On September 8th, 2023, Olivia Rodrigo released her new album GUTS. There have been many mixed opinions from fans. It’s not what people were expecting: fans either loved or hated the album.
Rodrigo published a song, “Vampire” on June 30th as a preview to her new album. Just four days later, “Vampire” debuted at #1 on the global Spotify chart with 9.79 million streams. The song drop was her biggest debut yet. Senior Maddy Wright explained that she didn’t love the album overall, but “Vampire” was definitely her favorite song.
With the release of the new album, Rodrigo announced 75 dates for her world tour performance. She is touring all over the United States and Canada. She is even making appearances in the UK, and other countries in Europe.
The album consisted of 12 new tracks, varying between, slower moodier songs, and more upbeat and angry songs. Compared to her first album SOUR, GUTS somewhat moves away from being just a break up album.
Senior Bailey Faudale loved the album and voiced how it lived up to all of her expectations. She describes, “The album has a nice 2000’s vibe. It’s very relatable and very appealing.” GUTS is quite repetitive though with the continuous early 2000’s pop tunes that highlight teenage nostalgia.
A fan favorite song, “All American B*tch,” is a good example of her musical growth. The song starts calmly with her describing an image of perfection, with a peaceful melody in the background. It then quickly switches to show her aggressive, tantrum-like angst.
Senior Anabelle Houston shares, “The album isn’t really what I expected it to be, based on how emotional SOUR was, I thought GUTS would have been more sentimental.” The album had a variety of emotions, but it didn’t connect with people in a meaningful way.
Songs like “Making the Bed” and “Pretty Isn’t Pretty” were said to be “kind of basic and boring.” Sophomore Addie Hunter vocalized, “they sounded like any other song, they didn’t have a unique tune unlike some of her other songs.”
A few songs may be described as boring, but GUTS overall is much more exciting. It’s an album that has complaints, rants, cries, and yells, and realistically shows how it feels to be a teenager in this generation.
