Single Review: Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire

Olivia Rodrigo has become difficult to avoid lately. Much like that white woman with the clock album. A fitting comparison, as the two do share some similarities, but we’ll get to that. So out of sheer curiosity I decided to check out her new song “Vampire”, given that I was pleasantly surprised by her 2021 song “Driver’s Licence”, and once again I am pleasantly surprised.

Sometimes it pays to be curious.

“Vampire” has me torn. Because I like how it builds and it becomes this thrashy lil’ punk rock song. BUT. I also really like the balladry of how the song starts, and kinda wish the entire song stayed there. But the shift in vibe is a nice twist because there’s no hint of it coming. It also gives “Vampire” character and a nice sense of progression; the latter of which is lacking in a lot of songs released by popular artists today. So many songs these days tend to come in at one level and just stay there for the whole 2 minutes and 20 seconds. So, shout outs to Olivia and producer Dan Nigro for putting out something which sounds interesting and takes you on a ride. A ride which is 3 minutes and 40 seconds no less. A WHOLE SONG Y’ALL. But the shift in “Vampire” and the way the song gets louder and more angsty also cooly matches Olivia’s emotions as she sings through the song; going from wallowing in a state of self pity, to having realisations and being so mad at herself for not seeing what was right in front of her. It’s a really nice touch.

Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire | Geffen Records

Olivia has a definite talent as a songwriter. She has a real knack for telling stories. But what also helps massively with this is her delivery, and this is something I feel often gets overlooked when it comes to singing; and something Olivia herself doesn’t get enough credit for. It’s not always about having the best voice technically, but being able to sing in a way where your voice is the vessel for the story being told in the best way. It’s like acting. No matter how good a screenplay is and how good a director is, an actor acting like shit is just gonna reduce the entire thing to ‘the actor being shit’.

Olivia has this way of singing where she really draws you into her songs and you’re in them with her. And I think this is the crux of why she’s blown up the way she has, aside from having extremely catchy songs. It’s not hard to hear why she is so popular amongst young teenage girls, but it’s also not hard to get why she also has fans across a demographic which is probably more varied than we realise.

I feel that the way Olivia’s music connects is very similar to what made Taylor Swift’s music take off, although their approaches are slightly different. Taylor’s music felt and still feels like it tows a line between reality and fairy tales, with a heavy leaning to fairy tales. And I think one of the reasons why “Anti-Hero” REALLY struck me the way it did and why I stand firm that it’s a fantastic song, is because it’s an instance of Taylor grounding a song in reality and nothing else. The same goes for “Out of the Woods”. And oddly enough, despite her Folklore and Evermore albums all featuring songs about fictional events or things that happened to other people, these songs were all centred in real emotions and conveyed with sincerity; which is also why I fuck with those albums the most out of her entire discography.

Olivia’s songs are much more grounded into reality, without some fairy tale spin or a sense of AND THEN THERE WAS A GLASS SLIPPER. And I can imagine how Taylor Swift would approach a song like “Vampire”. Olivia is like ‘You were a piece of shit. You tried to suck everything outta me. Good for you. I’m over you.’ Where-as Taylor would have been like ‘You were a terrible person who drained the life out of me, hurled me into an abyss, which swept me up like a tornado, with no parachute and sense of direction. The world spun so far it flew off its axis that I found myself floating in a dimensional reprieve, where I saw every memory of you and I, and all of the lies’. Taylor has this thing where she takes something very normal and just throws in this fantastical element, which would be fine. Except she then over describes the entire scenario to the point where it takes me out of songs. It’s her thing. I get it. She a wordy gal. And I get that too, because I can be. Olivia is far more simplistic in her approach. You can hear some Taylor-isms in her music, for sure. Olivia has openly said that she’s a fan of that white woman with the clock album. And I’ve always thought that Olivia has played from the Taylor Swift playbook when it comes to how she markets and presents herself, and the way she rolls her music out. But Olivia’s biggest charm is in her simplicity, and the trust that she has in it. She never says more than she needs to. And I also think part of it is that her producer is Dan Nigro, who is not only twice Olivia’s age, but has worked with a roster of artists, which includes Sky Ferreira, Carly Rae Jepsen and Caroline Polachek, who have pretty direct approaches to songwriting.

Even somebody old and crusty like me by comparison to her core fanbase, I find Olivia’s music really endearing. Olivia’s songs really are a slice of life as a young teen about to navigate live her 20s, and I really admire that she sits in that. In this day and age where so many youngsters in music are forced to age up and do specific types of songs that the record label thinks the tastemakers which find ‘cool’, it’s really nice to just have a girl sing songs about what it is like to be a girl figuring shit out when it comes to boys and love. And if she sticks to this, then she won’t ever experience that awkward phase in her career where she has to start doing the sassy, glossy pop records which comes with a ‘sexy’ image change to show that she’s ‘grown’. But I also think these gen z acts are so stubborn when it comes to their art and everything in general, that record labels would really find it hard getting somebody like Olivia to betray their vision any way.

Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire | Geffen Records

Much like Olivia’s breakout hit “Driving Licence”, “Vampire” is full of charm and whimsy. But it also showcases that Olivia really does have talent as a songwriter and a storyteller. And her partner in crime Dan Nigro does an amazing job of pretty much soundtracking Olivia’s stories to help elevate them and bring them to life.

“Vampire” is a great lead single for her second studio album too, especially after “Driving Licence” kicked off her first. The understatedness and sadness of “Driving Licence” (I like me a sad bitch anthem) was what made me warm to the song. “Vampire” is the complete opposite. It’s not understated at all. It’s loud. It’s bold. It’s a middle finger. And narratively it’s Olivia driving to her ex man’s house with her homegirls in the back, making the most of that driver’s licence in a nicer car (because she got money now) and bricking his shit. “Vampire” will also speak to fans who liked Olivia’s Sour, but wanted more songs like “Brutal”.

And whilst there isn’t a great deal of time between Sour and “Vampire”, there is definite growth that can be heard. The songs on Sour didn’t really scream ‘Big pop star’ or ‘Huge mega hit’. Crazy, given that the album delivered on both. But if I were to have listened to the album before anything of it or Olivia kicked off, I wouldn’t have thought it would blow up in the way that it did. The focus with the songs wasn’t trying to make a hit song. But with “Vampire”, everything about it is engineered to hit big, but not at the expense of losing the essence of what made so many people fall for Olivia in the first place. And it also creates intrigue as to what the album will sound like. Off the strength of “Vampire”, maybe I won’t take as long to check out her second album as I did to check out her first.