As supposed Olivia Rodrigo nemesis Taylor Swift once said, “I come back stronger than a 90s trend.” That’s precisely what’s happened of late in the live performances Rodrigo has been doing in promotion of her Guts album. It started roughly two months ago, when Rodrigo appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to sing “ballad of a home schooled girl” (a timely choice considering the then upcoming release of Mean Girls 2024). Although not exactly outfitted in “Courtney Love circa 1994” attire during this instance, the entire vibe of the performance smacked of Rodrigo’s desire to bring back the raucous stylings of 90s-era frontwomen (e.g., Kathleen Hanna, Justine Frischmann, Shirley Manson), with an especial emphasis on the riot grrrl sound and look (granted, Love was no fan of that mid-90s movement).
Out of all those “alt-rock” (a cringe-y term that Daria Morgendorffer undoubtedly hated) bands, Courtney Love’s personal style as the frontwoman of Hole was the most visible, aided along by the fact that she was dating (and then married) the “king” of grunge, Kurt Cobain (a name Gen Zers often have no knowledge of despite freely and vexingly sporting Nirvana t-shirts on the regular). While Rodrigo might have adopted solely the “tone” of Love’s performances (albeit more of a Love Lite vibe than an all-out visceral experience) on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she saved an homage to all-out Hole aesthetics until she appeared on the December 9, 2023 episode of Saturday Night Live.
Choosing to introduce a new song to the less-versed in her Guts album, Rodrigo followed her stripped-down performance of “vampire” with a more production value-y “all-american bitch.” Outfitted in a pink babydoll dress (this style of frock being Love’s well-known signature around the time of Live Through This), complete with a white, doily-esque collar, Rodrigo sits at a table decorated with cakes and other assorted sweets as she initially sings in her most precious voice while placing sugar cubes into a coffee cup (this, one imagines, will be repurposed again for her Guts Tour, along with babydoll dresses galore). Once the chorus hits, though, she shatters a champagne flute in her hand and proceeds to semi-writhe on the table in a botched attempt at “doing the Madonna at the 1984 VMAs.”
Rodrigo then briefly goes back to being a “good little girl” before again ramping up the repressed anger she holds back in these moments, finally going all in on decimating the desserts on the table, not just hurtling them aside, but also throwing some of it at the camera and violently stabbing one of the cakes with a knife like she’s stabbing at the patriarchy itself. This blending of Madonna and Courtney Love (notoriously contentious toward one another for a while there) performance sensibilities is perhaps a testament to the pastiche overload of our current time. Something that Rodrigo, like anyone of her generation, can’t help but be a (for lack of a better word) victim of.
After loosely returning to her faux sugary sweetness shtick for another verse, Rodrigo once more goes apeshit during the chorus, the entirety of which is: “Forgive and I forget/I know my age and I act like it/Got what you can’t resist/I’m a perfect all-American bitch/With perfect all-American lips/And perfect all-American hips/I know my place, I know my place, and this is it.” The dripping-with-sarcasm aura also smacks of Love’s brand. Most notably on 1994’s “Miss World,” wherein she drones, “I’m Miss World/Somebody kill me/Kill me pills/No one cares, my friends.” In another part of that song, Love belts the chorus, “I’ve made my bed, I’ll lie in it/I’ve made my bed, I’ll die in it/I’ve made my bed, I’ll die in it/I’ve made my bed, I’ll cry in it.” “Coincidentally” enough, this expression is something that crops up in a Rodrigo song on Guts called “making the bed.” The track explores similar self-deprecating themes surrounding fame as Rodrigo laments, “And I’m playin’ the victim so well in my head/But it’s me who’s been makin’ the bed/Me who’s been makin’ the bed/Pull the sheets over my head, yeah/Makin’ the bed.”
This is also a song she sang live recently for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, rounding out the set of four songs (which additionally included “love is embarrassing,” “vampire” and “lacy”) with this one while wearing what is quickly becoming her own signature babydoll dress. After all, she’s openly stated her favorite fashion era is the 90s, with a budget for “vintage” clothing to support her zeal. Thus (and probably needless to say), Courtney Love would surely be present on the proverbial Pinterest board of that decade’s fashion trends. Accordingly, Rodrigo’s influences on Guts have clearly shifted far more toward the 90s rage of alt-rock than the “happy anger” of 00s pop-punk, which was more palpable on Sour (though that wasn’t without its major “girl rage” 90s influence either: Alanis Morissette—and Alanis gets more play on this album cycle, too…at least visually speaking). This likely due to her declaration that Rage Against the Machine was a key influence on her while recording the album, particularly “all-american bitch.” But as far as promotional performances have gone since Guts was released in September of ‘23, the most overt influence has been purely Love (whether Rodrigo wants to admit to being fully aware of it or not).
Some can appreciate this commitment to homage, while others might not necessarily find it quite so “cute” or “endearing.” Although Rodrigo has pointed out that nothing in music is ever new, there is an increasing sense of “watered down-ness” the more the decades go by and people keep “gleaning” from the past. However, as Rodrigo insisted, “Every single artist is inspired by artists who have come before them. It’s sort of a fun, beautiful sharing process. Nothing in music is ever new. There’s four chords in every song. That’s the fun part—trying to make that your own.”
Rodrigo does her best to make Hole her own too. Though it’s a prime example of the Narrator (Edward Norton, who, fittingly, once dated Courtney Love) in Fight Club remarking, “Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.” So if you’re going to copy yourself off of someone, Love isn’t the worst choice—musically or visually. But it still doesn’t quite fill the hole where Hole used to be.
