Olivia Rodrigo : "GUTS"

 This is the time of year when I start catching up on releases from other genre's I might have missed out on. Pop is certainly one of them. It get's covered the least here. Not that I do not have a respect for it when it is done well, it just happens that most of the time it's rolled off a corporate assembly line, and the product of producers rather than actual musicians. She is an alumni of the High School Musical Show. Which means she was rolled off the Disney Pop Assembly line. To her credit the bulk of the album is just her and producer Dan Nigro, Amy Allen who is a song writer for Harry Styles contributes on one song and Julia Micheals, but this is a great deal better than the army of producers it takes to make an album by the likes of Sam Smith, the Weeknd or Lizzo.

 It really depends on what song you hear when it comes to deciding what it is that Rodrigo does. Avril Lavigne being the most apparent mood on the first two songs that have the bubble gum pop punk feel. "vampire" really stands out as a powerfully inspired vocal performance. "lacy" finds her wanting to be more like Taylor Swifts brand of introspective song writing, but she falls short, though that is a really high bar to aspire to. She uses more of a Lana Del Rey like whisper not only here but at other times in the album. "ballad of a homeschooled girl" is back to another pop punk ditty though perhaps just as anthemic as the first two it just does not catch you ears with the same manner of hook. 

"making the bed" benefits from an effective chorus and strong lyrics. It does begin to pull the curtain back on the formula this album seems to work off in which there are two modes of writing for this album, one where she wants to be Taylor and another where she wants to be Avril. 'logical" is another ballad, this one has less of the Swift aspirations. It also ponders more than draws you in. 'get him back" is a reminder that this music is made for teenage girls. When it comes to this sort of thing she does it better on "love is embarrassing". " the grudge" is a typical meandering pop ballad. Sure she belts it out with conviction, but that comes with the genre. 

"pretty isn't pretty" walks the line between pop music and her more Avril inspired side. It is well written and I prefer the mood over some of the more sugary moments of the album. The last song is another ballad. Which is nice, but not very compelling. She has potential, and there are some strong songs, in fact strong enough for me to give this album an 8.5, though it is unlikely I am going to return to it. She is clearly not on the same level as Swift or Cyrus , when it comes to this sort of thing.