“Vampire,” the singer’s first new music in two years, pushes her confessional-pop attraction to a scorching excessive.
Hype is available in many types, most of them despicable, however the buzz that preceded Olivia Rodrigo’s new single was the comparatively wholesome type. In 2021, the then-teenage Disney actor conquered the Billboard Sizzling 100 with not only a recent face and a sensible advertising marketing campaign, however a way of musical chance, hinting that business pop nonetheless had new instructions to evolve in. Chatty lyrics and breathy singing outlined her debut album, Bitter, however her hit singles—particularly “Driver’s License,” “Good 4 U,” “Deja Vu,” and “Brutal”—had been eclectic. The listening public, because it turned out, might deal with a star who careened from piano balladry to emo to experimental pop and even arduous rock. So over the previous two years, as she labored on her second album, curiosity mounted: The place would she go subsequent?
After all, many promising new voices earlier than her have made compromises in an effort to keep within the highlight as soon as they’ve attained it. Her new music might have been a rehash of certainly one of her hits, or it might have appropriated some trending sound (how lengthy earlier than we get Disney drill?). However fortunately, she opted to attempt to reside as much as the title of her forthcoming album, Guts. Her first single in two years, “Vampire,” pushes her confessional-pop attraction to a scorching excessive, and also you’d must be undead to not really feel just a little pleasure.
The monitor is piano rock, tapping into a convention of theatrical angst that leashes wild emotions to the tight, tidy jabbing of keys. That is more likely to be divisive: Rodrigo and her producer, Dan Nigro, channel her beforehand acknowledged inspirations (Fiona Apple, Billy Joel), but in addition some shocking, and daringly corny, artists (Muse, Mika). As on a lot of Bitter, Rodrigo’s melody is made up of quick phrases that stack like Legos. She additionally nonetheless sings in that weird accent that singer-songwriters have employed for years now—events are “pourties”; torture is “tuh-hor-ture”—to construct drama.
However the spark of the music comes from the best way its easy components layer into crushing heaviness. The more-than-a-minute-long intro is gradual in an illusory means; Rodrigo’s vocal itself retains a brisk tempo, which the music’s accumulating percussion later underlines. The best way that the association falls to silence across the large declaration of the refrain—“bloodsucker / fame fucker”—is an previous trick, however the jackhammering guitar that comes proper after is a shock, a chaser stronger than the shot. The very best second is within the bridge, when Rodrigo’s rambling cadence slides right into a Freddy Mercury–like wail, which stretches and modulates for a beat or two longer than appears pure. The feeling is that of the gravity beneath you altering once more, once more, and once more.
Rodrigo is venting in regards to the trusty subject of heartbreak, with fairly particular particulars about an older man who used her for her clout over the course of a six-month relationship. As along with her breakout hit, “Driver’s License,” a social-media feeding frenzy is more likely to consequence from listeners speculating in regards to the real-life inspiration for this story. However what punches via is harm and fury conveyed by traces equivalent to “I used to assume I used to be good / However you made me look so naive.” We’ve all felt that means earlier than—how will Rodrigo make it sound subsequent?
