Olivia Rodrigo goes on Popcast: album details, internet drama, etc.

• The album is structured as a chronological narrative about the rise and collapse of a relationship.
• After writing some of the break-up songs, she and Dan went back into the love songs to make them more ‘honest’ and ‘sad’ (the song purple is an example of this).
• Describes the cure as the ‘thesis statement’ of the album: “I was in a romantic relationship that was actually real and intimate for the first time and being like, whoa, this is holding a mirror to me and I’m seeing shit that I don’t like about myself.”
• On cursing less throughout this album: “I think I’m just feeling less angsty these days.”

• The interviewer asks: if she’d stayed in that zone (the high of love), where did she see the album ending? “I was really inspired by just all of the ways in which love makes you insane and miserable. […] I think, initially, I thought that that was what the record was going to be, just all love songs but trying to inject some sadness into them. And then, obviously, sadness in a real, kind of more whole way crept it’s way into the end.”
• Rock, in its more traditional sense (‘power chords’, ‘distortion’), is not the main sound of this album, but there’s still subtle moments of it there.
• After perfoming with Robert Smith in Glastonbury and living in England during that time, she went back to listening to new wave and English bands, and their sound connected with her: “I knew that I wanted to write songs about how it felt to be in love. And love feels like that to me.”
• my way talks about jealousy and feeling territorial. It’s described as being targeted at another woman, and she’s asked if she’s okay with being viewed as a villain in some of her work: “I think that type of criticism only really hurts when there’s like something in it that I think that is a little bit true.” “And I think the narrative will reveal itself over time.”
• Says she feels “weird” receiving praise for speaking out on humanitarian issues: “I try to stay educated on things. I make a conscious effort to try my very best because I think it’s important for everyone […] I’m an artist and what I do for my job is like ‘this is how I feel.’ And I present it to people and I think I would be disingenuous to be like, ‘I don’t feel heartbroken about what’s going on in Gaza.’ As an artist, I feel like that’s what you do and that’s my job [to use my platform]. I also feel really weird taking credit. I feel I could be doing more.”
• How she deals with internet scrutiny surrounding her relationship with Taylor Swift: “I don’t really read too far in it. I think it, like, comes with the territory, and it’s par for the course. I think if I dove into every internet detective sleuth that got things right or wrong about my life or any of my relationships, I think I’d just go crazy. Like, there’s not enough time in the day […] I think I had to learn to detach [from speculations of who my songs are about]. I think that’s something that I, hopefully, am good at these days.”
• Why she did not attending this year’s Met Gala: “I think now I’m on my third album, I feel like I don’t need to do things that don’t bring me joy, that don’t inspire me or that aren’t aligned with my values. That simply isn’t as fun or exciting for me as it used to be.”
• On the babydoll dress controversy (posted here as well): “[…] it’s just this rhetoric that we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is like, ‘Don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault.’ Like it’s so weird. And I didn’t think I looked sexy in that at all—I was like ‘This is so cool. I feel like I look like Kathleen Hanna or Courtney Love.’ All these people who are my heroes. […] I just think if we start dressing in a way that’s like, ‘I don’t want some fucking freak to think that I’m sexy like a baby’ or some crazy thing like that, I think it’s losing the plot a little bit.”
• Regarding her young fanbase: “I love hearing stories from girls who have never held a boy’s hand and they’re like, ‘traitor is my favorite song, like my friend at school changed friend groups and it devastated me.'”
• When asked what was the hardest thing that has ever happened in her personal life, where her music career led her to not deal with that situation: “I think I get really sad about not having had a childhood. I feel totally fine, but it’s kind of sad […] in some areas of my life I feel really advanced and in the social area I feel really behind. I was homeschooled, and that is very lonely. I think that’s why I wrote so many songs, it made me feel less alone.”
• On accusations of copying songs or album covers: “I’m a fangirl. I love music and nobody can take that away. I feel so lucky that I can do what I do. I love so many songs. I’ve grown up being surrounded with awesome music and awesome bands. I truly do feel so lucky. I love writing songs— I’ll be writing songs if nobody listened and everybody hated it.”
• When asked if there’s a frost with people like Taylor Swift over the song credits situation: “I think I tried to not let it get to me or upset me, I think I just tried to keep it trucking and I think, it was so long ago, there’s no use in harping on it, and I just try and make songs that I love and try to be kind and good to other people and supportive of other people and I’ve always just tried to be like that and at the end of the day, I think that’s all you can do.”

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