Olivia Rodrigo’s 10 best songs ranked

Breakout Olivia Rodrigo took pop music by storm with her perfect blend of pop and punk. She can also rip into a ballad with great force — so what are her 10 best songs?

While starring in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, Olivia Rodrigo blasted onto the pop scene with her resonant “drivers license,” capturing the pummeling crash after a terrible heartbreak. The sweeping ballad served as the lead single to her debut LP, Sour, which is packed full of teary ballads and propulsive rompers.

With her second album, 2023’s Guts, Rodrigo continued to flex tremendous growth both in musical playfulness and her vocal prowess. There’s always a fear among artists of the “sophomore slump,” but Guts is certainly the exception; it’s even stronger than her debut.

Here, we’ve compiled Olivia Rodrigo’s 10 best songs and ranked them, from good to awesome. Did your favorites make our definitive list?

10. “brutal”

When listening to Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album, Sour, you’ll notice a distinct Paramore thread. The pop-punkishness of one of the biggest bands informs much of the pop starlet’s uptempo songs. The slow grinding of tempo changes displays rapt attention to agile musicality. “I’m so sick of 17 / Where’s my f*cking teenage dream,” Rodrigo sings over heart-throbbing percussion. Her admission bottles up the general angst of Gen Z, one riddled with paranoia and fear for the world’s future.

9. “deja vu”

Similar in tone to “drivers license,” “deja vu” sees a forlorn Ridrigo musing upon a former flame, who has now moved on to another girl. “When you gonna tell her that we did that too?” she asks, her lips laced with venom. Her lyrics are equally confessional as they are universal, burrowing into heartache and that immense feeling of betrayal anyone who’s had their heart shattered knows all too well. Musically, it might feel familiar, but vocally, Rodrigo knocks it out of the park.

8. “drivers license”

A global smash right out of the gate, “drivers license” signaled an artist that was fully formed in plenty of ways. Over piano keys, Rodrigo pours out her heart and soul with everything she has. As the song crescendos, the singer’s voice climbs higher and higher, fluttering into her head voice when the song calls for it. Her ability to deliver such a potent melody, carving out each word with precision, is magnetizing.

7. “get him back!”

“I want sweet revenge / I want him again,” sings Rodrigo, plotting her path to perfect revenge. Over syncopated drums and swirling static, the singer voices her loneliness and how desperately she wants “to make him jealous.” She sets her sights on getting back her ex so she can rip him to shreds. Even with the side-eyes from her disappointed friends, she goes ahead with her plan anyway. Sometimes, you just have to do things that are bad for you.

6. “all-american b*tch”

Leave it to Olivia Rodrigo to have a song called “all-american b*tch.” Guitars quake in the arrangement and slowly build until it all crashes around her voice. The song oscillates between sweet coos to throaty screams, a showcase for the singer’s willingness to tinker with expectation. Even within the finale’s screeching, there’s an overwhelming intoxication that spills from her lungs.

5. “good 4 u”

Another Paramore-inspired track, Olivia Rodrigo digs her teeth into the dirt and shoots flames from her tongue. “I’ve lost my mind / I’ve spent the night crying on the floor of my bedroom / But you’re so unaffected,” she spits over rattling guitars. Her defining kiss-off anthem, “good 4 u” writhes relentlessly against the eardrums. It’s no wonder it’s one of her most streamed tracks (over 2 billion); it’s that track that gets the blood pumping in all the right ways.

4. “happier”

The waltz-like time signature douses the song with a coating of emotional shimmer. “I hope you’re happy but not like how you were with me / I’m selfish I know,” she sings, letting her tears fall upon startling piano. “happier” trembles with a classic pop vibration, as though Rodrigo is paying homage to such greats as Lesley Gore and Patti Page.

3. “vampire”

When you think Olivia Rodrigo can’t possibly get better, vocally, she pulls the rug out from under you. With “Vampire,” the lead-in to Guts, the pop performer dazzles with a daily-laced track about how a lover is just like a vampire, sucking the energy from her veins. “Bloodsucker, fame f*cker / Bleeding me dry like a godd*mn vampire,” she sings. Musically, it’s among her finest, as each instrument builds to an explosive ending.

2. “logical”

The quiet moments can destroy you as much (if not more so) as the loud ones. “logical” finds Rodrigo pulling in the reins for a performance that rips your heart from your chest. As she documents “the way it unraveled,” she finds herself arriving upon the song’s central promise: that “love is never logical.” As the way it ended crashed down around her, she was unable to extricate herself from the ruin. It’s within such destruction that she learned what it meant to live and to love, despite the inevitable ending.

1. “traitor”

Through glassy ahhhs, Olivia Rodrigo unloads emotional baggage as she navigates the rising tide waters of betrayal. “You talked to her when we were together,” she weeps, before adding: “It took you two weeks to go off and date her / Guess you didn’t cheat, but you’re still a traitor.” Her lyric writing is like a dog’s incisors, mercilessly sharp and able to cut through flesh. It doesn’t get much better than “traitor.”

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