The way she sings the chorus – pitch set permanently to ‘urgent’ – and the reverberating production make it sound like a polished-up riot grrrl recording. Its wiry guitar chug is pure Elastica, its creator’s exasperated “ God, it’s brutal out here” her own version of the most iconic part of The Breeders’ ‘Last Splash’. Rodrigo has said she took big dollops of inspiration from the women of ‘90s alt-rock, and you can hear their touch immediately on opening track ‘brutal’, one of ‘Sour’’s biggest bangers. With typical Gen-Z versatility, she hops from genre to genre without losing sight of herself and doses her songs with bitingly specific details that go full-circle from being precisely personal to universally relatable. On her debut album, ‘Sour’, the 18-year-old singer-songwriter puts herself forward as pop’s most promising new megastar – one with the talent, musical personality and smarts necessary to craft a long and illustrious career. READ MORE: On the cover – Olivia Rodrigo: “It’s important for me to be taken seriously as a songwriter”.The twinkling ‘deja vu’ was a similarly brilliant follow-up, but now comes the real test: showing what else she’s got.

To say its achievements were not bad for a debut single is a whopping understatement. Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’ is that undeniable song of 2021 so far, a tear-jerking ballad that smashed streaming records as hard as it took a hammer to our hearts. Every once in a while, a pop music juggernaut comes along and whisks you away.

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