The Shadow of Sour Writing “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo

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The mastermind behind the overwhelmingly successful album, Sour, the 20-year-old Olivia Rodrigo comes back into the spotlight with a new heartwrenching single, ‘Vampire’ and the announcement of her upcoming album ‘Guts’. 

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As the expected sophomore album Guts slowly approaches, many people have been taking note of the difficulty that Olivia will face to top her previous work on Sour. Sour debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, with the biggest opening in 2021 for an album at the time. In addition, it secured Olivia three Grammy wins in 2022.

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Olivia discusses the pressure and anxiety that she faced with the success of Sour and the expectations that she had to live up to during the early stages of writing Guts. She mentions that it’s an unhealthy mindset to constantly think about outperforming ‘Drivers License’ or Sour. Instead, she focuses on writing music she herself would love to hear on the radio and chooses to accept everything else is out of her control, including the success of her work. 

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With all that said, Vampire is currently occupying the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, with over 100 million streams on Spotify, and continues Olivia’s streak as one of this generation's greatest songwriters. 

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Writing Vampire really helped Olivia sort through a lot of “regret, anger and heartache”, things she was trying to express for a long time. Vampire isn’t just about something surface-level like someone hurting Olivia, but rather the regret she faced for going along while knowing that something wasn’t going to turn out great. 

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Listen to Vampire on music streaming platforms, and check out the music video for Vampire on Youtube.

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