Stone Sour Discography 2002 - 2013 5 Studio Albums (FLAC)
Nichelle Gruger
Sour (stylized in all caps) is the debut studio album by the American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo. It was released on May 21, 2021, by Geffen Records. The album was written by Rodrigo and producer Dan Nigro. Originally planned as an EP, Sour was expanded into a full-length album following the viral success of her debut single, "Drivers License".
Influenced by Rodrigo's favorite genres and singer-songwriters, Sour is primarily a pop record that spans from energetic pop-punk songs to bedroom pop ballads. Its subject matter centers on adolescence, failed romance, and heartache. She said the album explores her perils and discoveries as a 17-year-old, with its title referring to the "sour" emotions young people experience, but are often criticized for, including anger, jealousy, and unhappiness.
Three singles preceded Sour's release, all of which entered the top three of the US Billboard Hot 100. The lead single, "Drivers License", topped the chart and propelled Rodrigo to mainstream prominence. It was followed by "Deja Vu", which peaked at number 3, and "Good 4 U", the album's second chart-topper. It made Sour the first debut album in history to spawn two number-one debuts on the chart. Prior to becoming the fourth single, "Traitor" landed at number nine on the Hot 100 as the fourth top-10 song from the album. Sour broke the global Spotify record for the biggest opening week for an album by a female artist. It topped the charts in several countries, including the US Billboard 200, and was one of the best-selling albums of 2021.
Sour received near universal acclaim from music critics, who generally regarded it as a strong debut album, underscoring Rodrigo's realistic lyrics and appeal to Gen Z listeners. Various publications listed it among the best albums of 2021, including Billboard and Rolling Stone that placed the album at number one on their year-end rankings. At the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, Sour and "Drivers License" won Best Pop Vocal Album and Pop Solo Performance, respectively; Rodrigo won Best New Artist as well. A YouTube concert film and a Disney+ documentary, titled Sour Prom and Driving Home 2 U respectively, supplement the album. Rodrigo embarked on the Sour Tour, her first headlining concert tour, from April 5 to July 7, 2022. In 2023, it was ranked number 358 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". As of May 2024, it is the most-streamed album by a female artist on Spotify.[1]
In 2020, the American actress and singer Olivia Rodrigo signed to Geffen Records, intending to release her debut EP the following year.[2] After a friend of Rodrigo and producer Dan Nigro suggested Nigro listen to Rodrigo's songs on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Soundtrack (2020), he was "just completely blown away" and reached out to Rodrigo via Instagram, offering to work with her. The pair had a meeting to get to know one another, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the United States. They started collaborating after figuring out ways to work safely in isolation.[3][4] She released her debut single "Drivers License", produced by Nigro, on January 8, 2021, to unprecedented commercial and critical success. Billboard declared the single one of the most dominant number-one songs in Hot 100 history.[5]
Rodrigo began teasing a follow-up single by archiving her past Instagram posts and posting cryptic teasers of it on her social media accounts in late March 2021;[6] on March 29, she announced that it would be titled "Deja Vu", and set a release date of three days later, reassuring fans that the announcement was not an April Fools' Day joke. Rodrigo unveiled the song's artwork in the same post.[7][8] Following her rise to prominence, Rodrigo stated that she would be releasing a studio album instead of an EP,[9] after she felt dissatisfied with the scope of a shorter project when only a full-length album would be "truly reflective of what [she] can do".[10] Rodrigo had met with producer Dan Nigro in March 2020 a week before COVID-19 lockdowns commenced. Nigro was "blown away" after watching an Instagram video of Rodrigo playing her song "Happier".[11] Recording for Sour took place throughout 2020 and into early 2021. Nigro said that with the pandemic, they were "oddly very fortunate to have as much time as we did to make music".[11]
Rodrigo's goal for her debut project, Sour, was to create a multifaceted body of work that blends mainstream pop, folk, and alternative rock genres,[12] as well as elements of pop-punk, country, and grunge.[13] According to Rodrigo, the album was inspired by the works of her favorite singer-songwriters, including Alanis Morissette, Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves,[14] and the "pouty", "angsty" sound of rock acts No Doubt and the White Stripes.[15] She also cited her mother's musical tastes as an influence, as she introduced a young Rodrigo to metal, punk, and 1990s alternative rock.[10].mw-parser-output .templatequoteoverflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 32px.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequoteciteline-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0
I want [Sour] to be super versatile. My dream is to have it be an intersection between mainstream pop, folk music, and alternative pop. I love the songwriting and the lyricism and the melodies of folk music. I love the tonality of alt-pop. Obviously, I'm obsessed with pop and pop artists. So I'm going to try and take all of my sort of influences ... and make something that I like.
Rodrigo wrote the album's lyrics to explore a variety of "sour" emotions that young women "are often shamed for", including anger, jealousy, and sadness. The album's title refers to the concept of "awesome things" in Rodrigo's life "progressively going sour" as she gets older, representing a specific moment of her life as a 17-year-old, "its unending growing pains and surprising discoveries."[15] She insisted this point in her interview to The Guardian as well, saying Sour is an "intrinsically young" album that is aimed at honoring "acute teenage feelings". Rodrigo explained, "something I'm really proud of is that this record talks about emotions that are hard to talk about or aren't really socially acceptable especially for girls: anger, jealousy, spite, sadness, they're frowned-upon as bitchy and moaning and complaining or whatever. But I think they're such valid emotions."[16]
According to Rodrigo, the word "sour" has many different meanings and she tried to write a song titled "Sour" for a long time but was unsuccessful in doing so, making her realize that it is an "all-encompassing" trope that covered the sour portion of her life.[17] She tried to balance the "sour" songs of the album with love songs, in order to avoid being pigeonholed as "the heartbreak girl"; however, she eventually dropped the idea, to preserve her authenticity as a songwriter. She asserted that love and happiness were not the emotions she felt while making the album.[10] Nevertheless, Rodrigo did not want Sour to be filled with "sad piano songs" either, hence she infused danceability and upbeat arrangements into the record, evident in tracks such as "Brutal" and "Good 4 U".[18]
Sour has been described as a genre-hopping pop,[19] pop-punk,[20] alternative pop,[21][22] and bedroom pop[23] record with synth-pop, dream pop, alternative rock, pop rock, and folk-pop elements.[24][25][26] Stylistically, the album spans from energetic 1990s-inspired guitar rock to tender acoustic balladry driven by piano and fingerpicked guitars.[27][28] Craig Jenkins of Vulture categorized Sour as a "post-genre" record, one which materializes Rodrigo's aim to transcend boundaries of music genres and coalesce them.[26] The songs of Sour represent different perspectives to a single storyline of failed romance. The songwriting is characterized by self-aware[27] themes of insecurities, anger, revenge, envy, and jealousy, using detail-specific lyrics exuding vulnerability.[29][30][28]
Sour opens with "Brutal", which Rodrigo described as "angsty" and "uptempo". Music critics characterize the track as an enjoyable, "angrily insecure alt-rock tirade" and "playful and easy pop-punk" that "free falls into the depths of grungy rock", with elements of indie rock.[31][32][33][34] "Brutal" was the last song written for the album; Rodrigo and Nigro wrote the track two weeks before she had to turn in the record. Rodrigo noted that the song represents her teenage years.[35] The song has "thrashy" guitars, and was reported to be a "desire to defy any pop expectations that have been placed upon [Rodrigo] by fans, friends, executives, or exes".[24] Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic described the guitar riff on "Brutal" as "scary in the manner of Clinton-era Nine Inch Nails".[36] "Traitor", the second track, is an indie pop ballad with a folk instrumental.[37][38] Its lyrics have been described to consist of "post-grief anger and bargaining".[24] Furthermore, details on the lyrics also depict Rodrigo's ex moving on with another girl while she is unable to get over it as she tries to figure out what went wrong.[33]
The fourth track, "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back", interpolates the piano line from Taylor Swift's "New Year's Day" (2017),[39] which was a result of Rodrigo singing "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back" over the chords of the Swift song.[35] It is described to be a "regret-wracked" tune.[24] Rodrigo revealed that she wrote the hook of the song from a text message, going on to say that she "thought it would be a cool way to describe this toxic, sort of manipulative relationship". The chirping birds at the beginning of the track were a result of Nigro recording them through a window at his house.[35] "Enough for You", the seventh track, is a "simple" and "minimal" bedroom pop song with "searing" lyrics and acoustic instrumentals.[40][33] Rodrigo described the song as "very insecure and vulnerable, but [she] also love[s] how it's really hopeful", referencing the line "someday I'll be everything to somebody else".[35] "Happier" serves as the eighth track, a piano-led song featuring lyrics admitting selfishness and exuding self-criticism.[33]
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