From Rites of Spring to Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo

Washington Post:

Now squint your ears and listen to Rodrigo sing, “I made it weird, I made it worse,” all sweet and sour on her new “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl.” Can you hear emo’s intimacy wrestling with its vastness? This music has traveled a relatively short distance through time, but it has bridged so much: suffocating ’80s moralism, smothering ’90s ennui, numbing ’00s shock and awe, an opioid crisis that won’t let go — along with all the deeply personal awkwardness and anxiety commonly associated with coming of age in any of those shaky American timelines.