Seventeen-year-old Olivia Rodrigo released her new hit song “Driver’s License” on Jan. 8 and since then has skyrocketed the charts, broken numerous records and added to the many theories regarding her relationship status.
Star of Disney+’s “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” Rodrigo has been rumored on numerous occasions to have written her song about co-star Joshua Bassett. With lyrics detailing emotions of an intense breakup, many suspect it is the newfound romance between Bassett and pop-singer Sabrina Carpenter that inspired “Driver’s License.”
The number of listeners continues to grow each day and has been a massive hit for the new artist.
The song broke Spotify records on Jan. 11 by earning the highest number of streams in a day that the platform has ever seen. The single then beat its own record the very next day on Jan. 12 with even higher numbers. The weekly streaming debut was the highest in U.S. Spotify history, earning over 30.433 million streams.
“Driver’s License” was also announced to have broken the record for most requested song in one day on the Amazon Alexa Device, as well as becoming the largest streaming debut ever seen globally on Amazon Music.
Rodrigo has been participating in a number of interviews to comment on her songwriting success with top publications such as Rolling Stone Magazine. She also recently performed “Driver’s License” live for The GRAMMY Museum and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
Rodrigo has been very vocal about her gratitude in response to all of the attention.
On Twitter, Rodrigo said, “thank u guys so much for listening omg I cannot comprehend this.”
Many students at Sacred Heart University have enjoyed watching Rodrigo’s rise to stardom and are impressed with her growing numerics.
“At the start of her career, Olivia Rodrigo is already breaking charts and records that artists, such as Ariana Grande, were only capable of hitting years into their career,” said sophomore Annie Wunsch.
The single has become a favorite among a large audience and many Sacred Heart students have been listening to it frequently.
“I thought the message behind the song was really there and you could tell just how powerful it was,” said junior Patrick Coyne. “I thought it had a good flow and it’s definitely one of those songs you could sit in the car and chill to. Basically, it’s a banger.”
Additionally, a lot of attention has been garnered around the music video for “Driver’s License,” which was directed by Matthew Dillon Cohen. The video currently has over 100 million views on YouTube and is continuing to climb every day.
“It’s a gorgeously shot video to match the exquisite production of the music. It’s got a nice dramatic sweep to it on both counts,” said Prof. Gregory Golda, multimedia production instructor at Sacred Heart.
Fans of Rodrigo are excited to see what new and creative ventures she will take on within her career.
“I will be watching her career now with interest to see how she follows it up. It’s difficult to keep a career going in a field that’s so crowded but hopefully she’ll be one of the outliers with a long string of hits,” said Golda.
“With her emotionally charged lyrics, she’s connected so many people and will easily become one of the most influential people of this decade,” said Wunsch.
