New Young Artist Olivia Rodrigo Drops Smash Hit “drivers license”

Olivia Rodrigo's new single "driver's license" was released on Jan. 8.

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Olivia Rodrigo’s new single “driver’s license” was released on Jan. 8.

Ava Curtis, Staff Writer

New artist Olivia Rodrigo, breaks the internet and tops charts with the hit song “drivers license” released on Jan. 8.

The 17-year-old singer-songwriter was previously known for her starring role on High School Musical the Musical: The Series on Disney Plus. Her previously most popular song, which she wrote for the show, “All I Want” has reached over 206 million views since late 2019. However, more than a year later, she finally dropped her own music which has broken records left and right over the course of three weeks.

The song broke Spotify’s record for most one-day streams for a non-holiday song, with over 15 million global streams on its fourth day, and the next day, it extended the record further with 17+ million streams. It also broke the record for the fastest song to reach 100 million streams on Spotify. Ultimately, the track went on to break the Spotify record for most streams of a song in a single week, with over 65 million streams in the week ending Jan. 14. It is currently almost at 234 million streams on Spotify. Rodrigo is still currently No. 1 on almost every single country’s Top 50 as well as the Global Top 50.

The song itself is a break-up ballad where she goes through memories of a past relationship. She admits that she still loves the boy mentioned and is trying to deal with him moving on. The song starts with the sounds of a car which leads into a mix of piano and production sounds. It starts at a slow to medium pace; however, halfway through the song the beat drops and it begins a new rhythm that makes you want to belt out the lyrics along with her. The song is similar to Taylor Swift’s work as well.

The lyrics and production made the song feel extremely relatable even to those who have not been in the same or similar experience. The song brought people together as it ultimately became an international breakup anthem. However, the song did bring a lot of drama, as fans speculated that it was about her co-star Joshua Bassett. He released his own music unrelated to “driver license”, although his supposed current girlfriend, Sabrina Carpenter, a well known artist herself, dropped a song in response to Rodrigo’s. However, the results did not go as well for Carpenter as she received tons of backlash from fans who took Rodrigo’s side.

Despite all the drama, the song itself is a masterpiece and has been acclaimed by popular artists such as Taylor Swift and Cardi B. If you are feeling down or want to belt something while driving in the suburbs yourself, definitely take a listen, or relisten, to this song.