POP SONG REVIEW: "drivers license" by Olivia Rodrigo

I'm not into the song, but the video is gorgeous. I'd watch it a few times just for that

Dorkvania

I saw the SNL sketch about this song before watching this video, and that was the first I had ever heard it. Went back and rewatched it after watching this one, and it provided some much needed context. Also made me appreciate the sketch more.

NYC Pigeon

Ok nevermind, the song is growing on me damn it!

Speaking of child stars going into pop and charting reminded me of Martika's "Toy Soldiers". It might make for a good One Hit Wonderland.

Erik Robbins

oh you HAVE to see Secret of Nihm it's so awesome. Never had a girlfriend myself really so I can't relate myself, seems kind of silly to swear off seeing a film ever just because of that. The song is fine(I like it better then the immensely overrated pretentious "Royals") but i'm a little skeptical about those high numbers, something definitely seems off there even taking into account Taylor Swift promoting this song.

RedBedroomRecords

i'm also single in my 30s and I liked it.

RedBedroomRecords

I'm in my 30s and it affected me.

RedBedroomRecords

she sounds fine

RedBedroomRecords

I think it has more to do with the Trump administration making decent people feel like they are living in an alien world where logic no longer matters and only chaos ruled and we're still feeling the after-effects of it.

RedBedroomRecords

i'm happy to be by myself honestly, my life hardly changed at all when COVID happened as I was doing pretty much the same things I was doing before it happened only now I have an actual legitimate excuse for doing so.

RedBedroomRecords

how do you explain a pretentious piece of crap like "Royals" charting back in 2013 though? If that can chart then I wouldn't be surprised if this song was just as much of a success in a world where COVID didn't happen.

RedBedroomRecords

eh does not bother me and it's not like this is the first song to ever do that.

RedBedroomRecords

Knowing nothing about this song except that the artist was given TSwift's thumbs-up and the title, I expected it would be an upbeat ode to teenage freedom. Then I actually heard it. I guess it's hard to do upbeat odes to freedom these days.

Stormy K.

A little insipid for me. I guess I'm hardly the target audience, being happily single and in my 30s, but this song just isn't doing much for me. I don't hate it, but won't be rushing to hear it again either.

I'm probably too old for music by teens for teens to effect me and too young to be willing to face how emotionally stupid I was in my younger days, because it really seems there's nothing in this song for me.

I am a cynical old bastard, I'm well aware . . . but one listen of this song transformed me into a beardless, wide-eyed, heartbroken kid again. I get it...for once, I get one of these things.

Rish Outfield

Try listening to the whole thing. It's a cute little song.

Stephen Gillie

I could hear it coming on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Stephen Gillie

Go listen to some '00s bubble pop.

Stephen Gillie

The few seconds I heard from this review it seems like it's pretending to be a Billie Eilish song but not understand what made her so good.

John Seiler

The whole "driver's licence" bit is always a bit of a weird thing to hear here (UK), where unlike the US the minimum age for a driver's license is 17, not having one is very normal, and (mandatory) insurance prices mean driving is much less a teen phenomenon

Matt O

I sat though the whole thing waiting for the end credits song and man, you did not disappoint (And snark all you like about "Against All Odds", but about ten years ago I was in the process of getting divorced and "You're the only one who really knew me at all" was just a sledgehammer of grief. To quote Mel Brooks, "We mock what we are to be.")

Kristopher Bluth

It's even on Triple J, which is a meaningless comment for anyone who isn't Australian, (but people might know it from Like a Version?) but they are the alternative station who is sometimes snobby about what they play.

CS Drennan

All of the shots of you at the piano have a black bar on the right side? Sometimes its wider than other times. I don't know if this comes from the framing of the shot or if it's a capture glitch.

DL

who? also why? then again i don't pay attention to the pop charts and i've been in almost complete isolation from current pop music for a while now. also why is every song title in all lowercase letters now?

Time for a Phil Collins and Gordon Lighfoot mixtape.

Yeah, I only checked this song out because of the gossip.

Also, I'm tired of this sad songs trend. It kind of reminds me of the one from the late 50s/early 60s that I don't like either

Larry

"I can't take this song seriously because she's a teenager and writes about things that are inconsequential to me, someone who isn't a teenager" Jesus this comment section is filled with boomers

air budd dwyer

"Against All Odds" and "Postal Service" references right after a "Song v. Song" on "Death Cab For Cutie". COINCIDENCE!?!?!? yeah. I think so

Larry

PS I started typing motherbike for some reason, wtf brain

Raymond

Joke's on you Tod, I'm incapable of loneliness and I drive a motorbike so I'm always alone while driving.

Raymond

I thought this was going to be a sad song about a dead parent with how it started.

Raymond

Hey Todd, just letting you know that the first transition to a news clip was kinda jarring--the clip was pretty loud compared to your voice and it it's a bit painful to listen to with headphones on. You might want to change that before uploading to Youtube!! But otherwise this was a great review :))

I don't really get it. It's a song that doesn't stand out in any way for me. It's not bad but if it were bad it would stand out more.

Juan Nunez

Im sick of girl singers like this. Can we have a new fucking singing trend already. I always dont want to feel songs where all the singing is trendily affected yet the songwriting in this one makes it hard not to. But really it feels like im imbuing myself with 60% bullshit cos of the singing style.

Taylor Abrahamse

I first heard about this song in this video parody https://www.tiktok.com/@jaxwritessongs/video/6917770419546148102?sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6920031970739160581&is_from_webapp=v1&is_copy_url=0

percysowner

Lorde is definitely not the only reason why, but it’s such a huge aspect. Not only can you tell what artist she directly pulling from, or what album, you can tell exactly what song she’s pulling from - Green Light. Sure, she’s put a sad power ballad spin on it instead of being a cry on the dance floor anthem, but so much of the melodic, production, and ESPECIALLY the lyric ideas of Green Light are here, albeit with a little less emotional maturity. Lorde may not be the hugest pop star on the planet, but she’s developed quite the cult following that is starved in terms of content. It’s no wonder that another artist would seize the opportunity to construct a Lorde song and that huge fan base would latch onto it.

Christina Kelley

Theory #6 (which you didn’t cover): Taylor Swift. See, Olivia is a MASSIVE Taylor Swift fan, and has been for years. You can absolutely tell because Driver’s License sounds like a Lorde song and a Taylor song combined. Taylor actually posted about the song/commented on Olivia’s instagram posts after the song released, and as such, Taylor’s legions of stans rushed to support one of their own and stream the everloving shit out of it. I am a Taylor stan, and am active on stan instagram and let me tell you, the weekend the song dropped/the week after it dropped, basically all of the Swiftie accounts I follow couldn’t stop talking about the song.

Erik Danielson

Is it just me or is this song boring and kinda lame

gerald oxford

I've come to accept that I haven't been familiar with most of the modern pop songs Todd has covered for the last 3 or 4 years.

waywardlaser

Good video, surprised you didn't mention that she's not at a record label owned by Disney (Interscope), which complicates things.

Miriarra

I was kind of jumping in thinking oh he is going to talk about a neat little song, I was not expecting this to be the center of so many controversy and the number 1 hit song in the billboard chart

Bruno Sauvagnat

This is unrelated to the video, I just wanted to say thanks for doing a Song Vs Song episode that is, at long last, For The Gays. (team bjork btw)

Shiny Skunk

I feel like this song hurts more during the pandemic rather than after it. So many people had such big plans in February 2020 and then everything just got taken away in March. Just the emptiness over life still going on in spite of unexpectedly losing what made it exciting; it has to be especially difficult if you're Olivia's age.

Jacqueline Sailer

Consider this: if it wasn't for Olivia Rodrigo, "Mood" would've still been at #1 for several more weeks.

Jacqueline Sailer

Theory 6 was Taylor Swift.

I'm glad you mentioned Lorde, when I first heard this song I genuinely went on Lorde's Spotify to see what the title was. That bridge is straight out of a track off Melodrama. Not quite as good, but...

"Pretty soon there will be places to go and things to do again, so when that happens and you're still driving alone" Todd, you didn't have to call us out like that.

Joe Moyer

The bridge does slap though. Shame I can't bring myself to listen to the song long enough to get there.

Ouch that Owl City burn. Harsh but fair

pixarfan9510

I have officially hit Too Old For This Nonsense, I think. The song absolutely does perfectly capture being 17 and having your life fall apart around you, and as someone who once was a 17 year old girl with her life collapsing around her, I can't take it seriously. It's so... earnest in a way that just doesn't land when you know that the heartbreak that felt eternal and all encompassing at 17 will probably be a rueful memory by 25.

Of course what make me feel old listening to this song is that when this girl was born, "All I Have" by J Lo feat. LL Cool J was the #1 song in the country, and I absolutely remember that song being a hit.

Thomas Carmody

When I first heard this song the only thing I heard was that awful Lost Boy song by Ruth B.

Call it a "supertheory" - we're in sad-song mode due to the pandemic, and the mouse (while producing 99% crap) occasionally produces gold, and this song is one of incredibly few legitimately good songs, again due to the pandemic. I heard this on the radio and knew it was a hit. It's a really great song and a breath of fresh air. And the people decrying her lack of fame status in releasing to #1 - are ignoring her previous Disney fame. It's a confluence of factors, which is why she's doing better than Miley.

Stephen Gillie

TIL about this song. TIL about "It's a good dong, Brent". But I was barely a teenager when the sights and sounds of Phil singing "Against All Odds" in Wembley Stadium were indelibly seared into my brain (along with Sting and Branford Marsalis performing "Driven to Tears" and "Roxanne") and I'm always happy to have those neurons refreshed[1]. I quite liked the song and definitely enjoyed the review and analysis. . . . also, The Secret of NIMH is pretty damned good[3]. [1] Even though he had a sore throat on May 17, 1992 and was unable to perform during the We Can't Dance tour[2] [2] Which wasn't on the Wikipedia page for that tour, so I just wasted....er... spent the past 40 minutes wrestling with Wikipedia's citation markup to add that tour stop along with a link to an article about the cancellation. [3] Ralph Bakshi is a genius.

Dylan Northrup

this is just music I would hear at a mall or a Walmart. That slow paced breathy piano ballad with half time breakdowns and "big" choruses with the same kind of choral backing, strings/faux strings and high production sheen. I don't really hear a distinctive hummable melody, it's on par with the slow piano covers of pop songs that are used for trailers. It's a pleasant, insipid song and there's nothing wrong with that, but I really think the theory that the pandemic has left people starved for any content is the winner here, because there's no other reason for a boring but pleasant song like this to chart the way it did.

"It's a Good Song Brent" - I feel called out, Todd.

Brent Nycz

"I've never loved anyone like you" is the line that makes me roll my eyes and turn off the song. Like you, I don't get what the hype is and I'm too old for the intense teenageness of it. You mean you didn't love Derek in 6th grade with the same intense passion? Who could've known! Ugh.

Alina

Idk if this is just me, but I LOVE that she just lets the last line of the chorus hang for a few seconds the first time around. This song definitely has the potential to wear itself out pretty fast but as a sadboi hours song it hits in the right ways imo.

Julian

Loved the video, and was definitely waiting for you to touch on the response songs because oh boy! I personally liked the song because it seemed like a catchy blend of Melodrama-era Lorde (especially “Sober II”)and Halsey’s “Drive”, down to the sound effects. Those were MY songs as a teenager so it reminds me of that feeling even if the songwriting isn’t there yet.

Cam Nava

Also always appreciate shoutouts for Postal Service and Against All Odds.

This video helped me pinpoint my favourite genre of Todd videos, which is using a quasi-scientific method to answer the question "Why is this song a thing?" similar to the Girls Like You review. Would love to see more of it!

Great choice of end credits song

Triple 9

It’s a perfectly competent breakup song, like a second-tier Adele. But does anyone else feel a little skeezy listening to someone who’s presumably 16 lamenting that no one had ever made her feel that way before? It’s like the great standup bit about 8-year-olds singing “Memory” - “of what - when you were 5?!”

Beau Dure

My first impression of this song was that it was the pop-friendly version of indie singer songwriters like Snail Mail for some reason. Upon closer inspection, the melody and the delivery feel a bit more like Kesha's "Praying" minus the trauma that gave that song its power. I am also deeply suspicious of astroturfing from the House of Mouse here, but I like to like things, so screw it, it's a fine song.

Cody Baird

Really loved this video! I think it’s also important to note that Olivia got a gigantic endorsement from Taylor Swift which basically guaranteed streams from swifties. I also think the world had been missing the type of song that feels plucked out of a teenagers diary. The song hurts so good because it is so genuine and yeah it’s sad boy hours and all the loners during Valentine’s Day doubled it even more.

Exquisite Williams

Honestly listening to this song on the radio is a let down. I love a good F bomb in a song and the bridge just doesn’t hit the same without it

There are some minor video glitches around 7:23, 8:00, and 12:03. You can correct them if you’d like, but nothing major. Also, what a great vid! I love when your reviews are positive! I was ambivalent on this song before, but you made me actually see the good in it! Still not as good as Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me though — not a great comparison because that one is more upbeat and not technically a break-up song. But still my favorite song about a relationship written for / by teenage girls.

Franco del Rosario

this is my new favorite video from you. the humor is just great

PuzzleTea

The only correction i see is that you didn't actually show the promo code for Curiosity Stream but I don't know if you're planning to add that closer to release. Great video though, I'm surprised how little you touched on TikTok but I think the things you did focus on were the bigger and more impactful parts. This definitely didn't feel like a "viral hit" in the same way as OTR, it's not a meme song, there's no dance, it's just a song. I don't really have any strong feelings towards it but I DO totally expect this to become an insanely overused song for emotional movie trailers this upcoming season, then we can ALL get sick of it together.

This was interesting review, especially with the structure of the different theories about the song's success. That being said, I was kinda surprised that you ended up liking this track in the end. To me, it's just so nothing from a musical standpoint that even if I'll agree the concept behind the song is an interesting one, I'd probably end up bored by the halfway point because the song just sounds like sad commercial music to me.

Rei The Gei