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The music industry’s first hit single of the year is both a proven model – a pivoting Disney actress to pop with a rousing, confessional break-up ballad – and also an era-unprecedented smash. TikTok by a teenager.
17-year-old Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on Tuesday, after a record-breaking first week on streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music. Along the way, the autobiographical song sparked speculation from tabloids and social media as listeners attempted to piece together its real parallels as if it were a track from Rodrigo’s hero Taylor Swift. TikTok videos led to blog posts, which led to feeds, which led to news articles, and coming back. The feedback loop has made it unbeatable.
“It was the craziest week of my life,” said Rodrigo, who actually got his driver’s license last year, in an interview. “My whole life changed in an instant.”
At a volatile and uncertain time for the music industry, amid the pandemic and civil unrest, “Drivers License” was released across all platforms and with a spooky music video on Jan. 8 from Geffen Records. The song then aired over 76.1 million times in the United States during the week, according to Billboard, the highest total since “WAP”, by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, in August (93 million). On Spotify, “Driver’s License” Set Daily Record for Global Streams for Non-Holiday Song on January 11 then broke its own number the next day, ultimately setting the service record for most streams in a week globally.
The track reached No.1 in 48 countries on Apple Music, 31 countries on Spotify and 14 countries on YouTube, Rodrigo’s label said. It also sold 38,000 downloads in the United States, the most for the week, and garnered 8.1 million radio audience impressions, Billboard reported.
“We definitely didn’t know how bad it was going to be,” said Jeremy Erlich, co-director of music at Spotify. “He just swelled into this monster unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. And I think unlike anything anyone has seen before.
The company, which accounted for over 60% of the song’s global streams in its first week, responded to initial interest by ramping up its promotion of the track, which is now on 150 official Spotify playlists. “It’s definitely not a slowdown,” Erlich said. “This is the subject around the company and the industry.”
The song, written by Rodrigo and produced by Dan Nigro, starts out pretty simple: “I got my driver’s license last week,” Rodrigo sings over a basic piano part, “as we’ve always talked about. But at the end of the first verse, she “cries in the suburbs,” and the music swells until a cathartic bridge hits with a curse word that breaks the type. The song “successfully balances a dark but crisp melodrama with a bold melody, a softly pointed vocals with crisp imagery,” wrote reviewer Jon Caramanica. “It is, in all respects, a successful modern pop song.”
“Driver’s License” may represent Rodrigo’s proper debut as a solo artist, but she came with an integrated audience thanks to her Disney roles. Born and raised in Southern California, she became a regular at the talent show at the age of 8 and was first cast for “Bizaardvark,” which aired for three seasons on Disney Channel between 2016. and 2019. Rodrigo, who learned to play guitar for the role, played by Paige Olvera, a teenager who creates songs and videos for an online content studio.
She currently plays the role of Nini Salazar-Roberts in the Disney + series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series”. Last year, a song Rodrigo wrote, “All I Want,” became the show’s most successful song so far.
But like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato before her – and Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera before them – Rodrigo took his experiences within the Disney machine and attempted to translate them for a larger, more adult audience. . Fans speculated that “Driving License” was about Joshua Bassett, co-star of Rodigro’s “High School Musical”, who released his own single – and a car-centric video on Friday.
Erlich, the manager of Spotify, said there were “a ton of X factors that made this the perfect storm” for Rodrigo, including the gossip, the quality of his song, the marketing plan prepared in advance. through his label and celebrity support. like Swift. “It lined up perfectly and faster than anything we’ve ever seen,” he said. “We’ve seen a roster like that, but usually it spans three to six months – it happened in a day and a half.”
Rodrigo called the song “a little time capsule” of a monumental six months that she experienced last year. Recognizing the “archetype” of the Disney star turned pop star, she said she had been nervous about the collision of reactions from “people who had never heard my name before and people who have in some way. so grew up with me on TV. “But she was delighted to find both groups interested.
“What’s cool about ‘Drivers License’ is that I’ve seen so many videos of people going, ‘I have no idea who this girl is, but I really like this song.’ , which has been really interesting to me because for so long I’ve been really attached to the projects and the characters, and that’s how people know me, ”she said. “It’s really cool to be introduced to people for the first time through a song that I’m really passionate about.”
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