“Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo, Friday, September 15, 2023
In today’s pop scene, there are more Taylor Swifts and fewer Adeles, at least in terms of output. Yes, both artists release music in the form of full-length albums, but Swift is constantly releasing music. Adele on the other hand waits years between albums to release new music. But the modern pop artist is continually generating music for their fans. The “post-album” single is now the thing, which may or may not lead to a deluxe edition of the album you paid good money for if you still music, but probably just streamed. Two years ago, Olivia Rodrigo shook up the pop chart, bringing pop-punk to the forefront again, and then after SOUR’s album cycle, the singer kept a low profile.
FAME FUCKER. Olivia Rodrigo returned in June with “vampire,” her first single after SOUR with the first single from her album GUTS, released two weeks ago. The song drew immediate comparisons to the lead single from SOUR, “driver’s license,” for its mellow, piano-driven tone, which was only partially true. But on a closer listen, both songs' formulas are radically different, with “driver’s license” being a straightforward ballad and “vampire” starting as a ballad before evolving into a cinematic experience. The lyrics of the song are rumored to be about Rodrigo’s ex Adam Faze, who works as a media producer. Unlike the subject of SOUR, Joshua Bassett, Faze is a lower profile, working behind the scenes, or “in the shadows” in the spirit of Olivia’s recent Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hit. When Rodrigo accuses the subject of “vampire” as a “fame fucker,” the line has been interpreted as Faze using his connections in the industry, along with his good looks and charm, to get close to celebrities, using them for his own personal gains.
YOU CALLED THEM CRAZY, GOD, I HATE THE WAY I CALLED THEM CRAZY TOO. The subject of “vampire,” himself seems boring compared to everything else Olivia Rodrigo does with the track. The podcast Switched on Pop does an excellent musical analysis of the song's music. The musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding give an interesting history of the chord progression used in the song and give some context about what that chord progression does to a song. The chord progression for “vampire” is often called the “Creep” chord progression because the Radiohead hit “Creep” is the textbook example of the I-III-IV-iv chord progression. However, the band was sued for writers’ credit by the writers for another band, The Hollies, who claimed that the song “The Air That I Breathe” was similar to “Creep.” The podcasters look for examples of the progression used as far back as Elvis. Interestingly, Radiohead unsuccessfully sued Lana Del Rey for including the “Creep” chord progression on her 2017 song “Get Free,” losing though because the court determined a musician cannot own a chord progression. What Rodrigo does to the “Creep” chords, though, rather than the usual melancholy take, is to sing the melody fast for a “journaling effect.” But the song never stays in one place, mimicking a chase scene in Brom Stoker’s 1897 gothic masterpiece Dracula. Then the song builds into a crescendo that ends the song. As pop stars today seem like the same variation on a saccurine theme, but it’s interesting to see what Olivia Rodrigo will bring in the future of genre-bending.
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