Olivia Rodrigo has spoken about the variety that exists within her debut album, and why it won’t follow in the vein of ‘Drivers License’.
Rodrigo’s debut single spent nine weeks at the top of the UK singles charts upon release in January, but she says that the track isn’t entirely reflective of her anticipated debut album ‘SOUR’, which arrives this Friday.
Instead, Rodrigo told NME that the variety of follow-up singles ‘Deja Vu’ and ‘Good For You’ proves that she’s set to deliver a genre-spanning debut.
“I hope people are surprised,” Rodrigo said of her debut album.
“I love pop-punk music; I love grunge music; I love country music and folk music. I think, honestly, you can see little influences of all of those genres in my album. And I didn’t want to make an entire record that sounded like ‘Drivers License’. There’s no fun in that for me – and probably not for listeners, either.”
Opening up on her own songwriting processes, Rodrigo also admitted to being an “oversharer”.
“I’ll tell my Uber driver all of my deepest traumas and insecurities, and so I just think songwriting for me is an extension of that aspect of my personality,” she said.
“I’ve never really been so terrified of people learning about the intimate parts of myself; I think that’s what makes songwriting so special.”
In the same interview, Rodrigo praised the influence that Taylor Swift has had on her music career to date, revealing that she has looked up to Swift “since I was literally five years old”.
“Obviously I think she’s the best songwriter of all time, but she’s so business-savvy and she really cares about her career in that regard too – that’s been really inspiring for me to watch somebody take control of their career and their life like that,” she said.
She also performed ‘Drivers License’ and ‘good 4 u’ on Saturday Night Live over the weekend.
The post Olivia Rodrigo says debut album won’t sound like ‘Drivers License’: “There’s no fun in that for me” appeared first on NME.
