Ahead of the reveal of the 2021 Time Magazine’s Person of the Year honour, the publication has revealed that Olivia Rodrigo had been named its 2021 Entertainer of the Year.
Rodrigo has been featured on the cover of Variety‘s Young Hollywood issue earlier this year and was named Songwriter of the Year at their Hitmakers event last week, where she was introduced by Avril Lavigne and gave a moving acceptance speech.
Olivia Rodrigo’s rise to stardom has been swift over the year of 2021. She released her first single on January 8 with ‘Drivers License’ and by January 23 became the youngest solo artist ever to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where she stayed at the top for eight weeks. Halsey sent Rodrigo a cake to commemorate, Cardi B gave her props on Twitter, and Taylor Swift gave her recognition on Instagram. Not long after, Olivia Rodrigo was performing on Saturday Night Live.
In an article with Time’s Lucy Feldman, Rodrigo speaks about her influences, including Avril Lavigne, Lorde and Paramore: “Young women are constantly compared to each other. I’m the ‘new this’ or ‘this woman meets that woman’, and that can be reductive … I’m just Olivia. I’m doing my own thing. It’s meaningful when people recognise that.”
Written in the same article, Feldman describes of Rodrigo: “her songs have hit with audiences of all ages, in large part becaise she renders adolescence so viscerally: she’s resentful, seething, crushed, itching to just grow up already.”
After dropping music in the middle of a pandemic, Rodrigo sang at multiple awards shows, earned seven Grammy nominations – including Best New Artist, and Song, Record, and Album of the Year. On December 6, she announced a 41-city tour for 2022.
Rodrigo’s music can be described as empowering for the listener, focusing less onthe people who have let you down and the disappointments you’ve faced in your life and instead focusing on the thing that matters: you. Her songs validate and demonstrate that heartbreak and rage is universal, no matter what age you are.
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Check our Avril Lavigne introducing Olivia Rodrigo for Variety‘s Songwriter of the Year Award here:
