Transcript: Why Olivia Rodrigo might be our last pop superstar

This is an audio transcript of the Life and Art from FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Why Olivia Rodrigo might be our last pop superstar’

Lilah Raptopoulos
This is FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos. A few weeks ago, my colleague Anna Nicolaou and I went to the Olivia Rodrigo concert at Madison Square Garden. Anna is the Financial Times’ US media correspondent. And she’s really interested in Olivia Rodrigo right now as a pop star. Olivia is a superstar. She’s 21 and the youngest artist to have three number one singles in history. But the music landscape is changing really quickly, and industry executives actually keep telling Anna that Olivia may be the last star who gets this famous. The thing is, the concert didn’t feel like the end of something at all. It had real pop star energy. The fans were young. They were dressed like Olivia Rodrigo. They were scream singing all the words of her songs. Here’s a clip.

[CLIP OF OLIVA RODRIGO’S CONCERT PERFORMANCE PLAYING]

So I wanted to have Anna on to talk about what the music industry is worried about exactly, and if she thinks that things are actually changing. She’s with me in the New York studio today. Hi, Anna, welcome to the show.

Anna Nicolaou
Hi, Lilah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So nice to have you.

Anna Nicolaou
I’m so happy to be here. As ever.

Lilah Raptopoulos
You’re wearing your Olivia Rodrigo Shirt

Anna Nicolaou
Yes. I’m getting in the vibe.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. So why don’t we start by telling listeners what it was like at this show? Because you’ve been to a lot of pop shows. We’ve been to some together, and this one did really feel different in some ways.

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah. I would say . . . Yeah, you and I went to Harry Styles together.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes.

Anna Nicolaou
I’ve been to, I guess, several pop star shows in the past three or four years, and you never really know what to expect. I’d never seen Olivia Rodrigo before, and I just thought it was so much better one than I had expected. And two was than her peers being honest, like it felt there was just something about both her and the crowd that was just such a good time.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

Anna Nicolaou
I don’t know how to explain it. I felt happy for a full 24 hours after the show, which I think is as good as it gets.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Yeah. OK, so we’re watching this show. There’s, like, moms and daughters hugging and dancing. There’s girls crying, there’s girls scream singing while recording every moment.

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah, they were really good at that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
They were really good at that. How does that, why is that unique? I mean, that’s what a show is supposed to be. How does that compare to other pop stars who are doing these big shows? But the vibe isn’t quite that.

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah. If I were to be compared directly to her peers that I’ve seen in the past couple of years. So Billie Eilish and Harry Styles at those shows, I feel like people were sitting down a lot. Like it wasn’t as though every person there was very excited to be there.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. OK, so she has this superstar energy. It feels like she has the potential to maybe be as big as Taylor Swift or Beyoncé one day. But can we give listeners some background on who this person is, if they don’t know her and how she got so big?

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah. So she’s really young, still, obviously was really young when she started putting out music.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

Anna Nicolaou
She was on a Disney TV show, which is a weirdly common way that we get our pop stars in the US. Yeah. I mean I’m there are Selena Gomez and the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Christina Aguilera.

Anna Nicolaou
So in a way it was very traditional in that, that at least gave her a little bit of, you know, industry connection. But obviously it’s not going to give you a career. I had never heard of her before. And then she sort of blew up out of nowhere. It felt like in 2021, when she released a song called “Drivers License”, and it went straight to number one on the Billboard chart, which is really unusual. And it felt like that song just kind of took over, like the whole year. That was by far the most popular song. She quickly started writing and made more songs and them very quickly, and they all became really popular.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. “Drivers License”, “Deja Vu” is another big song. It was a lot of songs about, like, being in love and being heartbroken.

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And just being a teenager who can’t get over it.

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah. And she was a literal teenager, right? So in a way, it was. Yeah, it was kind of the dream for the music industry where someone kind of just comes out of nowhere and takes everyone by surprise.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, so she, comes out with this album Sour. It does extremely well. A couple of years later, she comes out with her next album, Guts. It does extremely well. The song “Vampire”, I think is a perfect song.

Anna Nicolaou
I love that. Oh my God. I was in wonder when it came out. And I remember so specifically, walking around in Hackney and just listening to “Vampire” over and over and over.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. So those things happen. And just so we know, anything. Is there anything else we need to know about? Like, she signed on to Universal. Like, how was she found?

Anna Nicolaou
She was signed by Universal Music. Universal has a lot of different labels within the company. Interscope Records signed her. It was someone named John Janick who has weirdly kind of become the guy who signs all the sad girl music people like Interscope now has boygenius, Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey.

Lilah Raptopoulos
All right, so you report on the business of media and entertainment, and on the train ride home, you said you were writing a column about this, and I said, what is it about? And you said, how she’s the last pop star. And I said, ever?

Anna Nicolaou
Whenever I say that to people, they think I’m insane or just where I’m at something like one of those people that writes these, like, really provocative column, which I really don’t.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So what does it mean? Tell me what it means.

Anna Nicolaou
So basically it means that it was three years ago, a little over three years ago now, when Olivia kind of broke out and became this massive star seemingly overnight. And there has not really been anything like that since then. And so there’s this agony in the music business about that. Not even specifically about her, but about the fact that they can’t seem to cultivate big stars. Or they haven’t, they’ve basically going through this dry spell. And obviously when something like this happens, everyone starts kind of pointing fingers and trying to figure out why and declaring it’s the end of the world. So obviously there’s hyperbole to that. It’s an exaggeration. I don’t think that she’s the last pop star it’s ever going to exist. But there is definitely there’s a lot of interesting things happening in the industry that can explain why she was the last one to break out and why they’re . . . Even her. I mean, this is another part of it. She. There’s a good chance she will never be as big as Taylor. And it’s not necessarily because she’s not as talented or hard-working. It’s just because of this kind of secular trends of the media world now are different.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. So tell me about that. Like, what do you mean, what are the trends?

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah, I mean, some of it is stuff. I’m sure people who are listening have heard about, like, the decline of monoculture and how everything is super fragmented now. We have a million different things to spend our time looking at and doing. In the music industry specifically, TikTok has been easily the biggest change in recent years, and it’s very unpredictable what will become popular. Like, they can’t control it and they’re very uncomfortable with that. And just streaming as a format which is now have people, at least in the US, listen to music mostly. It changes the relationship to artists because you have every song you could ever want. You can play it whenever you want, right? It’s just very different. You don’t have to go to a store and buy the CD in order to listen to something. And that changes like every kind of fabric of the way the industry works, because this is like what people say, that it’s much harder to kind of break through all that noise and get people to kind of proactively seek you out and listen to you.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, a CDs that I bought said something about me because I had to sort of commit to that type of music or it defined who I was in some way. Now I don’t have to commit to anything to listen. So even my own taste in music feels sort of haphazard.

Anna Nicolaou
Definitely. Unless it’s really, really just changed the idea of even what is a star? Like maybe you can rack up 10 million listens on Spotify, but could you put on a concert and fill a room? That’s a real question people are asking.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right, right.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[FT NEWS BRIEFING PODCAST TRAILER PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
So if over the past couple of years the industry has been trying but failing to create a star, what does that look like? Like what are examples of stars that you think they’ve been trying to create but hasn’t really been sticking.

Anna Nicolaou
I mean, they’re I’m just not to say there aren’t new artists that people care about. It just hasn’t been as ubiquitous or big. I mean, this business is the whole thing is about making stars. So there’s thousands of people that work at these record labels. The major labels — Universal, Warner, Sony — spent billions of dollars a year on discovering and developing new artists. So it’s the most important thing they do. The whole point is to create an artist that people really care about. And for music companies, they’re kind of in the business of just making bets. That’s almost the same as like book publishers. They make so many bets and they front all this money and the vast, vast, vast majority of the bets fail and nothing ever comes of it. And then they’ll have a like that one that really, really works. And that makes up financially for all the things that didn’t work. So for them, not having a new star is like a financial problem.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Interesting. OK. So if we think about the past like a year or two, the past couple of years, that the industry is kind of worried about, what are examples of some artists that have like almost made it, but not quite.

Anna Nicolaou
I would say, what’s his name? Noah Kahan?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh yeah. No. Oh yeah. See, we don’t even know how to pronounce that. Yeah. No, It’s ‘Khan”, Noah Kahan.

Anna Nicolaou ‘
Yeah, he’s pretty like there’s no one trying to make him a thing. He’s big. Reneé Rapp is . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s true.

Anna Nicolaou
 . . . rising, but nowhere near the level of her predecessors, I suppose Ice Spice is probably the most successful one they’ve had. A lot of it is like maybe I mean I talk sometimes about like middle-class pop stars like Charli XCX. I think there might be a lot more of that. Where there’s obviously a lot of people who really care about her. But she’s not huge and she probably never will be that massive. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing for us. But for these companies, it can be.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was sort of my question is like what do you imagine over the next, you know, five, ten, 15 years will happen? Do you think it will be mostly Charlie XCX?

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah. I mean, I think there will be new stars. It would be insane for me to say that there won’t be new stars. But I think you’ll see more of these kind of medium-sized stars. Even with the biggest stars, it won’t be as ubiquitous as we’ve seen. I mean from the 80s and 90s to 2010s really, there were tons of these massive stars. That were kind of really well known globally. And in the 2020s it’s slowed down quite a lot. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. So having talked about all that, I would love to go back to Olivia Rodrigo and just pinpoint what it is about her that seems to be working like her fans clearly want to be her fans. I want to be her fan. I want to wear purple because she likes purple and I don’t even like purple that much. She’s clearly like scratching some itch for the culture. What do you think the itch is?

Anna Nicolaou
I think she’s really good at writing things that can be quite sad and devastating, but also sort of funny. Like they’re both really heavy and really light at the same time. Which is kind of hard to do. Like there’s a lot of things where she’s sort of like you can tell she’s kind of like making fun of herself. Which I really like. I think she’s good at being vulnerable and making you feel like you know her. Which is often a big deal to kind of cultivate this kind of relationship where people really care about you. I think she’s good at doing all of these things. Like she’s good at being on social media, but not too much. She doesn’t come across as, like, overly afraid to say anything. In the way that I actually think Taylor Swift is. But she’s not too controversial either. Yeah, I think she just kind of checks a lot of boxes at the same time somehow.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. It’s a funny thing when we talk about the music industry wanting something out of, wanting to make a star, you kind of forget that we’re talking about people. Like, you need a human who does this very specific thing. And she is kind of perfect for that. I think you’re right. Like, even she sort of is going back to that pop punk Avril Lavigne thing, but she doesn’t feel manufactured the way Avril Lavigne sort of felt. Right? She feels like she can be kind of embarrassed and an awkward teen and hot and powerful and mad.

Anna Nicolaou
Yeah and she can be like, both messy and pretty. Which is very important in this world. I feel like . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes. She also sounds sort of like, you know, her sound like Good For You. Sounds a little like No Doubt or like Paramore. And then she also sounds sort of like Lorde and sort of like Jenny Lewis. Like there’s something.

Anna Nicolaou
Firing on all cylinders. She’s real saying it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, what I took away from this conversation with you is, I think, it reminds me the value of being a fan, like how fun it is to be a fan. And you can be a fan of a superstar, or you can be a fan of, like, a middle-level star. And that’s really great because it either those kinds of shows, the middle-level ones will be a little cheaper and, you’ll probably still scream sing.

Anna Nicolaou
It is really fun. I mean, it’s the same as sports in a lot of ways. It’s like you have someone you’re rooting for and you care about.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s true.

Anna Nicolaou
And you talk to other people who also care, and you get upset if they do something that isn’t that great. You get happy when they do something that is great.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And you buy a shirt that says “perfect all-American bitch” which is one of . . . 

Anna Nicolaou
Exactly what she did. And you must have it at that moment.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Exactly.

Anna Nicolaou
No matter the $60 price. Yeah, yeah. I think it’s like really fun being a fan of things. I’ve always . . . you know me, I’ve always been like a big pop star fan. So you know I’ve known this for a while, but everyone else should find a pop star.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Olivia Rodrigo is on a world tour through the summer, so she’s probably coming through your town, and we recommend you go see her if she does.

Anna Nicolaou
She’s headed to the UK.

Lilah Raptopoulos
She is. Anna, this was such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Anna Nicolaou
Thanks, Lilah.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. Take a read through the show notes, we have links to some related stories that Anna has written. Every link that goes to the FT gets you past the paywall. Also in the show notes are ways to stay in touch with me on email and on Instagram. And finally, a link and a discount code for the US FT Weekend Festival, which is happening in Washington, DC on Saturday, May 4th, at the Reach at the Kennedy Center.

I’m Lilah Raptopoulos and here is my brilliant team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a lovely weekend and we’ll find each other again on Friday.