Olivia Rodrigo x Taylor Swift: Understand the hit ‘Vampire’ and the alleged rivalry between the singers music

🧛‍♀️What’s the theme of ‘Vampire’?

There’s so much controversy surrounding Olivia Rodrigo’s new song “Vampire” that it needs a guide. Needed. Below, g1 answers the key questions about the hit that’s topping Spotify’s global rankings. After all, is the song’s vampire, who sucks people in and leaves them lying around, Taylor Swift?

The 20-year-old singer defined the song as “Anger Song”, She uses the metaphor of being attacked by a male or female vampire to talk about being used by “the people”. There are different theories as to the lyrics. The verses will be about:

1. Taylor Swift, who was a friend of Olivia’s and later claimed copyright on a song after it was released;
2. On recent exiles: producers Jack Bia and Adam Fez;
3. About the many people in the music industry who betrayed Olivia’s trust in these two years of fame (that is, the inspiration would be the three mentioned above. But maybe not only those)

How are fans coping?

This week, a song released in 2019 by Taylor Swift dropped to second place on Spotify’s global rankings, just below Olivia Rodrigo. “Cruel Summer” is not an official single, but was adopted by Taylor after her sudden success.

There’s a detail: Swift fans worked hard to make the song pop on streaming, because it was the song that may have inspired Olivia Rodrigo to write “Déjà Vu.” Cruel Summer’s writers (Taylor, producer Jack Antonoff and singer St. Vincent) were credited with “Déjà Vu” upon its release. He earns 50% of the royalties for the song.

There are also handbooks shared by Taylor Swift fans that teach how not to link to Olivia Rodrigo’s content, so as not to make “Vampire” go viral on social networks. The gist is to try to have some self-control and not mention the name of the song or the singer, no matter how sarcastic.

What’s The Timeline Of The ‘Vampire’ Bullshit?

January 2021: Start with a bang

Olivia Rodrigo releases the first single from her solo career and breaks records with “Driver’s License”. Among other singers, she said she was a fan of Lorde and Taylor Swift.

March 2021: True friendship

Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo became friends. They exchanged compliments on Instagram and Olivia received a ring from her “idol” as a gift. In May, they posed for photos together at the Brit Awards.

July 2021: disputed authorship

A few weeks after the release of “Sour”, fans noticed that Taylor was retroactively credited on the “Déjà Vu” single. Taylor and his team requested credit because of the similarity to “Cruel Summer”. Prior to this request, Olivia had already co-written another song with Taylor: “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” had already been released with Swift in the credits, as it featured “New Years” from the album. Year Day” has a chord sequence. “Prestige”.

November 2021: The Contested Grammys

Due to his credits on two of Olivia’s songs, Taylor has received nominations with Olivia’s team in every Grammy category where “Sour” has appeared. However, the Recording Academy backtracked and withdrew the names of Taylor and her producer.

October 2021: Heartfelt advice

The American magazine “Rolling Stone” brought together Olivia and Alanis Morissette. The veteran asked the newcomer to beware of false friendships (and the “bad kind of girls” in the music industry) and to trust more people who knew her before fame. “There was a lot of bullying and a lot of jealousy and there were a lot of guys I loved my whole life but the girls were mean to me.” Olivia replied, “That’s what happened to me!”

March 2023: Uncommon Guest

Taylor set Sabrina Carpenter to open the tour in Latin America, including shows in Brazil. The two started speaking well of each other and posed for pictures at the 2022 Grammys. Prior to this, Sabrina had never had such a close relationship with Taylor. The singer has been at loggerheads with Olivia since she formed an alleged love triangle with actor Joshua Bassett. Troubled relationships with her former partner and the painful end of the relationship were the themes of Olivia’s acclaimed debut album.

June 2023: Controversial launch

“Vampire” is the singer’s first since the release of her debut album in May 2021, when she was 18. The song is the first single from the second album, “Guts”, which is set for release on 8 September.

July 2023: Exciting fight

Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” competes with Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” for the most-streamed spot on the streaming platform. It is a controversy surrounded by theories of rivalry between the two singers.

Why was ‘Vampire’ so highly anticipated?

After two years, one month and nine days without a new song, Olivia Rodrigo released “Vampire” in late June. The song went straight to the top of Spotify’s global ranking. It was an expected achievement: all 11 songs from the debut album, “Sour”, reached the top 30 of “Billboard” magazine’s main chart. Olivia tends to be more cautious than some of her peers. Without a release at the time, he didn’t record bonus tracks, he didn’t rock with other artists, he didn’t record remixes or singles between the two albums. He made fewer appearances on talk shows and festivals than might have been expected from such a popular artist. It also had a relatively short tour by current pop standards.

What does Olivia Rodrigo say?

Olivia stated that she wanted to record a “rock opera”. She usually laughs when she talks about the making of the song: whether it’s relief or bewilderment, I don’t know. “This is just a song about feeling used and all the anger, regret and heartbreak that comes with it. I think it’s a common feeling, whether someone is famous or not.”

“I was upset about a certain situation and I went to the studio alone and sat down at the piano. The strings, melody and lyrics just came out from inside me – almost like an out-of-body experience. It is a song about feeling confused and hurt. I thought it was supposed to be a piano ballad. But when Dan[Negro, producer]and I started working on it, we layered lyrics over these beats and crazy tempo changes. So now this is a heartwarming track you can dance to.”

He added that the second album is about “growing pains and trying to figure out who I am at this point in my life”. “I feel like I have grown up 10 years between the ages of 18 and 20. It was an intense period of strangeness and change.

✅ ‘Vampire’ Could Be About Taylor Swift

The history of friendship and bickering between Taylor and Olivia would justify parts of the song about feeling used by someone. Olivia summed up, “I was troubled by a specific situation.” “It was very disappointing to see people discrediting and denying my creativity.”

It also contains the piece “You Only Come Out at Night”, which is related to Taylor’s most recent album (“Midnights”), about sleepless nights, the stories told in the lyrics. . Ten songs from the album reached the top 10 of the US charts.

❌ ‘Vampire’ has nothing to do with Taylor

The song has parts that seem dedicated to an ex-boyfriend. For the past few months, Olivia has been dating producers Jack Bia and Adam Fez. People magazine’s sources close to Olivia confirmed that the song is not about Fez. “Every girl I talked to told me bad news for you” is a phrase that would be appropriate for both ex-girlfriends and musical rivals. There are other snippets that will work both ways such as, “I used to think I was smart, but you made me look so naive.”