Guts

It works as a display of real power, range and versatility – all of which Rodrigo possesses in abundance.

Her excellent new Guts is another instant classic, with her most ambitious, intimate, and messy songs yet. Olivia’s pop-punk bangers are full of killer lines (“I wanna meet your mom, just to tell her her son sucks”) but she pushes deeper in powerful ballads like “Logical.” All over Guts, she’s so witty, so pissed off, so angsty at the same time, the way only a rock star can be. And this is the album of a truly brilliant rock star.

“Teenage Dream” recycles a song title of Katy Perry’s and echoes a twisty-turny melody of Lana Del Rey’s. Yet Rodrigo’s emotional presence is so strong throughout “Guts” — so believable even at its most unrelatable — that you never lose the sense of a specific young person navigating a trial of her own making.

GUTS is emphatic proof that Rodrigo isn't just good for a kid -- she's grown into an artist with plenty of things to say, and the confidence and eloquence to say them her way.

It’s a bold step forward for the now 20-year-old Rodrigo—an incisive unraveling of the chaos and disappointment of young adulthood, dating and fame with a side of sizzling with zingers and rage. It’s her Melodrama.

Whichever end of the spectrum you might land on, there’s rage, yearning, and reckless behavior here that transcends generations, which is a soaring accomplishment.

Poignantly fraught, spiritually and sonically agitated. .... Her self-doubt is a powerful animating force. Throughout this album, she kiln-fires her anxieties into lyrics that cut deep. .... Here [on "Teenage Dream"], and in the most potent moments on “Guts,” Rodrigo’s music pulses with the verve of someone who’s been buttoned tight beginning to come loose. Unraveling is messy business, but it is also freedom.

As clever as the album consistently is, it still maintains the aura she’s established of transmitting real-talk teen vérité right into the grooves. Wherever her 20s take her from here, may it turn out to be just as affectionate, cheeky and brash.

Across the record, the winking lyrical smarts are in full flow.

Rodrigo certainly has the capacity for the kinds of nuanced choices that match her vulnerability with active, novel sonics, and GUTS proves that she’s willing and able to embrace the grey areas that these big emotions inhabit. But her fearlessness with a pen in her hand deserves to be matched by the overall presentation of these songs, making it all the more satisfying when she lets these songs bubble up and burst.

GUTS is a brash, sobering look at the totality of fame on a young woman—how it consumes, abuses and isolates.

On SOUR she was a budding superstar; on GUTS, her sound has fully bloomed.

A collection of bratty rocker-chick anthems and soul-searching ballads that could slot into the soundtrack of any classic high school flick, from 10 Things I Hate About You to this year’s ludicrous queer sex comedy Bottoms.

Overall, Guts is perhaps missing Sour’s big pop moments, but as a snapshot of an upturned life it’s consistently fascinating.

Guts is an immensely confident and assured record which confirms that Olivia Rodrigo is here for the long-term.

Olivia Rodrigo has created another fun, varied and mature studio album, which perfectly contributes to her wider attempt to preserve her experiences as a teenager within her music.

The other striking thing is how sharp her lyrics are, behind their unassuming conversational veneer: only Pretty Isn’t Pretty’s assault on beauty standards feels a little boilerplate. Elsewhere, she’s witty.

The result is a raw, confessional album more interested in telling Rodrigo’s story than conforming to the standards of popular music.

These songs show that Rodrigo isn’t done after GUTS.

Despite occasional missteps like that and “Pretty Isn’t Pretty,” which feels like a risk-averse treatise on an important issue, Guts is more consistent than Rodrigo’s debut. Her writing has gotten more precise, which makes both her self-criticism and frequent barbs hurled at others land all the better. She’s also writing with a knottier, less easily resolved perspective this time around.