Maybe even Swift wouldn’t have been quite bold enough, though, to put out as a first single a song that specifically pegged her as just having made her first pass through the DMV. That’s why Swift ran into skepticism at the start singing about high school crushes in the likes of “Our Song,” until she was undeniable to the gatekeepers. Different radio formats have long resisted songs that actually play up adolescent themes, for fear of alienating the product-buying 20-something listeners who don’t want to feel like they’re still sitting at the kids’ table. Because the music industry has always loved teenagers - what’s not to love about having someone under contract who has that many more years ahead of her before she ages out of the demo? - but blatantly teenaged music is another thing. Maybe that goes without saying for a singer-songwriter who was 17 when she made this album … but actually, no, it doesn’t.
The glory, though, of “Sour” is how unabashedly teenage it is. She gives good stridency as a Young Woman Wronged, but her falsetto is a lovely thing that really deserves its own scholarship so it can go off to college, grad school and beyond, too. But maybe none of these three singles went quite as far as some of the others on the new album do in establishing that she’s capable of some nifty turns of phrase and deeper insights to go with the oh my god I’m going to die up-and-down dynamics of those preview songs.
“Drivers License” put into motion Rodrigo’s penchant for turning basic teen melodrama into nearly the sturm und drang of opera, and the two subsequent singles, “Deja Vu” and “Good 4 U,” complemented that initial impression by making sure everyone knew she had as much pop-punk princess in her as balladic drama queen. And those three tracks were already star-making, most of all, of course, “Drivers License,” which pretty well established that she’d passed “go” as a prodigy without wasting too much undue time with a learner’s permit.
The good news is, a lot of the until-now-unheard tracks from “Sour” are even better than the three tracks that have already been out there.
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