Just days before Time Magazine is set to announce its prestigious Person of the Year honor on December 13th, the publication revealed that it has chosen Olivia Rodrigo as its 2021 Entertainer of the Year.
“Rodrigo has a gift for picking the best of the past—whether a well-worn shirt, the faded feedback of a guitar or the intensity of first love—and finding just the right way to situate it in the present,” wrote Time’s Lucy Feldman. “Her songs have hit with audiences of all ages, in large part because she renders adolescence so viscerally: she’s resentful, seething, crushed, itching to just grow up already.”
Rodrigo, who is 18-years-old and has had a quick and robust journey to popularity, success, and high-acclaim. She broke through into the music scene with her first single “Drivers License,” which took over TikTok at the beginning of the year. What followed in her career was putting out a full studio album, snagging multiple #1 hits, and becoming the youngest solo artist ever to debut in the Hot 100.
In her interview, Rodrigo spoke about her influences, like 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 recognize that.”
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