By Camille Rasor | News Editor
In the first single she’s put out independent from her contract with Disney, Olivia Rodrigo has smashed all sorts of streaming records with her song “drivers license.”
Rodrigo now holds the Spotify record for most streams of a song in a single week, and the track also holds the platform’s record for most streamed song in a day with over 17,000,000 plays worldwide on Jan. 12.
Not only is the song thriving on Spotify, but Rodrigo’s song is the first to chart at No. 1 on both the US iTunes and US Apple Music charts at the same time. And Amazon Music announced that the song had the biggest first week streaming debut and it was the most requested song in one day for Alexa devices to play in people’s homes.
What’s contributing to all of Rodrigo’s success? Firstly, the lyrics and production quality are incredible. Her songwriting rivals that of early Taylor Swift songs, which coming from me is the highest compliment I can give. From someone who hasn’t dealt with heartbreak in three years, every time I listen to it (which has been nonstop lately), the song still makes me turn up my car speakers to max volume and scream the lyrics “GUESS YOU DIDN’T MEAN WHAT YOU WROTE IN THAT SONG ABOUT ME ‘CAUSE YOU SAID FOREVER NOW I DRIVE ALONE PAST YOUR STREET.”
The layers to the music are so interesting. The song starts with the sound of a car turning on and the song carries the recordings of different sounds from the car throughout the track.
Secondly, not only is the song amazing, but the subject of the song has had everyone online chattering. Rodrigo got her start from working with Disney Channel and is now the star of Disney+’s original show “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” and it’s rumored that the song itself is about her costar Joshua Bassett.
To make matters even more interesting, Bassett released a song a week after “drivers license” came out called “Lie, Lie, Lie.” In the week leading up to the release, there was lots of speculation about whether or not Bassett’s track would be somewhat of a response to Rodrigo. The song, however, doesn’t seem to be about Rodrigo, as he had released a snippet of him singing the song on his Instagram in late 2019, before Bassett and Rodrigo had broken up.
What comes next when the stars have to come back together for the filming of season two of HSMTMTS? Who knows. I just know that I fully support Rodrigo through this because I know how much heartbreak sucks, even when no one did anything wrong. And I also know that I need Rodrigo to release a full album as soon as she can. I think we can all use some more screaming-in-the-car-by-yourself material in the crazy times we’re living in.
