Spotify says story-making song’s driver’s license is ‘unprecedented’

If you didn’t know Olivia Rodrigo, it will be hard to miss her now. The Disney star dropped her first official single, License to Drive, a week ago on January 8. continued to break his own record, with over 17 million streams the next day (Jan. 12).

In other words, Drivers License is the biggest song in the world right now. So how did this happen for a relatively unknown 17-year-old? Besides the song’s merits – an emotional powerhouse ballad over grief – its “unprecedented” success has a few other viral factors. (Come on, listen to it here.)

Even Spotify stepped in on what led to the “Perfect Storm”.

“There’s really no direct comparison here,” Becky Bass, head of Global Hits at Spotify, told Billboard. “You have newer artists like Tones and me with Dance Monkey, or Lil Nas X and Old Town Road, who took a little longer to get to the top.” But the Spotify team has never seen “a newer artist who just stepped out of the door in such a dominant way and continues to grow.”

“It really sounds unprecedented, and probably unprecedented.”

There are a few things to the story. Rodrigo, who starred in the Disney Channel sitcom Bizaardvark, has huge success on TikTok and Instagram. Its engaged young audience “ignited the flame” before a shout from Taylor Swift and a take of one of the Dolan Twins, comedians with nearly 11 million YouTube subscribers, helped the song go viral.

Then there’s the drama surrounding Rodrigo’s alleged relationship – and breakup – with fellow Disney star Joshua Bassett. Rodrigo and Bassett played a couple in the Disney Plus High School Musical mock documentary series: The Musical: The Series. Bassett is supposed to be licensed to drive. The plot continues: Bassett, also a singer, released his single, Lie Lie Lie, on January 14.

“I really think it’s a perfect storm,” Spotify’s Bass said. “I think the drama – which was familiar to [Rodrigo’s] base fan base, and really got it started – helped, and now you’ve got this whole new audience that’s like, “Who’s Olivia Rodrigo? Who’s Joshua Bassett?”

Either way, the song is a banger. Here is the video clip: