The wait is over as Olivia Rodrigo has released ‘vampire’, the lead single from her upcoming second album ‘Guts’, today along with the atmospheric music video.
‘vampire’ sees Rodrigo once again collaborating with her ‘Sour’ partner Dan Nigro. The song starts off as a piano ballad before the instrumentation builds up and rock influences come in. Like the songs on her debut album, ‘vampire’ is a candid kiss-off to a former lover who has treated Rodrigo badly.
Talking about the song, Rodrigo shares: ‘I was upset about a certain situation and went to the studio alone and sat down at the grand piano, and the chords and melody and lyrics just poured out of me — almost like an out-of-body experience,” she recalls. “It’s a song about feeling confused and hurt, and at first I thought it was meant to be a piano ballad. But when Dan and I started working on it, we juxtaposed the lyrics with these big drums and crazy tempo changes. So now it’s like a heartbreak song you can dance to.’
The music video is directed by Petra Collins and it sees Rodrigo performing ‘vampire’ on stage at an awards ceremony when a lighting rig collapses and injures her. She tries to carry on performing but security try to get her off the stage and a chase ends in a surprising fashion.
‘Guts’ is the follow-up to Rodrigo’s 2021 debut album ‘Sour’, which has been certified 4x Platinum in the US and 2x Platinum in the UK. The set topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and spawned the hit singles ‘drivers license’, ‘deja vu’, ‘good 4 u’ and ‘traitor’.
Partly written at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in New York City, ‘Guts’ mostly came to life in Nigro’s garage studio in Los Angeles. Although each song intensifies the emotional honesty that’s always imbued her storytelling, the album ultimately finds Rodrigo expanding her expressive palette and uncovering entirely new dimensions of her artistry.
“When I was making ‘Sour’ I was so new to the process and also so heartbroken; I’d just sit at the piano for hours and feel overcome with things I needed to express,” says Rodrigo. “But this album was much more about focusing on the craft of songwriting, which sometimes meant not taking myself so seriously and getting a little more tongue-in-cheek with my lyrics. We experimented so much with different approaches to writing and ended up with something that’s much more rock-influenced than anything I’ve done before.”
‘Guts’, along with ‘vampire’, can be ordered at Rodrigo’s official store at https://shopuk.oliviarodrigo.com.
