Songs of the Week delves into fresh songs we can’t forget.Find these tracks and more on our site Spotify Top Songs playlist, plus new songs from our favorite emerging artists, check out our Spotify’s new voice playlist. This week, Olivia Rodrigo is all-in on “Vampire.”
It’s deeply frustrating that young women go through cycle after cycle in the entertainment industry. A recent rising star or singer who is glamorous and loved – until she reaches oversaturation, people don’t take her seriously. Usually in the same timeframe, an older man comes into the picture, which feels odd, but everyone shrugs and moves on. When the cyclone process ends, our rising star finds her light severely dimmed, and then the next cyclone process repeats itself.
Olivia Rodrigo, just 20, seems determined to break the cycle.
‘vampire’ is Rodrigo’s first new music since topping the charts in 2021 sourThe record launched her on the aforementioned road to fame with all its joys and frills, including an older boyfriend who showed up when she was 18. That relationship, along with some of the other setbacks that came with being thrust into the spotlight in ways that were more grandiose than she had anticipated, is the subject of her first foray into the upcoming record, GUTS.
“Every girl I’ve ever talked to tells me you’re bad news/You call them crazy, God, and I hate the way I call them crazy/You’re so convincing/How you lie without flinching ?” she asked on the track, describing a manipulative partner before delving further into the dynamic: “Choose me over her because girls your age know better.”
Sonically, it’s not a huge leap for Rodrigo – “Vampire” could easily position itself in sour, but the fact that she doesn’t feel the need to overhaul her voice is also refreshing in its own way. For an artist so young both in age and in her career, she’s given herself the space to develop her sound as she sees fit, and she clearly feels at home in this edgy pop space, with a signature Sex and pays homage to artists like Paramore and Taylor Swift, who laid the groundwork for a deeply personal, confessional songwriting style.
Like so much of her other work, “Vampyr” makes us feel like we’ve been let out of a secret. And, while the song’s premise suggests the nightmarish relationship has left her bleeding dry, she’s never sounded more alive.
— Mary Sirocchi
Associate Editor