Olivia Rodrigo opens up about ‘pressure’ she felt while writing first two albums

By Carla Feric, Press Association Entertainment Reporter

Olivia Rodrigo has opened up about being “under so much pressure” while writing her first two albums.

Rodrigo, who starred in the Disney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series as a teenager, shot to fame in 2021 after releasing her award-winning single Driver’s Licence.

In an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine, the 23-year-old singer reflected on feeling like the “whole world was watching” after releasing the hit track, and said the pressure made it difficult to follow it up.

Speaking about her debut album Sour, Rodrigo said: “We didn’t have time for revisions on Sour. The whole world was watching. I wrote and we just f****** recorded and put it out.”

The record shot to number one in the UK albums chart, and won Rodrigo the best pop vocal album and best new artist Grammy in 2022.

She said: “I was so young then and felt like the world was on my shoulders and that I had to have everything together.

“I was motivated, but there was fear. Now I feel a lot more self-assured. My passion and work ethic come from a place of positivity rather than a scared mindset.”

Rodrigo also reflected on her second album, Guts, and said: “With Guts, I was under so much pressure, like, ‘Oh my god, I’m never going to be able to make another good song’.

“It wasn’t even making music to make music. It was making music to please people or prove something.”

The US pop star also opened up to the magazine about her anxiety at the start of her career – which she described as a “trial by fire” – and said: “I’m serving anxious forever.

“I was really nervous the first 10 shows of the Guts tour. It was hard to be away from home and not have any sense of normalcy. I was freaking out; my nervous system was crashing out.

“I still get anxious. It’s just different than when I was younger.”

Rodrigo recently released her latest single, Drop Dead, from her eagerly awaited third album – You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love – which will be released this summer.

Reflecting on her new record, she told Cosmopolitan she had “so much joy” with her songwriting process and said: “I was really excited to write about joy, love and passion in a way that I had never really done.

“Most of my big songs are about being sad, angry, heartbroken.

“We really edited the hell out of this album. There was so much more joy in the songwriting. There are some songs that are plain old sad but also some songs that are just plain old fun.”

Rodrigo also said she sometimes finds it “cringier” to write about being happy, but added: “I cringe, but I’m free. All of my favourite love songs have an element of sadness, and that’s what makes them so beautiful.

“A great love song has so much emotion behind it that it could go either way. I want to make love songs that you can cry to.”