SOUR – Olivia Rodrigo

This week’s Throwback Thursday tribute is dedicated to Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album SOUR! This week the album is turning 5 years old since it was released on May 21st, 2021. Honestly, this anniversary feels very on brand for this summer considering we are finally being gifted the return of our girl ORod with her new album; you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. What a long way we’ve come from SOUR. Today we’re taking a deep dive back into the past.

The soft violins open us up on “brutal,” which was really our first taste of this album aside from the singles released previously. Our girl from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is clearly upset and she’s telling us through this super teenage grungy track, showing everyone that she isn’t this prissy sweet girl people assumed she was. Right away we get hit with “unrelentlessly upset,” setting the scene for more feelings of anger and hurt.

Then we slide into “traitor,” which switches the harsh tone into something way sadder. Right off the bat we know this entire record is about a boy who left her for another girl. At the time, speculations pointed toward the ups and downs of her relationship with Joshua Bassett and the very public love triangle involving Sabrina Carpenter. “traitor” really covers the confusion and hurt Olivia experienced along with all the realizations about what was happening behind her back.

She makes herself super relatable in lines like “Ain’t it funny? Remember I brought her up and you told me I was paranoid,” while also showing a little bit of mercy by saying “You didn’t cheat” before completely bringing it down with “You’re still a traitor.” It sets up the idea that maybe he didn’t physically cheat, but emotionally he was already starting a new relationship while they were still together.

The third track being the viral “drivers license” gives off such a young and transformational period in a girl’s life. Finally having the freedom to go where she wants, Olivia uses the car almost like an emotional box on wheels where she can replay everything that happened between them over and over again. It essentially became the breakup anthem of an entire generation.

We calmly move into “1 step forward, 3 steps back,” opening with a clear sample of Taylor Swift’s “New Year’s Day.” Olivia questions herself constantly throughout this song and fully self-deprecates, second guessing both their relationship and the confusion she felt while they were together. The emotional tune leads us into the outro line, “And I’d leave you but the rollercoaster’s all I’ve ever had,” which gives us the cold hard truth. She knows the relationship isn’t healthy, but she stays because she’s terrified of the unknown without him.

Tracks 5 and 6 give us the other two singles released before the entirety of SOUR. In “deja vu,” Olivia calls him out because she knows he uses the same moves on every girl. She knows he still thinks of her because honestly, how could he not? Then “good 4 u” throws us into a space where she’s finally free to be petty and angry seeing him appear completely unphased by the entire situation.

But we can never stay too far away from the sadness because it all comes crashing back in “enough for you.” Olivia questions all the things she changed about herself to get him to love her. She tried to understand him, tried to care about everything he cared about, yet always had this feeling that “this is exactly how you’d leave.” She calls him out for saying she was “never satisfied,” while admitting the thing she wanted most was simply “to be enough for you.”

The song really feels like someone crying out and begging to feel like themselves again after heartbreak completely destroyed their confidence. It creates another painfully relatable feeling of not knowing what you did so wrong when you really just loved someone. Still, she slowly starts picking up her pride and eventually sings that “someday I’ll be everything to somebody else.”

Following that, we head into “happier,” which is honestly another petty one but also completely deserved. The song is basically Olivia telling Josh that she wishes him the best… but not really. She wants him to always reminisce on what they had and feel just a little unfulfilled forever. “I hope you’re happy, but don’t be happier.”

Doubling down on those emotions, we get “jealousy, jealousy,” which feels like one of the most brutally honest reflections on the album. Olivia admits that she constantly compares herself to others and worries about what people think of her until she reaches the point where she’s just “sick of herself.”

Then on “favorite crime,” we take another emotional ride through the relationship and how deeply devoted she was to him. Calling the whole situation a “crime” emphasizes just how manipulated and used she felt. The finger picking combined with the rawness in her voice has always stood out to me because you can literally feel the emotional shock she was in while recording it.

The album finally closes with “hope ur ok,” which tells the story of someone Olivia knew who struggled to be themselves because of an unsupportive family. It almost feels like Olivia is using her platform and newfound fame to reach out to this person and let them know she still cares, even after losing touch.

Ending the album with this story was honestly beautiful because after an entire record full of heartbreak, anger, jealousy, sadness, and confusion, she leaves us with goodwill and hope. Something about her telling someone she hopes they’re okay and that she’s proud of them feels incredibly uplifting. Looking back now, it almost feels like the perfect closing chapter before the explosion of support, fame, and admiration that came next for Olivia Rodrigo.