Olivia Rodrigo
10 days after her debut single “Driver’s License” was released it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed there for 8 weeks.
This had never been done by an artist with no chart history.
It broke the record for most streams on Spotify (for a non-holiday song) - 17 million times in a day
Q: Why do you think someone who had never released a single before could be so successful with one song?
Together we are going to analyze how Rodrigo could be so successful…
Olivia Rodrigo was born Feb. 20, 2003, in California to a Filipino father and American mother
Q: If parents want their young daughter to become a future pop star, what kind of lessons should she take? When should she start?
Rodrigo started acting, vocal and piano lessons from 6
She took guitar lessons from 12-years-old.
Q: To get experience in show business what should a young girl do before she graduates high school?
join school plays
join local plays
appear in tv commercials
appear in tv shows
enter song contests
Rodrigo joined school and local plays in her childhood
She appeared in an Old Navy Commercial at the age of 12
She starred in a kids Disney show at 13
Then she got a new Disney show in 2019 which was about making a musical.
Disney released some of the songs as singles which were popular with the shows fans and appeared on the Billboard charts
So we know Rodrigo had the training and a fan base which helped her with sales.
The next step is to write a HIT SONG. She called it “Driver’s License.”
Q: What do you think it’s about?
Lyrics
I got my driver's license last week
Just like we always talked about
'Cause you were so excited for me
To finally drive up to your house
But today I drove through the suburbs
Crying 'cause you weren't around
And you're probably with that blonde girl
Who always made me doubt
She's so much older than me
She's everything I'm insecure about
Yeah, today I drove through the suburbs
'Cause how could I ever love someone else?
I guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me
'Cause you said forever now I drive alone past your street
Questions:
Who is she singing to?
Why is she crying?
Who is the blonde girl?
Can you relate to the lyrics?
Fans of the song thought this is about her real ex-boyfriend and they tried to guess WHO the ex-boyfriend was and WHO the blond girl was.
From these lyrics, what do we know about the boy and the blonde girl?
Fans started making GUESSES on blogs and on Tik Tok videos which made the song even more famous.
Most fans believed she was dating her coworker, Joshua Basset (20) on her TV show
People guess that the blonde girl is Sabrina Carpenter, another Disney star, who is 4 years older than Olivia
Sources:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-01-14/drivers-license-olivia-rodrigo-song-joshua-bassett
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/arts/music/olivia-rodrigo-drivers-license.html