Teenage Dreams Grow Up
The delicious anger contained in Olivia Rodrigo's "GUTS" evokes the mixed-up emotions of girlhood and beyond.
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The first time I listened to Olivia Rodrigo’s “All-American Bitch,” it felt like someone had reached into my body and squeezed my insides.
Rodrigo sings with aching clarity about twisting herself into knots to perform femininity: Be desirable and inviting (I’m grateful all the time / I’m sexy and I’m kind). Make your emotions palatable for public consumption (I’m pretty when I cry). Subsume your anger (I don't get angry when I'm pissed / I'm the eternal optimist/ I scream inside to deal with it). Aaaaahhhhh! Aaaaahhhhh! Aaaaahhhhh!
One song into the 20-year-old star’s sophomore album, I knew “GUTS” was going to be a pop-rock, alt-girl triumph.
I am admittedly not a Music Person™ — there are many skilled and expert music journalists, some of whose writing I’ve linked below — but I am a big Feelings Person. And damn does “GUTS” make you FEEL. I think that explains the many tweets and memes about being a “teenage girl in your twenties” (or thirties or forties or fifties).
Becoming is painful — who you are, who you want to be, and who you don’t. We are constantly evolving, trying to understand past versions of ourselves even as we are in the midst of becoming a future version.
Young women exit childhood into a minefield of gendered expectations. You’re constantly told that you have your best years ahead of you, but the pressure behind these expectations of greatness can be crushing. Your body is suddenly the site of observation, critique, and objectification — a flimsy kind of power and also completely terrifying. (As Margot Robbie’s character observes in the “Barbie” movie, the male gaze zeroed in on young women often contains “undertones of violence.”) You’re trying to figure out what you want — professionally, romantically, sexually — and you will inevitably experience disappointment and rejection on all counts along the way. It’s enough to make you scream, on the inside or otherwise.
One of the victories of “GUTS” is that Rodrigo doesn’t shy away from her own imperfections; the mixed up, messed up ways she reacts to the challenges of becoming. She nurses poisonous jealousies on “The Grudge” (It takes strength to forgive / But I don’t feel strong) and “Lacy” (I despise my rotten mind / And how much it worships you). She grapples with whether to go back, just for a night, to an ex she knows is terrible on “Bad Idea Right?” “Yes, I know that he’s my ex / But can’t two people reconnect?” she asks, already knowing the answer. She loves and loathes at the same time on “Get Him Back!” (I wanna kiss his face / with an uppercut / I wanna meet his mom / and tell her her son sucks).
In short, she’s a fully-formed human being — not just the public’s idealized teenage dream.
As you age out of the tyrannical 30 under 30 list years, the angst, the pain, the jealousy, the simultaneous desire to conform to and rage against stifling cultural expectations, of your teenage years still linger. They mature and they shape-shift, and hopefully we find better ways to cope with them, but they’re always accessible just below the surface.
They all say that it gets better / It gets better the more you grow / They all say that it gets better/ It gets better but what if I don’t?
Part of the appeal of “GUTS” to women my age — the micro-generation of millennials once known as Gen Y — is the way it feels reminiscent of the music of our youth. The Riot Grrrl pop-punk rock vibes of Bikini Kill, the power of Alanis Morisette, the angst of Avril Lavigne, with a side order of Green Day and Blink-182.
As Carrie Battan put it in her review for the New Yorker, much of Rodrigo’s music “sounds like the soundtrack to an early-two-thousands teen drama, each line delivered with an eye roll.” (Personally, I think Kat Stratford from “10 Things I Hate About You” would have been into “GUTS” despite its mass popularity — and yes I know that movie came out in ‘99, but that’s when teen movies peaked.)
In “Teenage Dream,” Rodrigo wonders when she’ll stop being “great for my age, and just start being good.” I’d say the time for greatness — period, no caveats required — is now.
“GUTS” is the kind of album that you want to blast on high, and scream-sing along to alone in your living room. It’s 39 minutes and 18 seconds of rip-your-chest-open, emotional catharsis. And fuck, it feels good.
More things to read about Olivia Rodrigo:
for “Olivia Rodrigo’s Star-Making Guts,” Carrie Battan, New Yorker
“Olivia Rodrigo Is So Over Heartbreak,” Angie Martoccio, Rolling Stone
“Olivia Rodrigo Has Seen The World and Now She’s Livid,” Jon Caramanica, New York Time
“Olivia Rodrigo Crushes the Expectations and Delivers Another Witty, Pissed-Off Classic,” Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
“The Problem Olivia Rodrigo Can’t Solve,” Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic
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As someone who feels largely emotionally removed from the person I was from ages 16-21 most of the time, Olivia’s music transports me back in a way that feels very raw but also safe(?). It allows me to explore the ways I felt about boys I dated, and girls I envied, in a way that feels validating and freeing (even if it means I have had no unique experiences lmao).