The Buzz Around Olivia Rodrigo's Drivers License

Juliette Roberts | January 22, 2021 at 6:15 AM

What’s All This Talk With That Driver’s License Song?

If you have been on any social platforms in the past week, especially TikTok, you most likely have seen a lot of sad and angry people passionately singing in their cars in some suburban area. Why, you may ask?

Well, Olivia Rodrigo, the singer and songwriter of the viral hit song, Drivers License, went absolutely viral this month, topping the charts to be the number one song right next to Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. In this blog, Hollywood Branded will discuss how Drivers License grew in popularity so fast and what music artists can learn from this experience.

Who Is Olivia Rodrigo?

If you didn’t know who Olivia Rodrigo is before this month, you're not alone. Olivia Rodrigo took the world by storm and completely blew up with the release of her debut song, Drivers License, which is now the No.1 song on Billboard Hot 100 as of January 19^th, 2021.

Olivia is a 17-year-old girl, who was best known for her role in the 2019 series High School Musical: The Musical. This is the how Olivia got her first major hit song called, All I Want, which was a popular sound to use on TikTok, but nothing compares to the way Drivers license is impacting TikTok.

Records Have Been Shattered

The song was released on January 8^th, and, after only a week of being released, Olivia is first on the Billboard Hot 100 list. The success this song has generated is immense and on Spotify, Drivers License set the platform for most daily streams at a record high number of 15.7 million (and then, again, at 17 million).

Olivia’s song has caught the attention of many high profile figures like Charli D’ Amelio, Niall Horan and Taylor Swift, who commented on her Instagram post saying, “that’s my baby and I’m really proud.”

Olivia Rodrigo is a new name to a lot of people because her fame was mostly directed towards a younger demographic, due to her being a Disney Channel Star, but now with the success of Drivers License, people of all ages know who this talented singer is and are belting this song on the top of their lungs.

Teenage Drama

According to multiple sources, one of the reasons this emotional breakup song creates a lot of hype is because there is a possible love triangle brewing. Olivia’s co-star in High School Musical: The Musical, Joshua Bassett, broke her heart and is now rumored to be seeing Sabrina Carpenter, another Disney Channel Star.

Many speculations have gone around as to who Olivia is singing about in the song and one of the most notable lyrics in the song that point to Sabrina Carpenter are, “And you’re probably with that blonde girl. Who always made me doubt. She’s so much older than me, she’s everything I’m insecure about.” You probably figured it out already, but Sabrina is blonde…. And older.

Olivia claims that she wrote this song from a very dark place and she is so glad that others love it because of how relatable and emotional it is. In an interview with Billboard she said, "I totally understand people's curiosity with the specifics of who the song's about and what it's about, but to me, that's really the least important part of the song.”

What Music Artists Can Learn From This?

Drivers License generated the most streams in one week over any song in history. But how? TikTok.

If you were to go on TikTok right now, you would see people ranging from the ages 12 to 40 making TikToks to this song. There are some hilarious TikToks being created by married women captioning, “I am in a happy relationship and I still can’t stop singing this song and crying.” There I also another trend going on with this song that involves ex-girlfriends driving past their ex-boyfriends house playing this song. Clearly this song struck an emotional chord with people and TikTok created a trend that had everyone crying in their cars.

drivers license tik tok trend

TikTok has created a lot of success for artists like Olivia Rodrigo, because when a sound goes viral on TikTok everyone wants to use it. TikTok has made it so easy for users to create videos with a song and post about it. Essentially what TikTok offers music artists is free advertising because the more uses a song becomes, the higher up it goes on the viral songs list.

Olivia is undoubtably a talented rising artist and she had one of the greatest breakthroughs any emerging artist could have. With the power of TikTok and a gut-wrenching song, everyone will know the song Drivers License by the end of this month.