Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’ Became the World’s Biggest Song Via TikTok
The 17-year-old Disney star’s millennial breakup anthem took over the charts and got a co-sign from Taylor Swift
On January 8, a teenager released a breakup song that immediately launched thousands of TikToks. Now her song is the biggest in the world.
The teenager is Olivia Rodrigo, a 17-year-old actress and singer who before this month was best known for acting in Disney +’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The song, “Drivers License,” puts Rodrigo in a familiar Disney-to–pop star trajectory (see Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez).
“Drivers License,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, is a modern pop ballad in the vein of Lorde or Taylor Swift, recounting the story of a relationship gone sour after the narrator gets her driver’s license—something the couple had long talked about. Fans have speculated that the song is about her Disney co-star Joshua Bassett, which has played a key part in the track’s success. (Rodrigo declined to comment, and representatives for Bassett did not respond to a request for comment.)
According to Billboard, it was streamed 76.1 million times and sold 38,000 downloads in the U.S. in its first week of release. On January 11, it set Spotify’s record for most streams in a day (for a nonholiday song) with over 15.17 million global streams. It beat that handily with 17.01 million streams the following day.
William Gruger, TikTok’s U.S. editorial lead for music, says “Drivers License’’ was an immediate sensation on the platform. In the first week after the single dropped, the number of videos featuring the song on TikTok, and the number of views those videos received, doubled each day.
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