Rising pop star Olivia Rodrigo has released her sophomore album titled Guts— and it’s just as big a hit as her first one. Rodrigo, 20, has skyrocketed to fame in the past few years. She starred in the Disney classic Bizaardvark before taking on a role in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. It was on this show where her songwriting and music began to take off. Songs such as “All I Want”, “The Rose Song”, and “Granted” grabbed the attention and hearts of audiences. 

Rodrigo left HSMTMTS to pursue her musical career after season three. On January 8th, 2021, Rodrigo released “Drivers License,” her debut single. This song was just a hint of what was to come for her career. May 21st, 2021, Olivia released her debut album, Sour. Filled with catchy, relatable, and emotional songs, this album was a massive hit. The first week of its release, Sour became the biggest debut by a female artist on Spotify. It even won Rodrigo three Grammys. Clearly, this album is widely loved. 

Rodrigo continues to drop record-breaking music. This past summer, she released “vampire”, the lead single to her new album titled Guts. Then, she dropped “bad idea right?”, another track from the new album. This song entered the Hot Rock & Alternative charts as Number 1. On September 8th, 2023, the whole album was released. The cover art still features her signature purple from Sour, but the music is definitely different. As opposed to the emotional piano ballads of her first album, Rodrigo takes on a punk, early 2000s vibe in Guts. There are 12 songs on the album, each one mixing her heartfelt songwriting with rock beats. 

A recurring theme on Guts is the difficulty of growing up. Rodrigo says, “I feel like I grew 10 years between the ages of 18 and 20— it was such an intense period of awkwardness and change.” In her early life, she was known for her acting on Disney Channel. Deciding to take on music and releasing Sour changed her life intensely and extremely fast. Additionally, the topic of relationships comes up throughout the album. Fans have many theories as to who these songs are about, but Rodrigo told Rolling Stone Magazine, “I don’t have beef with anyone. I’m very chill. I keep to myself…There’s nothing to say…”. 

Rodrigo keeps it classy, investing her time in creating good music, not feeding into speculation from fans. 

Following the album release, Rodrigo announced a Guts World Tour. She will be playing 75 shows from February all the way through August. The openers are The Breeders, Chappell Roan, PinkPantheress, and Remi Wolf. 

Rodrigo said, “I wrote the album with a tour in mind, so I think they’re all songs I wanted people to be able to scream in a crowd.” These tickets won’t be easy to grab, however, as millions of people have already registered for the sale. 

It’s been about 2 weeks since Guts came out, and it is now her second number 1 album. It has nearly 100 million streams, making it the fourth-largest opening week for an album this year. Every song on the album is in Billboard’s top 40. She also did this with Sour and is now the first artist to chart every song from two albums in Billboard’s Hot 100s. Rodrigo’s success is undeniable, and pop music fans all around the world cannot wait to see what she does next.