents including, Peoples Choice Award for Favorite Album in 2021 with her SOUR album, Billboard Music Award for Top Female Artist in 2022, Billboard Music Award for Top Hot 100 Artist in 2022, Brit Award for International Song of the Year in 2022, and many more.
So what makes her so popular? “Her authenticity, her honest talent and her unabashed presentation of emotions sticks with her listeners and sets a new standard for the music industry,” said Lila Hovey, a journalist at The Dartmouth.