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0:40

You're listening to Intuit from Vulture in New

0:42

York Magazine. I'm Sam Sanders. To

0:46

start this episode, let's go

0:48

back a bit to deep

0:50

pandemic. There

0:53

were a lot of before and afters during

0:55

the pandemic. The pandemic

0:58

itself was actually kind

1:00

of the before and after. But

1:02

in terms of pop culture, one of

1:04

my biggest before and after moments

1:07

during those years of pandemic life, it

1:11

was Olivia Rodrigo. ♪ I

1:16

got my driver's license

1:19

last week ♪ ♪ Just like we always

1:21

talked about ♪

1:23

One week I had never heard of her. And

1:25

then the next week, I couldn't stop singing

1:28

her song.

1:29

♪ But today I drove through the suburbs ♪

1:33

♪ Crying because you weren't around ♪

1:37

I mean, that was all driver's license. That

1:39

was the driver's license effect. This is Lindsay

1:41

Zoladz. She's a pop music critic at

1:43

the New York Times.

1:44

That song dropped

1:46

at a moment where everybody

1:50

was just still sitting

1:52

alone in their house, their

1:54

apartment. I don't know what wave

1:57

of COVID that was, Omicron or wherever

1:59

we were. And then Olivia's like, I'm

2:02

gonna help you scream. Let's go

2:13

So if we just hadn't really had a Breakout

2:17

out of nowhere star in a really

2:19

long time as she came You

2:21

know at least for people of

2:24

our generation as out of nowhere as you

2:26

possibly could she Was the

2:29

star or one of the stars of the

2:31

show high school musical the

2:33

musical the series I can't always

2:36

laugh whenever anyone says it. Let's try to get high

2:38

school musical the musical

2:41

the series Yeah, it would

2:43

be insane to think I might actually

2:45

have a shot at playing Gabriella.

2:46

I know even though I'd never

2:48

heard of this show I Love

2:54

drivers license and it was everywhere

2:56

on tick-tock on the radio on

2:58

Spotify It was even the subject

3:01

of an SNL sketch

3:07

I

3:26

There were two surprises one

3:28

is you know the initial surprise of drivers

3:30

license, you know and you're kind of like

3:33

is this gonna be a one-hit

3:34

wonder thing and The

3:36

second part of the surprise is just oh,

3:38

this wasn't a fluke. It's all good.

3:40

She has jams So

3:51

Olivia Rodrigo's second album

3:53

guts is out today and

3:56

I'm wondering in this moment brutal

3:59

out here How did she surprise

4:01

us so much before and

4:03

can she do it again? Was

4:05

sour and driver's license a fluke

4:09

or is Olivia really tailor

4:11

or Atlantis levels of a star? with

4:13

real staying power This

4:17

episode we ask all those questions and

4:20

take a closer look at this artist who

4:22

manages to be both quiet

4:24

and loud Young and old

4:26

at heart and a former Disney

4:29

child star who writes and sings

4:31

lyrics like these

4:44

Happy Olivia Rodrigo

4:46

week. Oh, yeah every week is

4:48

Olivia Rodrigo week Especially

4:50

this one. Yeah. Yeah I

4:55

Was telling you this before we officially started

4:57

but I remember hearing driver's license

4:59

being like, okay good for you big

5:02

song But the moment I knew

5:04

that Olivia was a force

5:07

was the second single called

5:10

deja-vu And

5:13

it was so nostalgic and there was

5:15

a depth and just layers

5:17

to the production and songwriting There's

5:20

this moment in the first verse where

5:22

the background vocals come in as

5:25

if they're laughing and singing at the same

5:27

time and it corresponds to the

5:29

lyrics in that moment It

5:37

was just chills this wasn't dumb stuff

5:39

everything she was doing was really smart Yeah

5:42

And I think that I love the

5:44

production on that song in the interplay between

5:46

as they're saying her vocals and

5:49

the production like it's creating this sort

5:52

of internal universe of Olivia

5:55

Rodrigo psyche that we're just like living

5:57

in in inhabiting this song and

7:26

Big

8:00

of a deal as Taylor Swift. Critics

8:02

loved it too. With all

8:04

that, how hard is

8:06

it going to be for Olivia Rodrigo

8:09

to live up to the expectations on

8:11

this sophomore album? Yeah, well,

8:14

there's a reason they call it the sophomore

8:16

slump. It's the big curse, you know, the

8:18

scariest thing for an artist, especially

8:21

with a whole album that

8:24

was embraced the way that it was. Like, sour

8:27

has become,

8:29

you know, it

8:30

is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

8:32

You know what it feels a lot like? And

8:35

we'll talk about it more in a bit. It feels

8:38

a lot like the way Jagged Little Pill

8:41

was its own entire thing.

8:45

I'm broke, but I'm happy.

8:47

I'm poor, but I'm kind.

8:50

Yes, I loved You Oughta

8:52

Know. Yes, I loved One

8:54

Hand in My Pocket. But what I want

8:56

most with that album is to play it top to bottom.

8:59

And it felt like sour gave that to people. Yeah,

9:02

there was a lot of comparing it to

9:04

Jagged Little Pill. You know, that was a hard

9:07

one for Alanis to follow up

9:09

to. Oh, yeah. You're kind of,

9:12

once you have that success at the gate, especially

9:14

as a sort of precocious young

9:16

woman, and all of the pitfalls

9:19

in the industry that that suggests

9:22

it's really hard to follow

9:24

something up like that. But I think

9:26

she has a really good shot of actually doing

9:28

it because she's released,

9:31

I think, two of the best singles of the year in

9:34

the lead up through this new record.

9:36

So okay, let's talk about those

9:38

two new singles. Yeah, tell our listeners

9:42

what they are and what they sound like to you. So

9:44

first we get Vampair, which

9:51

begins as though it's going to be driver's

9:53

license part two, it's got the real melodramatic

9:56

sparse piano arrangement.

9:59

This added action

10:01

that's getting you to do it now has the

10:03

casual build of

10:04

people you pretend to care about just

10:06

what you wanted. But then it

10:09

really builds to something else

10:11

beginning in the second verse. It becomes like-

10:13

A different song. Unless it's like rock opera

10:15

song. Yeah. Every girl

10:17

I ever talked to told me, you were

10:19

bad guys and you called them crazy. God,

10:21

I hate the way I called them crazy too.

10:24

There's a real driving

10:25

force to it. Some really

10:28

fun rock percussion and just

10:31

the melodrama. She's

10:43

telling off this older

10:45

ex of hers that was using

10:48

her for her fame and all sorts

10:50

of barbed lyrics

10:53

that I'm not sure if I'm allowed to quote

10:55

or not. The

10:58

single's already out, you can quote it. Well, she always

11:00

has a way with a curse word. Which

11:03

lyric did you like the best? Well, she calls the guy

11:05

a fame fucker. A fame fucker,

11:07

please lead me dry like a goddamn

11:10

vampire.

11:10

Baby.

11:14

Baby. First I heard that. She calls him a fame

11:16

fucker, then calls him a vampire. And it's like, damn,

11:18

you are not over this man. You're

11:21

not. No. But I love

11:23

that song. I love, you know, I think you pointed out

11:25

before something that I think really

11:28

sets her apart from a lot of her peers

11:30

making, you know, sort of the bedroom

11:33

pop, like more kind

11:35

of quiet

11:35

music is that

11:38

she can really sing in this like musical

11:40

theater way. Yeah. You know, so there's

11:42

a really awesome moment in the

11:44

lead up to the chorus of vampire where

11:47

it's this escalating melody. Like you're

11:49

kind of singing along to an Olivia

11:51

Rodrigo song and then you get to a place where you're

11:53

like, oh wow, I can't hit that note. I can't do it anymore. Because

11:56

you can.

12:05

And she always kind of has that in her back pocket.

12:08

Like she's kind of stealthily a

12:10

really strong singer. Yeah. And

12:12

he's busted out like when she needs to hit that note, but

12:15

then can also like dial it back in this way.

12:17

A lot of these songs like Vampire, they

12:20

start out bedroom pop and she's singing softly

12:22

like all the bedroom pop girlies. And

12:25

then in the middle of the bridge or the

12:27

pre-chorus, she walks to

12:29

the front yard, leaves the bedroom and

12:31

starts yelling at her neighbor. And you're

12:34

like, yes girl.

12:49

What's the other single? How do we feel about that one?

12:52

I love the other one too. And again,

12:55

like the lead up to Sour, it's just

12:57

these two totally different registers

12:59

of hers. So we get Vampire

13:01

and then we get Bad Idea,

13:03

right? Which

13:04

is probably the most fun song

13:07

she's put out to date.

13:11

It's this really bouncy,

13:14

slightly self-deprecating.

13:15

It feels

13:18

like Brutal, which is the opening track on Sour.

13:21

And like this kind of sing talking that she

13:23

does is very brutal energy.

13:33

Brutal, I think is the sort of like primal

13:35

scream about like teen angst

13:37

and how teens are

13:38

depicted by adults in the

13:40

media and everything else. And Bad

13:42

Idea, right, feels

13:44

different for her because it's

13:46

this tale of her, you know,

13:49

making her mistakes, so to speak. It's

13:51

the tale of her hooking up with an ex, basically. And

13:54

also, sidebar, that's not a mistake.

13:56

That's just the way the world goes. Olivia, don't

13:59

hold that over your head. We've all been

14:01

there. That's being 20 years old. Come on.

14:03

It's being 39 years old

14:18

You know there I think that song is really fun

14:20

and Again, the sonic

14:23

palette of it is both in

14:25

her lane that we've come to expect but pulling from

14:27

these like New things too.

14:30

Like you said, there's almost this like speak sing

14:32

kind of like cheerleader chant quality to

14:35

it But it kind of sounds like

14:37

it could have been in like an early aunts

14:39

teen movie But there's this real rock edge

14:42

to it as well. I think

14:44

it's a really exciting Song

14:46

and like just proves that again. She's I

14:49

don't think she's trying to chase Trends

14:51

in the way that you might think

14:53

Someone following up

14:56

a successful debut like that would be

14:58

like it feels like she still just sounds very

15:00

much like herself

15:06

Stay with us we get into why Olivia

15:08

Rodrigo is a lowercase girl

15:11

with caps lock feelings That's after

15:13

the break. Also, if you enjoy this

15:15

show give us a rating and a review. We

15:17

appreciate it You know the drill. Thanks.

15:20

Love you mean it

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16:33

Something that you wrote in your review of

16:36

Sour that I think carries over

16:38

to these two new singles we've heard

16:40

from the new album, it was

16:43

you calling Olivia a quote, lowercase

16:45

girl with caps lock feelings.

16:49

I love that. Define that. Explain

16:52

that.

16:52

I love it so.

16:53

Thank you. I mean, I think it's a

16:55

little bit of what we were at least

16:58

on the musical level, what we

17:00

were talking about before of this way she's

17:02

able to sort of calibrate

17:05

her voice. And

17:08

I think there is, especially

17:10

at the time that her last

17:12

record came out a few years ago, there

17:14

really was a sense that like the big

17:17

pop hits were getting quieter

17:19

and there's the sense, you know, it's the Billie Eilish

17:21

era.

17:26

It's Taylor Swift going for it. There

17:34

was a quieting down. Who

17:36

was the one where I was like, okay, I guess you can make

17:38

a whole album like this. Claro. Yeah.

17:41

God bless it. Very lowercase. Yeah,

17:48

like there was this kind of scaling back sometimes

17:50

like it can get a little boring you're

17:53

just only working in that palette. I

17:56

love that Olivia knows when to kick it up

17:58

and to hit the

17:59

the caps lock and just really start

18:02

felt things, start getting a little extreme

18:04

and excessive and loud. And

18:06

I think that that dynamism,

18:09

like you hear it in her songs, but I think

18:11

it's true as like the emotional

18:14

disclosure of her songs too.

18:24

She was sort of holding back at times

18:26

and I, you know, this is what I felt

18:28

when I was in the relationship, but now I feel

18:31

this and I think that's fun to

18:33

kind of toggle back and forth that way. Like you never

18:35

really know what to expect from her.

18:57

We should talk here now about

18:59

what I think might be a reason

19:09

Olivia

19:12

feels so nostalgic for

19:15

folks my age. I'm 39. She

19:18

has a co-producer and co-writer who was

19:21

about my age. His name is Dan

19:23

Nigro. He is a geriatric

19:26

millennial former emo punk rocker

19:29

who now writes with Olivia.

19:32

Who is he and what is his partnership? So

19:35

they are working together again

19:37

on this record. He was

19:40

in a band called as tall as

19:42

lions, which was sort of a Long

19:44

Island emo band. Is there

19:46

any song of theirs that I would know? I

19:49

don't even think I know any of their songs. I

19:53

have friends that are going to murder me for that

19:55

too. I was more on the New Jersey

19:57

side of the emos

19:59

divide. I was on the dashboard

20:02

confessional side. Well, yeah. That

20:04

man. Weren't we all? Oof, go ahead.

20:07

But I think that's a good point to bring up that

20:09

she's also like, in addition

20:11

to working in this bedroom pop idiom, she's

20:14

also reaching back to millennial

20:17

emo and pop punk that

20:19

I think both she has a natural

20:22

affinity towards that. But I think that's also

20:24

the role that Dan Negro is filling.

20:26

And I think that's a thing too.

20:29

Like I'm sure after the success of Sour,

20:32

every producer was knocking on her door,

20:34

like wanting to make a hit for her. Imagine

20:37

like an Olivia Rodrigo Pharrell album.

20:39

Oh my God. I liked them both. I would

20:42

have said no. Yeah. Yeah. And

20:44

I think that's another way that,

20:46

you know, by the smartest thing

20:49

for her to do was to not

20:51

switch up the aesthetic thing

20:53

so much and just keep the growth to

20:55

the songwriting and the experiences.

20:59

So I can't help

21:01

but think about Dan Negro

21:04

working with Olivia Rodrigo without

21:07

thinking about Jack Antonoff, who

21:09

has also become a man

21:12

in pop who is known for helping the

21:14

leading women of pop make

21:16

their music. Jack Antonoff worked

21:19

with Taylor Swift for her latest album, Midnight.

21:22

He's worked with Lana Del Rey. He's

21:24

worked with Lord. He's

21:29

one of at least two men, him and Dan, helping

21:31

the current reigning women of pop make

21:34

music that feels very much made for women

21:36

and girls. I

21:39

don't know what to think about that. Yeah.

21:43

I mean, it's like right with who you want to write with,

21:45

but isn't it ironic to

21:47

quote Atlantis that these two men are

21:49

all up in it. Yeah. And

21:51

I think what's even more ironic is like they're

21:53

both coming out of scenes or

21:56

a scene, absolutely the same sort

21:58

of pop punk emo. universe

22:01

that was really not friendly to

22:03

women at the time that we

22:06

were paying attention to it. Not only

22:08

were there

22:09

really not

22:11

any bands with women in them

22:13

or definitely not women fronting them, very,

22:15

very few, but there

22:17

was just a lot of active misogyny

22:20

in the music and everything was

22:22

blamed on the ex-girlfriend

22:24

or the girls that didn't like you. You

22:26

know, as someone that grew up with that music

22:29

and was trying to reconcile it

22:31

with my awakening feminism,

22:34

it was a very confusing time

22:36

because I loved that music, but the

22:38

lyrics and

22:41

the total lack of anyone

22:44

but a white man singing about

22:47

a straight white man, singing about

22:49

girls. The girl was

22:51

always the problem in the song. Always, yeah.

22:54

What was the reason that the guy in the song

22:56

was sad and angry? Totally. So

22:58

there's something fun, even though

23:00

I think

23:01

Olivia's music is

23:03

hitting on more of a mainstream pop

23:06

register

23:07

at the same time, it's just

23:09

a refreshing space to hear

23:12

a female perspective and even as

23:14

someone that I'm older than

23:16

Olivia Rodrigo and her target

23:18

audience probably, it's like filling

23:21

a need that I didn't get

23:23

that when I was her age.

23:31

When

23:34

we talk about this 90s emo punk

23:37

scene that really wasn't nice to

23:39

women, what for you was the

23:41

quintessential song from

23:43

that moment, from that era

23:45

for you? Wow.

23:47

I mean, there's so many.

23:49

I guess, taking back Sunday.

23:54

I loved that band and

23:56

I loved

23:57

their big sing-along songs, but it was

23:59

sort of...

23:59

cute without the

24:02

E. She has like the

24:04

violence right there in the title. Oh

24:06

yeah. And there's this kind of like, because

24:09

this girl broke up with me or this girl won't pay

24:11

attention to me, I wish her

24:13

dead in some gruesome way. Yeah.

24:16

What's your problem? Sing it right, sing it right. What's

24:18

your problem? What's your problem? What's your problem?

24:21

What's your problem? What's your problem? What's

24:23

your problem? You know, I've, I

24:26

had those CDs and I sang along to

24:28

those songs

24:29

and you know, the just all

24:31

of the

24:32

sort of ambient misogyny

24:35

that was inhaled every

24:37

day in the culture in that

24:39

time that I think we're at least

24:41

a little bit more aware of now.

24:44

Yeah. Or finding ways to balance

24:46

that out with

24:48

just

24:49

some more female perspective and just

24:51

some more like recognition

24:53

of the humanity on the other side of these

24:56

songs. It's gotten better a little

24:58

bit it seems. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

25:02

I want to, you know, we've already kind of talked

25:04

about where Olivia stands

25:07

compared to her direct peers

25:09

or predecessors from like the Disney machine

25:12

and how she kind of came out of that in a different way

25:14

than they were forced to. But

25:17

I want to just take a second to

25:19

compare and contrast with you, Olivia

25:21

Rodrigo to the two

25:25

women in pop. She is perhaps most compared

25:28

to Taylor Swift

25:31

and Alana Morissette. We've mentioned

25:33

them both, but I want to take a

25:35

second to see how much of

25:37

those comparisons are fair and how much of them

25:39

are not. Let's start with Alana. Let's

25:41

start with Alana. Yeah. Yes.

25:45

So yeah, when you hear people compared to Alana Morissette, what do you think?

25:48

I mean, I think

25:49

the sort of shorthand in

25:53

the culture that she has come to

25:55

stand for is like connection to

25:57

young women's anger. Like I think we sit.

26:00

you oughta know.

26:10

I think the Jagged Little Pill thing

26:13

was both, oh wow,

26:15

she made a whole album of songs

26:17

that show this

26:19

varied experience

26:22

of a young woman from all these different

26:24

perspectives, but also being

26:27

in touch with anger and having

26:30

some songs that are more quiet and

26:32

introspective and then a song like Good For

26:34

You that's I'm Gonna Call You Out On Your Bullshit

26:37

kind of thing and that's I think something

26:39

that we came

26:41

to associate with

26:43

Alanis as the Jagged Little

26:45

Pill era

26:45

and just a sense of really

26:48

having these

26:49

lyrics that feel a

26:52

little florid, a little diaristic

26:54

at times, but also really

26:57

barbed when they need to be and know, I think

27:00

Olivia really knows how to wield

27:03

words as weapons.

27:10

I feel like she's someone who is

27:13

observing, taking a lot in and then, you know,

27:16

sort of again

27:19

with the lowercase girl thing, like she's quiet

27:21

but she's stealthy. She

27:23

knows more than you think she knows and

27:26

she will deploy it at the right time. So

27:28

I think in some sense that's like a quality I

27:30

associate with that

27:33

era of Alanis.

27:40

Although we have to point out that Olivia

27:42

was not alive when Jagged

27:44

Little Pill came out. She would

27:46

have never told me that I'm gonna cry.

27:56

More about Olivia Rodrigo after the break.

28:07

I'm

28:12

very intrigued by what you have to say about this

28:14

because part

28:16

of Olivia's first album was

28:18

directly referencing Taylor Swift and

28:20

it seemed as if Taylor Swift never liked to speak

28:23

about that. So what we

28:25

do know and what we can say,

28:27

well,

28:27

Olivia

28:29

grows up as a Swifty. How

28:31

can you not? Yeah.

28:33

Big Swifty has explicitly

28:35

like

28:36

mentioned Taylor as her biggest

28:38

influence early in her career

28:40

and then has a

28:42

few

28:43

really direct nods

28:46

to her on Sour and also some indirect

28:48

nods. So we get the song

28:52

one step forward, three steps back.

29:03

She's actually like sampling

29:06

the piano line from the Taylor Swift song

29:08

New Year's Day.

29:11

And

29:15

you know, gives her songwriting credit there.

29:19

But your aforementioned favorite, Deja

29:22

Vu, I don't consider

29:24

that an interpolation of a

29:27

Taylor Swift song, but whoever,

29:30

I don't know if Taylor does this, her

29:32

team, like whatever, but they get

29:35

songwriting credit on Deja

29:37

Vu after the fact and say that

29:40

it is interpolating

29:48

It's

30:00

just the shouting and like the quality of

30:02

the shouting. The quality of the shout.

30:05

Yeah. And then there's also,

30:07

I believe good for you, like a similar

30:09

thing happened with Paramore where

30:11

they said it was... Oh, that one tracked. Yeah.

30:14

Yeah. I heard good

30:16

for you the first time and

30:19

I was like,

30:29

Where is Hailey? Yeah. Get

30:31

her on the phone. That one, I think holds a little more

30:33

water.

30:34

But I think the interesting point

30:36

is like, how much in

30:38

this era

30:39

do you explicitly pay homage

30:41

to your idols, especially when you're

30:45

in a position where your idols are becoming,

30:48

I don't want to say your competition, but your peers.

30:51

And so I think that there's been an interesting

30:56

little shift and I don't want to

30:58

start before there's not any, but it does

31:00

not seem like

31:03

there has been... Like I haven't seen

31:05

Olivia at the era's tour is

31:08

all I'm saying. She was in

31:10

a recent New York Times profile of

31:13

her. I think she was asked

31:15

about Taylor and she was like,

31:17

Oh yeah, I haven't gone to the tour yet.

31:20

I've been in Europe. And you're like, Okay.

31:23

Okay. I do wonder

31:25

though, with all of the you sampled me,

31:27

you owe me a songwriting credit, how much

31:30

of that is specifically Paramore

31:33

or Taylor and how much of that is just

31:35

how much the record industry has

31:37

changed. All of these labels are a lot

31:40

more litigious about

31:42

creative ideas. Like you think about Beyonce's

31:45

latest album, she had to cite

31:47

like a hundred samples. And I think

31:49

she did it out of caution because

31:51

we're in a moment now where labels

31:54

will really go after you in a way they

31:56

weren't maybe 20 years ago.

31:58

And I think a fun...

31:59

sort of, counter example of all this is

32:02

that another very,

32:05

like, I think a more explicit interpolation

32:07

on the song Brutal, a lot of

32:09

people are like, this sounds like Elvis Costello's

32:11

Pump It Up. Ah.

32:29

And he actually was like,

32:33

yeah, it does. And I don't care. I think it's

32:35

awesome. Like, he didn't have to be like

32:37

credited or whatever. So I think

32:39

like maybe it's slightly

32:42

a generational thing, but also just like,

32:45

all music is paying homage

32:47

to what came before. Like, it's a dangerous game

32:49

to start, you know, unless it's like really,

32:51

really explicit in the melody or

32:53

the lyrics or something like that. And even then, I think

32:56

it's case to case of whether you

32:58

want

32:59

to

33:00

be litigious or be Elvis Costello

33:02

about it. And most pop

33:04

songs only use

33:07

four chords. And there's only so many chords.

33:09

There you go. Exactly. Exactly. I

33:14

cannot help thinking about how

33:17

Olivia's new album is

33:20

going to be situated within

33:22

this year of pop culture. 2023 seems

33:28

like, culture wise,

33:31

it's just the year of the woman. The

33:33

two biggest tours in the country and the world

33:36

are coming from Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

33:45

The biggest movie of the year is

33:47

Barbie. Hi Barbie. Hi Barbie.

33:50

Hi Barbie. Hi Barbie. You go

33:52

online, large swaths

33:55

of the social internet are obsessed

33:57

with putting the word girl on everything.

33:59

I call this girl dinner Feral

34:05

girl summer what is a feral

34:08

girl you ask? I love being a woman

34:12

This year feels Women

34:15

girl and femme oriented Does

34:19

that make? 2023 a Perfect

34:23

landing pad for this new Olivia album

34:26

or something else? I Think

34:29

it remains to be seen but I hope I hope

34:32

I think that sort of

34:35

brings me to like

34:36

a quality of her music that I find interesting

34:38

and why again It fits in this moment,

34:41

but it's also like commenting on

34:43

it I think something

34:46

that she is able to do really

34:48

well and it feels like an

34:51

authentic part of being Young

34:54

and alive in the social media era

34:56

and in a time when you know, you're bombarded

34:59

by all these messages specifically

35:02

of self-love

35:02

and Therapy speak and

35:04

boundaries and all these things we're always talking

35:07

about like there's a sense in her music

35:09

Yes, she knows she's supposed to be

35:12

supportive of other women and get over her ex

35:14

and not give him power over the

35:16

way she thinks But it's really

35:19

hard and She

35:21

still is kind of giving voice to like the

35:24

difference between the messages that you're getting Particularly

35:27

as a young woman of like how you're

35:29

supposed to be in this positive way but

35:32

like the song jealousy jealousy

35:36

Which

35:41

is a really I think incisive

35:43

one office power where she's

35:45

talking about Comparing yourself

35:48

on social media and she's like, I know Their

35:51

beauty is not my lack, etc.

35:53

Etc. But still it hurt

36:01

She both speaks

36:05

to that moment

36:08

in the culture and the idea

36:11

of you have to feel

36:14

empowered

36:23

all

36:27

the time as a woman and

36:29

also speaks to the very

36:31

lived-in difficulty of living

36:34

up to all those messages. But

36:36

then I think just her being a person

36:40

and giving voice to these in

36:42

between human experiences is

36:44

kind of the most empowering thing of all.

37:00

As an aside, you

37:02

are a culture writer I admire

37:04

a lot who writes a lot about the culture and

37:06

women. How do you feel personally

37:08

about this 2023 being the

37:11

year of Barbie and Beyonce and Taylor and hot girl

37:13

and everything? How do you feel about it? That's

37:16

like a whole other episode. There's

37:18

like an hour long answer to that.

37:20

I think

37:22

there's a lot of positives and then I think

37:24

there's a lot of ways that the messaging gets

37:28

flattened a little bit. And again,

37:30

I think

37:31

if anything like Olivia's music,

37:34

that quality that I like about it of

37:36

just like knowing all the messaging

37:38

out there, knowing

37:40

what the greater narrative is on the internet

37:43

in pop culture

37:44

and

37:46

in some ways like trying that on and having

37:48

fun with it. But in other ways,

37:51

just letting yourself be a little exhausted

37:53

by all of it and sometimes say like, this

37:55

doesn't really fit how I feel

37:57

today though. I think that's something.

38:00

that I would love to see more

38:02

of and that I

38:04

think she's like providing like in

38:06

some ways like she's

38:08

in this summer of the woman

38:11

world but she's providing an antidote to

38:13

it at the same time it's not possible last

38:24

question for you many

38:26

listeners are going to hear this podcast interview

38:29

all about Olivia Rodrigo before

38:31

they actually hear Olivia's new

38:33

album what would you

38:36

advise them to listen for as

38:38

they play that album for the first time I

38:41

would say listen

38:43

to sour before yes because I

38:45

think that's really a snapshot of

38:48

her three to four years ago

38:50

and then be ready and open to

38:53

how she's changed in that time

38:55

like I got to see her on tour

38:57

when she played at Radio City I think

38:59

it was last summer and

39:02

I remember feeling like

39:05

I could tell in some of the banter

39:07

those songs were already the past

39:09

for her those were high school for her and

39:12

this is

39:16

her like you know

39:19

I'm 20 now she's

39:22

at the college dorm baby yeah

39:24

like I'm exploring the world and stuff

39:27

and I remember feeling like I think she's onto

39:29

something else and

39:31

I'm very excited to hear

39:34

whatever it is

39:35

about me

39:38

because you said forever now

39:40

I drive alone past your street

39:45

you said forever now I drive

39:47

alone past your street

39:51

thanks again to Lindsay Zolad's pop

39:53

music critic at the New York Times also

39:57

check me out on Today Explained

40:00

The Daily News podcast from our friends

40:02

over at Vox. I've been guest

40:04

hosting, and I have an episode in their

40:06

feed right now that you should listen to all

40:08

about how American

40:10

sunscreen is worse than all

40:13

the other sunscreen all over the world. Truly,

40:16

the FDA is involved. I tell you

40:18

all about it. Go check it out, today explained.

40:21

Wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Intuit

40:23

is hosted by me, Sam Sanders. The

40:25

show is produced by Danae West, Travis

40:27

Larchuk, Gabi Grossman, Jelani

40:30

Carter, and Taka Zen. Our fearless

40:32

editor is Jordana Hokeman. Our engineer

40:34

is Daniel Turek. Our music is

40:37

composed by Breakmaster Cylinder, and

40:39

the executive producer of audio at

40:41

Vox Media is Nishat Keroua.

40:44

Listeners, we are back on Tuesday with a brand

40:46

new episode. Until then, just start

40:50

randomly texting your friends' Olivia

40:52

Rodrigo lyrics, and see

40:54

what happens. Okay, bye.

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