Sour Review

Drivers License arrived in January 2021 and sat at number one for two months, and Sour is the record that proved it was not a fluke. Olivia Rodrigo was a teenager when she wrote it, and the lyrics are the reason it matters: specific, funny and furious, full of details that read like pages torn from a diary, the ex's new girlfriend, the Billy Joel song, the driving test. Brutal opens with a snarl about being seventeen and underwhelmed, and Good 4 U turns spite into a pop punk anthem.

Dan Nigro's production swings between those guitar songs and hushed piano ballads, and the switch keeps the album moving. The influences sit close to the surface, close enough that the album ended up sharing songwriting credits with Taylor Swift and with the writers of Paramore's Misery Business, and the sound rarely feels like hers alone. The ballads also run together in the second half, where Enough for You, Happier and Favorite Crime make the same point in the same key of heartbreak. At thirty five minutes it never outstays its welcome, and the writing announces a major talent.