Olivia Rodrigo Biography, Music & News

Jack Irvin has over five years of experience working in digital journalism, and he’s worked at PEOPLE since 2022. Jack started in the industry with internships at Rolling Stone and Entertainment Tonight, and he worked as a writer for publications including Bustle, MTV News, Shondaland, L’Officiel USA, Ladygunn, Flood and PopCrush before joining PEOPLE. In his current role, Jack covers daily music news and has interviewed both up-and-coming and established artists including Dolly Parton, Michelle Branch, Ashanti, Cyndi Lauper, Normani, Carly Rae Jepsen and Coco Jones.

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Rodrigo performed “Drivers License” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in February 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her first live performance didn’t happen until the Brit Awards in the United Kingdom in May 2021. She was a success there and, as a bonus, got to meet her idol Taylor Swift. Rodrigo also was a musical performer on an episode of Saturday Night Live the same month.

• In 2021, Rodrigo shook the world with her confession-soaked power ballad “Drivers License.” The single sky-rocketed to the top of the Billboard Top 100 chart and broke the Spotify record for the most streams of a non-holiday song in a day.
• Rodrigo performed “Drivers License” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in February 2021.
• She was recognized as Time’s Entertainer of the Year in 2021, Billboard’s Woman of the Year in 2022, and twice as “Songwriter of the Year” at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards in 2022 and 2024.
• In his current role, Jack covers daily music news and has interviewed both up-and-coming and established artists including Dolly Parton, Michelle Branch, Ashanti, Cyndi Lauper, Normani, Carly Rae Jepsen and Coco Jones.

Early career

With eight months to go until thousands of revellers descend on Worthy Farm, speculation is growing that some of pop’s biggest stars are in the frame for the festival, which takes place between June next year. In a new roundtable interview with The Hollywood Reporter featuring several of this year’s prominent songwriters, Rodrigo opened up about how the “trajectory” of her life was changed upon hearing Lorde’s 2013 hit, “Royals.” That November, Rodrigo was nominated for seven Grammy, including Best New Artist. The following April, she Olivia Rodrigo took home three trophies—cementing her place as one of the brightest rising stars in music. In April 2021, “deja vu,” a single from Sour, went to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

At 17 years-old, Rodrigo was the youngest person to top the Billboard chart at the time. On a cultural level, “Drivers License” dominated the year of its release; it created tabloid drama for its conspicuous lyrics about a Disney love triangle, inspired a sweet Saturday Night Live skit, and topped end of year lists across the board. In 2024, Rolling Stone included the song in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. Like the lead single, the new album debuted atop the Hot 200 and outpaced her previous album Sour with the equivalent of 320,000 albums sold in the United States. All 12 songs on the album reached the top 40 simultaneously, with “Vampire” returning to the No. 1 spot.

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She was recognized as Time’s Entertainer of the Year in 2021, Billboard’s Woman of the Year in 2022, and twice as “Songwriter of the Year” at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards in 2022 and 2024. The rapper born Marshall Mathers has previously played at Reading and Leeds festivals, but Glastonbury remains unconquered territory. He certainly has the wattage to rock the Pyramid, and unlike other artists of his generation, his drawing power is equally strong among younger and older audiences. The “Vampire” singer traveled through all 10 of the organization’s respective regions while on her eight-month Guts trek, which kicked off in February and supported her Billboard 200-topping sophomore album, Guts. One of the final stops was in the Philippines in October, a particularly special outing for Rodrigo as a Filipino-American star. The Grammy winner recalled feeling as though Lorde, who was 16 at the time of the album’s September 2013 release, “made being young and doing these seemingly unimportant things feel so sacred and beautiful” through her songwriting.

Rodrigo has had three Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs and two Billboard 200 number-one albums. She has also won an American Music Award, seven Billboard Music Awards, and three MTV Video Music Awards. Time named her the 2021 Entertainer of the Year and Billboard named her Woman of the Year in 2022.

“I’m a songwriter who writes from a place of authenticity and truth,” she declared to Billboard. “And truthfully, love and happiness and everything weren’t feelings that I was feeling at the time. And what’s the point of putting out a record if it isn’t something that you feel is important to say to people?