Olivia Rodrigo

Gen Z’s Taylor Swift?

By: Gracie Kibort

It is safe to say that the world is not the same as it was a year ago, for many reasons, but first and foremost is Olivia Rodrigo’s grand entrance into the music industry. Rodrigo, 18, has only been on the public’s radar for the past 10 months after releasing her debut single “drivers license” in January. Within a week of its release, it broke Spotify’s record for most streams in a day for a non-holiday song, with over 15.7 million streams on January 11. Rodrigo’s success has continued to snowball and seep into the pop culture framework. Her most recent single, “good 4 u,” broke Spotify’s record for most streams in a single week. Rodrigo has toppled the music industry and is one of the first Gen Z artists to do so. It is also important to note that Rodrigo’s success was jump-started with the Disney+ guilty pleasure and mockumentary “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” Rodrigo has solidified her place on the long list of Disney stars who dominate pop culture, which includes Nick Jonas, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez, to name a few. However, by creating such an epochal and eye-catching aesthetic, Rodrigo has broken the mold. This is partly due to her song “All I Want,” which gained popularity on Tiktok in 2019. Since her debut album, “SOUR,” dropped in May, her songs have demolished the Billboard charts and shattered TikTok ForYou pages everywhere, a modern measure of an artist’s success. Although incomparable to any star to walk before her, Rodrigo has openly taken inspiration from Taylor Swift, also an undoubtedly iconic, record-breaking woman. In fact, some would argue that Rodrigo is Gen Z’s Swift, both hitting the ground running in their music careers early in life. Due to both being teenage pop sensations, their “girl next door” approachableness should not be overlooked. This is also the reason why they are both subject to misogynistic scrutiny when writing about their relationship woes. By being young and vulnerable in their music and to the public eye, critics feel as if both Swift and Rodrigo are fair targets for attack. Rodrigo cultivated “SOUR” into an unmatched aesthetic, a norm conceived by Swift’s constant reinvention of her persona. Despite the similarities between the pop sensations, Rodrigo has continued to walk to the beat of her own Gen Z drum. She has taken several steps forward, and won’t be taking any steps back just yet.