I started out on the wrong foot already, I listened to SOUR at work. I held on tight for most of the album but hope ur ok broke me.
Her debut album is definitely a no-skip and God, Olivia is doing her shadow work. Listening to this album felt healing in a weird way, like my inner child being seen, maybe it’s because she is half asian; But she really dived deep in her own feelings and had the courage to sing about all of them, even the “ugly” unpopular ones no one likes to admit they have, and I think that as much as it made me cry and it hurt a little bit, it was like hurting with her and running my hands through my inner child’s hair, like “hey, look, this young girl is also going through it, see how much she is loved even if she’s singing about the things you don’t say out loud? Maybe you’re not as bad as you think you are”.
I don't relate to Olivia Rodrigo exactly, I mean, I don't even know how to drive, but there are snippets of her lyrics that are like being stabbed, just the way she says it, it's just like the rhythm thoughts come when you are breaking down and I relate to that.
The way it starts slow, and then it builds up and gets agitated, the feeling gains confidence, it starts being mean, and then it screams in sadness and rage, it has bitterness in its voice, and then it gets quiet, it's just sad, like acceptance.
Miss girl really managed to make an album that, although I can't relate on a subject level, I can relate in a cadence of thoughts level, it's like girly bottled up every breakdown I've had through my teens and almost 20s in this album.
She managed to sing in detail the feeling of when its cloudy and late in the afternoon and the cold wind hits you when you are walking somewhere and the sadness of grief slowly builds up on the way, and your thoughts start racing until it makes you want to scream and then it's quiet, a tiny voice, childish, barely a whisper, that says "I miss you".
I may be projecting hard here but a mixed kid raised by a white mom gave us SOUR. This kind of rage, loneliness, and jealousy, brutal self-awareness, is something I’ve never seen someone who is not “different” show. Like not that other people don’t show “ugly” feelings like this but I have never felt more seen in music, I swear to god, those were my adolescence struggles and also I have carried some of them into adulthood.
I mean she never says anything like that in the songs with all the words and like I said, maybe I am projecting, but I feel like even if you have friends and feel loved, being bi-racial makes you crave belonging in a way that is rarely talked about. So when you finally do and you feel like it’s you and them against the world, and the person ends up breaking your heart, I feel like maybe it cuts a little deeper. And it takes a little longer to heal. But when you drop the act, all the things you do to get closer to belonging, you find your own select group of castaways.
As much as it hurts and grieving relationships is hard, things get better, I swear. One day that whispery voice becomes a casual visitor in your head, you welcome it like an old, old friend, let it linger for a bit, you ask it how it’s been and if it needs something. Sometimes it needs a scent, sometimes a song, sometimes it’s just there to congratulate you on how far you’ve come; and then you say your farewells and hope it doesn’t come back soon. One day you look around and there's nowhere else you want to be, you finally belong with yourself and to yourself.
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