Olivia Rodrigo has taken over the world with her pop-rock songs and purple-butterfly aesthetic and is now the ‘it girl’ that every teenage girl in their 20s can relate to. Yes, you heard right, girls in their 20s are teenage girls, and Rodrigo is the perfect example of why we still are.
It’s the way that she’s in her own little world making music about a ‘loser not worth mentioning’ and how hard it is growing up as a girl that made so many fans fall in love with the pop sensation. The 20-year-old singer is what every girl needs, and we’re here to tell you why.
“God, it’s brutal out here.”
“Brutal,” by Olivia Rodrigo
How She Gained Recognition and Sour
Rodrigo gained recognition for her lead role in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. It’s where she met the infamous Joshua Bassett. Long story short, Rodrigo and Bassett ended up dating and broke up when Rodrigo posted a TikTok of her lip-singing her song “All I Want” from the series. She posted this after Bassett was seen with Sabrina Carpenter, causing rumors about their relationship status.
This is how the Grammy-award-winning song “Drivers License” came to be. It’s a song about a guy moving on quickly and choosing the blonde girl. What made fans fall in love with this song is because of how raw it is. So many girls are able to relate to not being the blonde girl and feeling like they’re not enough because they don’t have those features.
From her debut album, Sour, there are plenty of songs that encapsulate the shared experiences that many of us 20-something-year-olds go through. The album starts with “Brutal,” which sounds pretty in the beginning, but then goes into a hard guitar sound, which is what being a teen entails.
It’s the “they say these are the golden years, but I wish they could disappear” that made everyone say, ‘Yeah, I felt that.’ It’s a song that describes the rage and angst teenage girls feel. Plus, what teenage girl in their 20s can parallel park?
“And I’m not cool, and I’m not smart. And I can’t even parallel park.”
“Brutal,” by Olivia Rodrigo
After her song ‘Brutal,’ it goes into songs of betrayal from a significant other and reminiscing about old memories that have turned bitter. This leads us to the next song, “good 4 u.”
It’s the song where all the girls scream the lyrics at the top of their lungs and dance the rage out. The song is sarcasm at its best and shares the story of feeling great that your ex has moved on, and it’s so evident that he has, but you’re still not fine. In other words, the perfect song to scream to feel better.
Another song from Rodrigo’s debut album that many teenage girls in their 20s love is “jealousy, jealousy.” This song is probably one of the biggest reasons why so many young women and girls became fans of her. “Jealousy, jealousy” is the song that explains the comparisons women and girls make with others on social media. Her line, “I think I think too much, about kids who don’t know me,” resonated with so many fans because it’s true. People do worry too much about how they’re being perceived, and it doesn’t help when you see society push out standards of how you’re supposed to be.
How Guts Changed Lives
If you think fans and girls couldn’t love her much more than that, then you’re wrong! Her sophomore album, Guts, is another piece of art that made the girls feel seen. This album is definitely more on the rock side, and the songs are something you would hear in an early 2000s coming-of-age movie. It has songs about feeling over heartbreak and wanting revenge, but also about being vulnerable and feeling like you’re not enough.
‘Vampire’ was the first single of her sophomore album, and let me tell you, the girls lived for it. Even if you’re unable to relate to her situation of feeling used, you could still feel her pain and agony. I mean, the line, “I’ve made some real big mistakes, but you made the worst one look fine,” was the line that hit the hardest. Young girls and women also loved that she used Twilight as inspo and promo for this song because who isn’t obsessed with Twilight?
‘Making the bed’ is another song that many fans love because, while the storyline is about Rodrigo feeling like a “tourist attraction” and not realizing the extremes of fame, we can all relate to the lines “I’m so tired of being the girl that I am” and “every good thing has turned into something I dread.” I mean, what better way to describe the life of a teenage girl in her 20s?
Being a girl is hard, and we all have those moments where the things we once enjoyed become something we dread doing. Rodrigo makes girls feel seen by sharing her experiences of pushing loved ones away and “playing the victim so well” in our heads. But of course, in the end, it is us who make the bed.
Rodrigo also gives the girls songs like “logical” where she introduces us to the “master manipulator” and “get him back!” by telling us she wants to “meet his mom just to tell her that her son sucks.”
We then get into “Love is Embarrassing,” the song that reminds us of all the cringy things we’ve done in the name of “love.” Olivia explains this shared experience so well, waiting by your phone for him to respond and thinking he’s the one after knowing him for a month. It’s about romanticizing and dreaming of ‘the one,’ but then reality kicks in, and you notice that he actually has someone else. How embarrassing, isn’t it?
She closes the album with “teenage dream,” which is the best song to end it off because she questions when she’ll be good enough for what she is. There are many expectations that young women face, and sometimes don’t want to go above and beyond to meet them. We all know that the age of 19 is one of the hardest. You’re still a teen but on the edge of being an adult.
Rodrigo fears that the world has seen the best parts of her, something most girls feel, and this doubt that they share becomes a bond of musician and fans that all go through the same things: insecure feelings, heartbreak, revenge, but then self-love.
Olivia Rodrigo has taken over the world with her angsty songs that many teenage girls in their 20s love. Her craft has turned many people into fans of her. Fans see her as a sister, cousin, and friend. Rodrigo shares stories that are relatable to many, and that’s what made the world fall in love with her.