By Gianna Ferace ’25
By now, I’m sure we’ve all heard the insanely popular song, “Driver’s License” by Olivia Rodrigo. It’s blown up on Tik Tok and played all over the radio. You can see her live performance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and all over celebrities’ Instagram stories. Even Taylor Swift tweeted how proud she was of “her baby.”
Basically, it’s everywhere. But could that be a problem? There are so many incredible songs that became popular super fast and are way too overplayed, and it’s starting to happen to “Driver’s License”. When the song first came out, I listened to it probably about three times in a row and enjoyed hearing and seeing it all over social media. But now every time the chorus comes up on my Tik Tok “for you” page, it’s hard not to roll my eyes. The song that I once couldn’t stop singing every word to, is now unliked and taken off all my Spotify playlists because I’ve just heard it way too much.
This happens to so many songs I’ve realized. When “Shake It Off” was first released, I probably heard it on almost every radio station for a month straight. It’s been seven years and I still can’t make it through the whole song. But this just goes to show how a song can so quickly be overhyped. If you’re hearing one thing for a long stretch of time, you’re bound to become bored and tired of it. That’s why there are so many “one hit wonders.” Artists can have their fame with one single and then continue making music with the same melody or beat because they believe that’s what the public likes. But because it’s been overplayed, people are less likely going to want to hear more of the same thing.
All in all, “Driver’s License” has definitely caught the world’s attention and I’m excited to see what else Olivia releases!
