Hey y'all, DJ Louis here just dropping a preview of our latest Pop Panther on All Access episode.

This is, of course, our Patreon show where we're releasing at least three bonus episodes of the show

per month. This week's episode is an in-depth conversation about Olivia Rodriguez's sophomore album

Guts, which came out this past Friday with Stereo Gums, Tom Bryan. Tom and I get into all of

the lore around the album, the singles, what's working, what we like less, the themes, the sounds, the influences, where Olivia sits in the pop firmament, and what her pop star says about the act of being a pop star more broadly in the year of our lord, 2023.

If you enjoy this preview and you want to hear the rest of the episode, you can subscribe at patreon.com slash pop pantheon or by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. So here is a snippet of my conversation with Tom. That was my, not critique of sour, because I also really liked sour and like genuinely liked a lot of the ballads on it too, but definitely like thought the revelations of that record were obviously driver's license and then good

for you, brutal.

You know, the songs that were really like diving into more of the rock aesthetics, like really

felt like something that like she could sink her teeth into and claim as her own and like really

worked for her.

And I thought brought out just like this

sneering edge that like separated her from other stars that, you know, some could sort of compare

her to. Not to mention that I just think that they were some of the best songs on the record. Like,

I just think she's great at making those songs and performing those songs. And I remember listening

to Popcast about Sauer when it came out, and John Caramanica, I think,

kind of smartly surmised that they like kind of stumbled into the pop punk thing, perhaps later

in the making of the album process. And like if they had given it another month or two, perhaps

she would have ended up with two or three more of those songs and two or three less of the

ballads. And I thought that was like an interesting idea. And I think in some ways, guts perhaps bears that out in the sense

that I think guts and part of the reason that I think maybe I think it's a more consistent

album for me in particular is that it does seem to lean heavier into the rock aesthetics. There's

more songs that seem to be like playing that sort of Olivia mode.

...