💜 good 4 u, olivia rodrigo

the biggest popstar of the next decade has arrived

May 24, 2021

You are cordially invited to this week’s brew of High Tea, your dispatch of 🔥 internet culture served piping hot. This week: Olivia Rodrigo is back with the biggest debut of the year, scooping 1 billion streams in 48 hours. We look back on the record-breaking year she’s had so far.

Drink up! 🐸 ☕

p.s. if you’re not a paid subscriber, here’s what you missed from this week’s Bucks Fizz: our Thursday dispatch covering the best of TikTok’s unsigned and emerging talent.

🥂 The Backyardigans, Mothica & Payday

Back in January we went all in on “drivers license”, the debut single from then 17-year-old Olivia Rodrigo, which became the fastest song to surpass 100 million streams in Spotify history. ICYMI: it took her 8 days. More than a song, “drivers license” marked a moment of collective cultural significance that left Gen Z in a chokehold, and the rest of the internet scrambling to quantify why they were teary eyed at the lyricism of a high schooler. Oh, and don’t forget the trial by TikTok to pinpoint “that blonde girl”, because what’s a bop without the secret joy of a little schadenfreude?

Now, 48 hours after the release of Olivia’s debut studio album “SOUR”, it’s only fitting that we dust off our teenage angst and summon a lil deja vu for another deep dive on this decade’s answer to Taylor Swift 🚫🧢. Since the album has already surpassed 1 billion streams on Spotify (yep, since FRIDAY), it’d be literally illegal to ignore the mountains this gal is moving, seemingly overnight.

Source: PopBase via Twitter

Time flies when you’re spilling tea, but let’s catch up on just *some* of Olivia’s notable moments since the release of her debut single:

March 17 👉 “drivers license” spends 65th day at #1 on the global Spotify daily chart
April 1 👉 “drivers license” becomes 2021’s first song to surpass 1B global streams
April 12 👉 first artist to debut both of her first two singles in the top 10 on Hot 100
May 20 👉 Olivia becomes 2021’s first artist to spend 50 days at #1 (US Spotify chart)
May 23 👉 “good 4 u” spends a 7th day at #1 on the US Spotify daily chart
May 23 👉 “SOUR” spends a second day with the entirety of the album charting at the top of Spotify’s US Top 50

So, how did Olivia claim the biggest debut of the year? It’s simple, the power of:

TikTok
meme$
the humble co-sign

enough (TikTok) for you

Going on TikTok for 16 hours a day is our favorite crime, which might explain why our for you page should probably be an Olivia Rodrigo stan support group at this point. Despite Olivia not posting on TikTok since mid April, her name has been used to hashtag videos that have amassed 2.9 billion views, with 4.5 million TikToks made to audios from her first 3 singles. Why be Very Online™ when you can get TikTok to do the talking for you?

via TikTok

ICYMI: “drivers license” sent TikTok into meltdown and subsequent commentary around the song became one of the biggest trends of the year. Since then, “deja vu” has enjoyed not one but THREE trends on the platform (s/o Tasha Kim), including TikTok’s inverted filter – which will either tell you you’re perfectly symmetrical or ruin your day (if you know, you KNOW). Just for the record: having more than one trend per song is ~incredibly~ rare, let alone a tripartite of thematic concepts simultaneously living under TikTok’s roof. But of course, it’s just another day, another dollar for Olivia Rodrigo.

leona @leonafaye_

im one minor inconvenience away from lipsyncing and dancing to good 4 u on tiktok

Next up was the turn of “good 4 u”, which is closing in on half a million videos in just 9 days. If you’ve even so much as opened TikTok over the past week, you just can’t escape “like a damn sociopath” – and look, we ain’t even mad about it. As we’ve waxed lyrical many a time, the audio is the message on TikTok – especially when it comes to the collaborative remix culture made possible by the platform’s extensive audio library and duet/stitch functionality. The latest trend popping off is a match made in heaven if we do say so ourselves, with Olivia’s pop punk bop remixed with Paramore’s “Misery Business” (2007). It just…works (and the millennials love it too). 👇

FYI, “good 4 u” remains #1 on the global Spotify chart, with a UK #1 almost certainly inevitable - her second of the year. If we had to put $ on the next Rodrigo hit to catch fire on TikTok, we’re all in on “brutal”, which currently soundtracks a very humble 18K vids.

memes are good 4 u

With inflated Gen Z and Millennial discourse threatening intergenerational warfare, the commentary around Olivia’s debut has not disappointed. It’s also a timely reminder that “SOUR” isn’t just a brilliant “teenage” album because Olivia happens to have been born in 2003 (yes, we’re scared too), it’s just a great album. Period. Besides, with lyrics that reference being “messy”, “insecure” and “anxious”, we don’t think anyone will have a hard time relating to her teenage penmanship. Anyway, here are some of our fave memes that have only served to keep the treadmill of Rodrigo content flowing smoothly on the TL.

✨virginia✨ @vaberg

olivia rodrigo: i’m so sick of seventeen / where's my fuckin' teenage dream? me, 27: wow so true bestie

Sophia Cunningham @stunningham_

Ben Yahr @benyahr

Millennials listening to Olivia Rodrigo today

Dan White @atdanwhite

Damn. Anyone else get this message?

1 step forward, 3 steps back

Lads…it’s 2021, after being inside for over a year thanks to the global panini, we just don’t have time for jealousy tbh. Gone are the days when women were pitted against each other for headlines far more clickbait than catfight. Therefore, we’re happier (than ever) to announce that today’s US Spotify top 10 is occupied by women, of which Olivia leads the charge. Yep, a win for the girlies.

oliviarodrigo

A post shared by @oliviarodrigo

And let’s not forget the Taylor Swift connect, the co-sign you’re all waiting for. After Olivia’s “drivers license” charted next to Taylor back in January, Taylor threw an “I say that’s my baby and I’m really proud” into the public domain. To say we all lost our heads would be an understatement. And with it, the Swifties and Olivia stans were united. But it gets better! From fangirl to collaborator, Taylor actually gets writing credit on “SOUR, as “1 step forward, 3 steps back” interpolates Swift’s 2017 hit “New Year’s Day”. We. love. to. see. it.

Anyway, if you’re not paying attention to Olivia Rodrigo in 2021, get ready to miss the biggest artist of the next decade, traitor. We’re calling a Grammy sweep for Olivia in 2022, à la Billie in 2020. Did someone say deja vu? 👀

Okay, you made it. Hope ur ok. Now you can get back to thinking about how this deep dive was just enough for you. 😇

ttyl,

Alice & Faye