‘GUTS’ lets loose of the doe-eyed tones Olivia Rodrigo approached on her debut project, now flaunting a lot more riotous edge that hits more punch than ever.
It’s easy to nudge recently turned 20-something adults pushed into certain moments of their sometimes reckless and sometimes naive corners where they’ll eventually question their identity as they flub in interacting with their peers and their crushes. Gen Z’s own pop starlet Olivia Rodrigo goes through that on her debut project ‘SOUR’ and its embrace of her teenage melodrama that connects with the generation that Olivia is a part of, where they might as well think that the current one-and-done breakup is just a phase as the next few years will get better for them. However, it sucks to say that, just because it’s a phase doesn’t mean it’ll be experienced once again with a more complicated situation that still gives them a lot more room to stumble and grow.
‘GUTS’ may as well act as a sequel to ‘SOUR’ as it immediately goes into a lot more reckless pop rock with riotous agendas where Olivia’s new phase of her life embraces more barking attitudes from both her performance and the instrumental palette that’s set up on this project. And with Dan Nigro still handling the production, the textures and melodies are much zestier and less quaint than ‘SOUR’. The ragged punk sparks of the 2nd single ‘bad idea right?’ immediately rev off with these driving riffs and percussion, with Olivia just shooting away with her reckless energy that she just exudes really well. This continues much more for a lot of the project where Olivia just opts for a bratty delivery that she can sell wondrously, especially on cuts like ‘all-american bitch’ with the juxtaposed folk acoustics and garish riffs where she just screeches and wails at the end, or the 90s leaning rock cuts where her experience as an actress allows her to play off that young adult sneer exceptionally well. And said 90s leaning rock cuts are also exceptional in their compositions too, the noisy guitar and rumbling bass melodies are terrific on ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’ that allows the vocal melodies to break through, the swaggering buzz guitars and the stomping percussion lines on ‘get him back!’ just sweeps along the insanely catchy chorus with all of the backing vocals, a similar case on ‘love is embarrassing’ that injects so much joy to the body shuffling melodies. It’s not to say that the ballads have their moments either, as Dan and Olivia do manage to make them just as cutting as the frenetic rock cuts on the project. ‘Teenage dream’ is an example of this where the piano and string-kissed bouquet are then thrown into the fire, transitioning into the churning rush of noisy clanking drums, ‘Making the bed’ provides a lot of hazy atmospheres that allow Olivia’s vocals to echo through, and ‘lacy’ may perhaps be the refreshing one from the pack where Olivia utilizes a husked out delivery - an asset in her vocal range that she doesn’t use much before - as her voice is accompanied by Chappell Roan’s well-suited vibrance, allowing their harmonies to intertwine majestically.
The shift in this newfound phase is also reflected in Olivia’s usual turnarounds with melodramatic relationships with additional details of guys flipping her off in frustrating ways because of her not reaching their standards, a detail that’s now also reflected with everybody else around her as she’s now being viewed and labeled by a lot of people with the American girl archetype that she just does not find herself fitting in as she describes on ‘all-american bitch’ and how that does affect her negatively, especially when she starts getting jealous towards other people due to that boxed image on ‘lacy’ and thinking that trying to get better might not work well as she tells herself on ‘teenage dream’. Yet, as much as the album does go in depth about that melodrama and the standards placed upon Olivia, there are humorous moments that allow that melodrama to be less anxious and more reflective of how a young adult like Olivia will fumble hard as she makes head-scratching mistakes on social interactions or relationship dynamics even if she knows that it might contradict or just outright fail at the end, whether that be to try to hook up with an ex because they still look damn hot even it’s not gonna work anyway on ‘bad idea right?’, the frustration of all of the crushes that she likes are homosexuals alongside embarrassing social dynamics on ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’, or the back-and-forth love-hate relationship where there will be both punches and kisses provided even despite her friends telling her to just break up on ‘get him back!’.
There are still setbacks that do pull back this record entirely, most of which come with the momentum and thematic approach not really sticking in the long run. Structure-wise, the album does get dodgy from certain spaces where some piano-inflected rock and ballads dip the momentum quite a bit, especially with the back half of the project where it starts to get really rickety. Said piano ballads don’t always have the stickiest melodies from the bunch, even despite the right choice to have enough atmospheric production to let them be on an equal level with the contrasting rock cuts. And while the theme of breaking away from the American girl archetype that Olivia Rodrigo is iffy about does tie in nicely with the melodrama of the album, she does not exactly have enough bite to pay that critique well, even if that lack of bite still serves her well given just how it presents that young adult’s irking frustrations with their current environment.
Bulking up from the production and melodic sharpness, ‘GUTS’ strengthens Olivia Rodrigo’s artistic presence where she can push through with a lot more embrace of exciting punk-ish young adult sneer that’s still going through another phase of melodrama with Dan Nigro providing a heavier and immediate set of instrumental tunes that makes the stomping melodies work so well. While there are still a bit of influences and snags on a few ballads and album structure, there is no denying that Olivia Rodrigo can carry that and turn it refreshing with her writing penmanship providing a lot more details that do feel more modern for the Gen Z audience that she is also a part of. It’s a flagrantly fun gallop in one’s young adult phase, a soundtrack to any late high school - early college youths willing to mess up and let loose in their own melodramatic story knowing the pros and cons coming on that aftermath.
Favorite Tracks: ‘all-american bitch’, ‘bad idea right?’, ‘lacy’, ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’, ‘making the bed’, ‘get him back!’, ‘love is embarrassing’, ‘teenage dream’
Least Favorite Track: ‘logical’