Pop

Olivia Rodrigo‘s “Vampire” single opens with the melancholy sound of the singer initially whisper-singing the song’s biting lyrics over a gently played piano. By the end of the first chorus, though, as her voice rises, she’s suddenly bolstered by a thrumming beat, strings and a bull-rush arrangement that builds to a rush-of-blood-to-the-head sprint. But in […]

Taylor Swift dropped her highly anticipated re-recording of her 2010 album Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on Friday (July 7) and it’s not just Swifties who are amped up about it. The singer celebrated the release with a note to fans in which she reminisced about the songs she began writing at 18 and then revisited as a 32-year-old, and all the attendant memories and emotions that journey unleashed.
“It’s here. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s ours. It’s an album I wrote alone about the whims, fantasies, heartaches, dramas and tragedies I lived out as a young woman between 18 and 20,” she wrote. “I remember making tracklist after tracklist, obsessing over the right way to tell the story. I had to be ruthless with my choices, and I left behind some songs I am still unfailingly proud of now.”

The revised version of the album includes all 16 songs from the original and deluxe versions of the project, plus six never-before-heard “From the Vault” tracks with two collaborations with Hayley Williams and Fall Out Boy; Williams guests on a vault track called “Castles Crumbling,” while Fall Out Boy appears on the vault track “Electric Touch.” The other solo Vault songs on Speak Now are: “When Emma Falls in Love,” “I Can See You,” “Foolish One” and “Timeless.”

Swift previously released Red (Taylor’s Version) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version), which similarly featured re-recordings of those album’s tracks, as well as previously unreleased songs that were cut from those original albums.

In her note to fans, Taylor addressed the new songs, writing, “therefore, you have 6 From The Vault tracks! I recorded this album when I was 32 (and still growing up, now) and the memories it brought back filled me with nostalgia and appreciation. For life, for you, for the fact that I get to reclaim my work. Thank you a million times, for the memories that break our fall.”

In addition to re-recording the songs, Swift tweaked a lyric from the song “Better Than Revenge,” which was rumored at the time to be inspired by ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas and his post-Tay girlfriend, Camilla Belle. On the original, Swift sang: “She’s not a saint and she’s not what you think, she’s an actress, whoa/ She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress, whoa.”

In the re-recorded version, Swift kept the first line the same, but changed the latter line to: “He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches, whoa.”

See Swift’s note below.

It’s here. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s ours. It’s an album I wrote alone about the whims, fantasies, heartaches, dramas and tragedies I lived out as a young woman between 18 and 20. I remember making tracklist after tracklist, obsessing over the right way to tell the story. I had… pic.twitter.com/I2cLH76EIH— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 7, 2023

At the ripe age of 20, Olivia Rodrigo is already an industry veteran. After setting out to pursue her Hollywood dreams at 12, Rodrigo sounds like an old soul when describing the vibe of her upcoming sophomore album. It’s a time capsule commemorating a moment in which she feels like she’s “figuring stuff out, about failures and success and making mistakes,” the singer told Vogue for its August cover story.
The interview took place in New York’s East Village at the launch of what the magazine said was Rodrigo’s New York Era, as the singer recently moved from her native California into a new apartment in the city, where she spent much of last year writing her sophomore album, GUTS (Sept. 8).

As for what those mistakes and failures are, well, Rodrigo said, “you’ll have to listen to the rest of the album.” Writer Jia Tolentino did get to hear four unnamed songs from GUTS, describing two “wrenching, cinematic ballads,” she said were crafted with a “new self-assurance,” as well as two others that were “playful and insouciant.”

Rodrigo’s longtime producer and co-songwriter, Dan Nigro, said Olivia is the kind of artist that just clearly displayed that special spark from day one. “There’s this je ne sais quoi to Olivia,” he said of the singer who went from booking an American Doll movie at 12 to co-starring in the Disney series Bizaardvark before graduating to the lead in 2019’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. “People either have it or they don’t.”

Describing the songs on the album as anthems that “simply captured what it was like to be 20, an age when you’re sometimes blazing with ridiculous lust, thrilled to be seen as beautiful, enraged by other people’s expectations,” Tolentino said Rodrigo had threaded the difficult needle of avoiding “bubblegum locker-door fairy tales” while also sidestepping aggressive statements about being edgy and grown.

“Olivia can’t be anything other than herself,” Nigro said of the singer who reveals that Bruce Springsteen is her “biggest celebrity crush” of all time while perusing the racks of an East Village record store. “There’s never a sense in the studio of her trying to fit into a mold, or sound like anything that anyone might want her to.” He also noted that GUTS is a decided turn away from the melancholy vibe of her 2021 debut, Sour.

And while the vibe is a bit different, as with her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits “Drivers License” and “Good 4 U,” romantic drama is still never too far away. One of the songs, which reportedly has tinges of Le Tigre, Charli XCX and the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack, was about Olivia hurtling into an “ill-advised and irresistible night with an ex.” Another tackles the minefield of expectations that are put on idealized young women, “the pressure to be sexy, thoughtful, funny, kind, inspiration, easygoing, endlessly grateful,” even as the riot grrrl-like chorus rips those ideas to shreds.

Rodrigo didn’t just flip through the shelves at the store, though, she also weighed in on the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision striking down Roe v. Wade. She said that the rollback of reproductive rights in America feels “actually insane — I think it’s sickening.” She talks about how young women of her generation might be, “forced to give birth if they get pregnant… It is so scary. It’s such a terrifying reality.”

Then, reflecting on her repeated assertions during 2021 that young female pop singers have a best-listened-to-by-30 expiration date, Rodrigo said that she was under the impression that the younger you are, “the more successful you’ll be in the music industry.” Now, however, she has had an about-face on that notion, rejecting the idea that “value is externally defined.”

“I think I believed in these false ideas for a little while,” she said. “The most painful moment of my life turned into my most successful.” Realizing that the correlation between pain and success do not have to be directly linked, Rodrigo said she now understands that you can write good music while you’re growing a lot and that that is something that could go on for your whole career.

And, in another savvy veteran move, she was very cautious about going into specific detail about what (or more precisely, who) her highly autobiographical-sounding lyrics are about. That explains why she wouldn’t name the “bloodsucker, fame f–ker” she calls out on lead single, “Vampire.” Funnily for an artist whose songs often take deep dives into heartbreak and love’s confusion, she was also cagey about whether she’s dating now, offering, “I don’t kiss and tell.”

Because while she can fathom the public fascination with her love life — “I understand it. I could sit here and be like, ‘I don’t get why people do that,’ but I do it so often” — she said she writes her lyrics to understand her emotions better, but once they’re out in the world they don’t belong to just her anymore.

“She begins by speaking for herself, but she speaks, in the end, for so many young women,” said her inspiration songwriting legend Carole King. “And I love her. I’ve only met her for one afternoon, but I love her.”

Check out pictures from the Vogue shoot below.

Olivia Rodrigo for Vogue’s August 2023 issue. Loewe top. Prada skirt.

Théo de Gueltzl

Olivia Rodrigo for Vogue’s August 2023 issue. Miu Miu turtleneck sweater and briefs. Valentino Garavani shoes. Tiffany & Co. necklace.

Théo de Gueltzl