Nick Walker*
After Sour comes Guts. Lives, OR2 is here! On Friday, Olivia Rodrigo released her highly anticipated sophomore album, Guts, a 40-minute, 12-track album that includes songs like “All-American Bitch” and the Katy Perry-leaning “Teenage Dream.”
Following the release, Rodrigo took to social media to thank her fans. “Today is the day!! I feel so many emotions. I’m excited, nervous, proud but most of all I’m very grateful,” she wrote on Instagram on Friday, while thanking her producer Dan Nigro.
She added: “I am very grateful to everyone who has supported me so generously over the last few years. Thank you to everyone who listened and streamed and was so kind.”
All tracks on the standard edition LP – there is also reportedly a deluxe version with four additional songs – were either produced entirely by or co-produced with Nigro, who Rodrigo collaborated with on Sour. (“He’s just a genius and I feel really fortunate to be able to work with him, too,” she said at a release party this summer.)
In addition to her singles “Bad Idea Right?”, Rodrigo also wrote the vast majority of the songs herself. and “Vampire,” as well as “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” which she co-wrote with Nigro.
Alexander 23 co-produced track 8, “Get Him Back!”, while Ryan Linvill was hired to produce “Logical” and “The Grudge”. The four additional tracks on Guts (Deluxe Edition) are titled “Obsessed”, “Scared of My Guitar”, “Stranger” and “Girl I’ve Always Been”.
The singer announced that she would be releasing Guts after releasing the single “Vampire.”
“I feel like I grew ten years between the ages of 18 and 20 — it’s been such an intense time of awkwardness and change,” she previously wrote in a statement. “I think it’s all just a natural part of growth, and hopefully the album reflects that.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone over the summer, Rodrigo said much of the album looks back at the mistakes she made in her life and how those mistakes helped her grow up.
“One of my favorite lines in the song is, ‘I’ve made some really big mistakes, but you make the worst look good.’ “This album is about me making a lot of mistakes in my life and being awkward, not knowing who I am and not knowing what I want,” she told Rolling Stone. “It’s just a really necessary part of life. Looking back it was super uncomfortable going through that, but I think making mistakes and not doing everything perfectly is the only way to find out who you are and how to grow and develop.”
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“That’s what the album is very much about,” she added.
Rodrigo and Nigro recorded Guts between New York and LA. She began working on “Vampire” at Electric Lady Studios in late 2022. Offal.