Rodrigo’s Rise to Fame: How a Highschooler is Dominating the Pop Industry
Kaeli Mecca
American singer and actress, Olivia Rodrigo, released her first single “Drivers License” on January 8th, 2021. The song immediately took off, touching millions of lives, being played through millions of speakers. A young 17 year old actress saw her life change as her song about heartbreak became the anthem of the nation’s youth. This song received the most Spotify streams in a week, the highest song unit for Rolling Stone’s Hot 100, and has been at the top of the Hot 100 Charts for 3 consecutive weeks!
Olivia, born February 20th, 2003, possessed talent from the very beginning. She began taking acting and singing classes at age six and performed in theater productions at her Elementary and Middle School as a child. Her first appearance on screen was through an Old Navy commercial and soon after she secured her first acting role as Grace Thomas in An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success. Quickly after, she starred as Paige Olvera in the Disney Channel show Bizaarrdvark and was part of that show for three seasons before she landed her most famous role in 2019 as Nini Salazar-Roberts on the Disney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Alongside her acting career she is a songwriter, co-writing songs for High School Musical and writing songs on the side for fun, occasionally posting them on Tik Tok for her followers to enjoy. Little did she know that the whole world would recognize her for her singing and songwriting talents.
After signing to Interscope Records and Geffen Records in 2020, Rodrigo released her critically acclaimed hit-single “Driver’s License”. On January 11th, the song hit 15.7 million global streams and the next day 17 million. The song reached number-one chart positions in so many countries around the globe. In an interview about her song writing process she states that her entire life just “shifted in an instant”. The app Tik Tok has taken many songs to the top of the charts as a song is played in a celebrities video and then used as an audio over and over again. “Driver’s License” was a Tik Tok phenomenon. Globally, people were lip synching and dancing to this melodic ballad and it seemed to connect many through the references of break ups and the pains that come with that.
The song is so genuine and pure, and so real and intense. Olivia vocalizes the universal experience of breakups but allows herself to make it personal simultaneously with references to recently getting her driver’s license and her past relationship with co-star Joshua Bassett. She sings about the broken promises of forever, the intense feeling of the love she shared, and the memories of “flashing lights” and “stop signs” shared with her boyfriend on car rides they took together, maintaining this motif of driving. She writes, “how could you be so okay now that I’m gone?”, and, “I still see your face in the white cars, front yards…. I still hear your voice in the traffic, we’re laughing”, evoking chills and tears from her listeners. She concludes the song with “you said forever while I drive alone past your street”, with a simple piano accompaniment ending it with weight, heaviness, and a clear sense of heartache. This song is full of vivid imagery; it effortlessly brings someone right back to a personal experience or a feeling. Only few artists can really create such a powerful reaction through their writing. Rodrigo captured the world’s eyes and ears the instant she released her song. Now we all wait for her next one.
