Olivia Rodrigo is the owner of arguably the most famous driver’s license in the history of automobiles. COVID swept the world when she had just turned seventeen. A California kid, a homeschooled child-actor, and the daughter of a teacher and a family therapist, Rodrigo kept at her songwriting until, a year later, she had produced “Drivers License.” In no time, that song, with its direct, soulful expression of post-breakup loneliness, fury, and liberation, had set Spotify ablaze, with eighty million streams in a week. When the pandemic eased and Rodrigo began to perform in public, she had the Swiftian experience of seeing tens of thousands of fans sing the lyrics from her début album, “Sour,” along with her—an explosion of instant fame that is rare even in the pop-music world.
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