Olivia Rodrigo: Guts (Geffen)

An aesthetic triumph that deepens its psychological complexity with diverting jokes by establishing that love comes even harder to 20‑year‑old pop phenoms than to less extraordinary humans, or do I just mean extraordinary females? Either way, only someone as gifted, famous, and likable as Rodrigo has much chance of launching lovequests as worthy of your attention as these. Seldom if ever have the romantic tribulations of a young superstarlet been laid out in such credible detail, their defining complication the extreme unlikelihood that she’ll meet anyone as smart, decent, successful, and hilarious as she is on the party circuit her well‑earned fame opens up to her and sticks her with. With special respect for the perfect double entendre “Get Him Back!” and the well‑schooled rhyme “Dazzling starlet/Bardot incarnate,” I hereby swear that these 12 catchy, hyperintelligent, self‑penned songs should be committed to memory by any up‑and‑coming entertainer ready to admit that it may be the better part of discretion to love someone who is in some crucial respect an equal from another sphere—an up‑and‑coming climate scientist, say. Showbiz hopefuls however gifted are too likely to succumb to jealousy just because she’s so damn good at what she does. A