Amid her GUTS World Tour, named after the album released in September of 2023, Olivia Rodrigo surprisingly announced the extended version of the hit record. GUTS (spilled) was released to the public on March 21st with a total of 17 tracks, 12 of those being the original songs, and 5 that were newly released on streaming.
“obsessed,” “girl i’ve always been,” “scared of my guitar,” “stranger,” and “so american,” are the brand new tracks from this deluxe album. While the first 4 songs in this list were originally released on different vinyl variants, they just recently joined the rest on streaming platforms. Of these four songs, I will say with absolute certainty that “stranger” is my favorite. Its bittersweet lyrics mixed with the folky melody and a borderline country twang, are just the epitome of perfection. It gives such extreme Noah Kahan vibes and I feel that this style fits her voice so well. It made me cry tears of joy and sadness all at once; my emotions were all over the place.
By far the most popular of these four is “obsessed” seeing as it is on the official GUTS world tour setlist. Apart from the high energy that this tune provides, it is also a bit experimental for Rodrigo. It’s a little spicier than most of her songs, and it very much falls into the rock’n’roll genre that Rodrigo has been dipping her toe into. It’s fascinating to see her take this leap into a more mature style of music especially because it really shows how far she has come from her Disney Channel days in such a short amount of time.
Something that surprised me about this addition to the album was the amount of acoustic songs. Three out of the five new tracks were primarily guitar-based songs. “scared of my guitar” is, as you could probably guess, one of these. This song has a very gloomy feeling and is one of the sadder ones on the record as it describes Rodrigo’s writing process and how she feels that once her emotions have escaped into a song, they are impossible to deny. Another one of these guitar tracks is “girl i’ve always been,” which, surprisingly, has almost a bluegrass feel.
The final and newest track on GUTS (spilled) is titled “so american” and seems to be her first real love song. Though I love a good heartbreaking tune as much as the next person, It’s so refreshing to finally hear a song in which Rodrigo seems entirely happy. It’s important to note the contrast between the first and last songs. In the album opener, “all american b*tch,” Rodrigo details the expectations that come with being the “American sweetheart” that the media makes her out to be. She doesn’t feel like she aligns with these ideals and thus feels out of place. In “so american” however, the listeners hear her embracing the stereotypes as a result of spending time with someone who only sees the good in it.
As far as deluxe albums go, this one was absolutely incredible. I enjoyed every single minute of it and I only really have one question; why did she keep all of the best songs off of the original record?