“All-American Bitch” by Olivia Rodrigo

"All-American Bitch" throws open Guts, the second album Olivia Rodrigo released through Geffen on September 8, 2023, and it's a bait-and-switch from the start: a folky verse sung so sweetly that critics called it angelic, then a pop-punk chorus that kicks the door in, with punk rock and grunge bleeding through the seams. She wrote it with producer Dan Nigro, who also plays guitars, bass, synth and percussion and takes the guitar solo, while Sterling Laws drums and Spike Stent mixes.

The satire is sharp: a song about the double standards and mixed messages society loads onto women, sung with a smile that curdles. On Saturday Night Live she turned it into a tea party gone wrong, stabbing a red cake and mashing a white one into her own face, and critics loved it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.