“driver’s license” from Olivia Rodrigo, a 17-year-old Disney actress who most recently starred in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, have broken Spotify records for the most broadcast music in one day.
“driver’s license” reached number one on the Spotify charts within just a week of its release. On Tuesday, it was played over 17 million times, the maximum for a song in a single day (17,010,000 streams, a Spotify representative confirmed to BuzzFeed News).
The song is a melodramatic pop ballad about releasing a driver’s license so the protagonist can see his partner on his own terms – only to have that dream shattered by separation. “Yes, you said forever, now I pass by your street alone”, whispers Rodrigo. The dramatic growth of music, in particular, painfully transports the listener to the cinema of school life, love and suffering.
In a global pandemic and frightening threats before the inauguration, music gives young people – and hey, even adults – permission to step back and worry only about the teen drama tropey.
Music is now one of the most popular sounds on TikTok, which also helps its popularity to grow and grow. The more Rodrigo and others released the song on the app, the more it made people listen to the full song on Spotify. The more people listen, the more people continue to post about it on TikTok and other platforms like Twitter and Instagram. And so on.
At the moment, TikTok is full of jokes about gossip and the obsession around music. (Increasing the popularity of the song, it’s rumored that it’s about Rodrigo’s teenage love triangle in real life with his old High School Musical costar.) People online are commenting on the enormity of success.
Even Taylor Swift, whom Olivia publicly idolized, congratulated her in an Instagram comment. Charli D’Amelio, as expected, gave him his most emotional choreography.
The “driver’s license” is eliminating the 2021 mud in an important but simple way. That’s because “driver’s license”, whose title is intentionally minuscule as an important stylistic detail, is a song from that specific moment. It’s a moment that Swift helped take with his own lowercase albums (ever, folklore) that made a strong impact, despite how introverted they felt.
Quarantined, Swift created internal music. People trapped at home craved music that told escapist stories and melodies that centralized their emotions. Now, Rodrigo really delivered it in the most basic way, and I mean it as a compliment.
For American teenagers, their most formative and experimental years were violently interrupted by the pandemic. They grew up knowing economic instability, and their political conscience was awakened by the Trump administration. They deserve an uncomplicated ballad that speaks to the smallness of their world – passions and dreaming of the future and negotiating freedom with their parents.
Hell, I, an adult in my late 30s, have a hard time fighting the madness of our democracy, and a “driver’s license” gives me comfort. I am instantly transported back to school, having passions, dreaming of my future writing and discussing curfew.
In addition, “driver’s license” is simply a very good song.
It’s a sad song, but it’s an accessible kind of sad.
Heartbreak is one of the most common experiences of teenage sadness, so it makes jokes about the shared experience much easier on social media.