GRAMMY-winning, multi-Platinum-selling, critically lauded singer/songwriter Olivia Rodrigo returns with her new single “vampire.” Released via Geffen Records, the emotionally raw yet extravagantly composed track marks the lead single from the 20-year-old artist’s massively anticipated sophomore album GUTS, due out on 8th September.
The follow-up to Rodrigo’s 4x Platinum, record-breaking 2021 debut album SOUR, GUTS is available for pre-save and for pre-order. Produced by and co-written with Daniel Nigro (also Rodrigo’s main creative partner on SOUR), “vampire” marks a departure from the dreamy minimalism of past hits like her 5x Platinum breakthrough single “drivers license.” To that end, “vampire” begins with a hushed intensity before bursting into a larger-than-life epic built on pulse-pounding drumbeats and magnificently frantic piano work. As the track takes on a wild velocity, Rodrigo reveals her newly heightened sophistication as a vocalist and lyricist, spinning a tale of the kind of toxic romance that drains your very life force.
“I was upset about a certain situation and went to the studio alone and sat down at the grand piano, and the chords and melody and lyrics just poured out of me — almost like an out-of-body experience,” she recalls. “It’s a song about feeling confused and hurt, and at first I thought it was meant to be a piano ballad. But when Dan and I started working on it, we juxtaposed the lyrics with these big drums and crazy tempo changes. So now it’s like a heartbreak song you can dance to.”
Directed by famed artist/director/photographer Petra Collins, the video for “vampire” made its global broadcast premiere on MTV Live, MTVU, and across MTV’s global network of channels, as well as on the Paramount Times Square billboards. Collins previously directed the video for Rodrigo’s 2x Platinum “brutal,” and earned a GRAMMY nomination for her work on the video for the 4x Platinum, Billboard Hot 100-topping “good 4 u.”
Earlier tonight, Rodrigo and YouTube hosted an in-person “vampire” premiere event in Los Angeles. There, Rodrigo revealed the #vampireOR2 Shorts challenge and celebrated the release of the official music video alongside her fans and YouTube creators.
Partly written at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in New York City, GUTS mostly came to life in Nigro’s garage studio in Los Angeles. Although each song intensifies the emotional honesty that’s always imbued her storytelling, the album ultimately finds Rodrigo expanding her expressive palette and uncovering entirely new dimensions of her artistry.
“When I was making SOUR I was so new to the process and also so heartbroken; I’d just sit at the piano for hours and feel overcome with things I needed to express,” says Rodrigo. “But this album was much more about focusing on the craft of songwriting, which sometimes meant not taking myself so seriously and getting a little more tongue-in-cheek with my lyrics. We experimented so much with different approaches to writing and ended up with something that’s much more rock-influenced than anything I’ve done before.”
Winner of Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 64th GRAMMY Awards (from which she received seven nominations total), Rodrigo released “drivers license” in January 2021 and instantly saw the track debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, soon becoming the first song in history to hit 80 million streams in seven days on Spotify. That May, SOUR entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1, later becoming the longest-running debut album in the chart’s top 10 this century — and the first to spend an entire year in the upper echelon. Also featuring the 3x Platinum “deja vu,” SOUR scored the most U.S. audio streams ever for a female debut album and broke the record for the most-streamed album in a week by a female artist on Spotify. Named the #1 Album of 2021 by Rolling Stone and hailed as one of the Best Albums of 2021 by The New York Times, among others, SOUR has now sold over 17 million albums globally with over 40 billion streams worldwide. The album’s 11 tracks have all been certified Platinum or multi-Platinum by the RIAA — and have landed in the top 30 of Billboard’s Hot 100, making Rodrigo the first female artist to simultaneously chart 11 or more songs in the top 30.
