Olivia Rodrigo in Vancouver: The best Disney artist in last decade?

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Olivia Rodrigo Guts World Tour

When: Aug. 9, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rogers Arena
Tickets and info: Sold out

Olivia Rodrigo released the single Drivers License on Jan. 8, 2021, through Geffen/Interscope Records. The lead single from the singer’s debut album, Sour, was one of the year’s biggest hits.

Co-written with her producer Daniel Nigro, who had credits ranging from Kylie Minogue to Chappell Roan, the bedroom pop power track couldn’t have come at a better time.

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The song’s lamenting lyric about a Lothario lost to an older blond girl was a perfect foil for the emotions of teens, tweens and tiny tots trapped at home during COVID-19 lockdown days as well as an expression of the time-honoured tradition of achieving vehicular freedom in almost anywhere America. Rodrigo’s journal writing lyrical style lent comparisons with Taylor Swift, but Sour proved that the 17-year-old Disney star was very much her own creative force.

The album went on to win the 2022 Grammy for best pop vocal album, the Juno for international album of the year and countless other credits.

The same magazines that previously wrote concerned analysis questioning whether Billie Eilish’s deeply personal, darker delivery was a reflection of the tumultuous times on today’s teens tripped over themselves heaping praise on Rodrigo’s old-fashioned heartache and heartbreak balladry.

Vanity Fair writer Daniela Tijerina put it perfectly in a Jan. 20, 2021, article noting: “After the year we’ve had, it turns out the world is still clamouring for a breakup ballad — and 17-year-old Disney star Rodrigo has provided it.”

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The songs on Sour certainly were far from the ditties she danced and lip-synched to in Bizaardvark and high School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

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While Driver’s License would become a force unto itself, followup singles such as Brutal, Traitor and Favourite Crime were every bit as strong if not stronger. The waltzing piano torch track Happier was as immaculately crafted as any of Burt Bacharach and Hal Leonard’s classics. For this writer, it was 2:55 of pop perfection and the album highlight.

It was also written entirely by Rodrigo.

Clearly she was more than just another pop performer coming from the Mouse Factory providing just the right amount of edgier accessory to give a more “grown-up” edge to, musically speaking, more of the same predictable pap. There was a genuine voice in the music and Nigro’s production captured it expertly.

Guts found the team working together again to produce a record reflecting the concerns of an artist no longer in her teens with an expanded range of influences all delivered with precision in a dozen tracks clocking in at under 40 minutes. Rodrigo and Nigro worked almost exclusively as a writing team on the new tunes. Singles such as Vampire and the bouncy Bad Idea reflected a new-found focus of far-less-plaintive lyrics often framed in a middle-finger-poking picture.

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If anything, it proved that Rodrigo was going to be a force to reckon with for many years to come.

Her live performance at the 2023 Grammy Awards was a showcase for an artist that had grown leaps and bounds in only a few years’ time. Fans couldn’t wait for the Guts World Tour to be announced and tickets were snapped up at lightning speed. Her Rogers arena date in Vancouver is sold out.

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Needless to say, a lot of them are going to be disappointed to miss out seeing the singer perform songs like the new single Obsessed from the expanded Guts (Spilled) edition.

A Rodrigo/Nigro/Annie Clark (St. Vincent) co-write of exploding pop punk, it exposes yet another facet of the singer; she can rock too. The song should slam home in concert.

Rodrigo is clearly on her way to becoming the fastest breaking post-Disney diva to top the charts and the hearts of fans since Britney Spears did decades ago.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

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