What happened between Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift? Tensions at a high with a Swiftie aka Olivia vs. their leader, Taylor
Olivia Rodrigo is well known as the ultimate Swiftie. She’s the Swiftie that made it big and in return, got all the Swifties to support her include their leader—Taylor Swift herself.
But what happens when a fan suddenly occupies the #1 spots time after time and is deemed as competition? Shut it all down.
Welcome to the story of Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift’s dying friendship.
After all, do you really have true friends in the shark industry that we all know as Hollywood? Please, you’re a fool if you believe that.
I want to make this post short and cute so here’s a Buzzfeed article explaining the writer’s drama that went down between Olivia vs. Taylor and Paramore.
In short, it was decided that Olivia’s inspiration for her hit songs actually fall underneath the umbrella of sampling/interpolation and as a result, Taylor & her writers (still a sensitive topic still for the TS stans?), Hayley Williams, & Joshua Farro, should be credited as writers in the songs were Olivia had inspiration from. This inspiration could have been the lyrics, the instruments, how the bridge flows, the tempo… whatever it was.
This of course cost Olivia millions of dollars because when someone is credited as a publisher/producer/writer, the revenue is split between the artist and everyone else who worked on the song.
It’s why celebrities love ghostwriters <3
Paramore's Hayley Williams and Joshua Farro were included as songwriters on ‘good 4 u’ in which Hayley reacted to the news on her Instagram story saying “our publisher is wilding rn”
Why? They’re about to make millions.
Keep in mind that they WERE NOT ORIGINALLY CREDITED.
That’s the public tea.
Here’s the real tea.
In the beginning, veterans in the industry such as Paramore and Taylor, looked at Olivia as “aw cute, the new generation is looking at us for inspiration.”
It was “aw cute” UNTIL Olivia started skyrocketing. When ‘good 4 u’ became a huge hit and there was no solid evidence to prove that Olivia was a one-hit wonder with driver’s license and instead… this is someone that can actually have longevity, that’s when everyone saw $$$$ and said hey, we can’t let someone else profit off of our work.
This is the dumbed down version of what happened and why Hayley, Joshua, and Taylor were later credited on Olivia’s songs.
My source tells me that originally, Olivia didn’t directly sample anything and everything was under the umbrella of inspiration. Also, she tells me that there’s a lot of back & forth on whether or not it counts as sampling. I’ll get into that in a moment.
JMEnternational for BRIT Awards/Getty Images
This is important to note because if an artist samples something, rightful credit is given and all that business mumbo jumbo is dealt with BEFORE the record goes public.
So for someone to be added on LATER after the song’s success means that they had to basically come up with a blueprint to show that this inspiration should actually be rightfully credited (this is explained a little more with a statement from Adam Levine which I’ll get to later in the post).
This happens a lot and you might be familiar with this in regards to Ariana Grande. Many people accused her of taking inspiration off their work and saying that she should credit them for sampling their work in the right way.
So obviously, Olivia was pissed and annoyed when she was basically forced to give writing credits on her own work because Olivia looked at it as “I was inspired, but I took something and I made it my OWN.”
This can be seen in what she said in her Time interview.
Olivia said, "It was really frustrating to see people discredit and deny my creativity.”
Meanwhile, producer Dan Nigro said: "It seems like people get funny about things when songs become really popular."
… boom.
They were only approached after the songs became popular.
This led Olivia to say, it was "a lesson in business."
The constant comparisons between Taylor and Olivia made Olivia question her individuality as an artist.
She even said, "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."
This is a constant discussion in the music industry because everyone argues that everyone gets inspiration from someone and it doesn’t always fall under fully sampling the material.
For context, here’s more of what Olivia said.
"At the end of the day, I'm just really proud and happy to say that my job is being a songwriter. All music is inspired by each other. Obviously, I write all of my lyrics from my heart and my life first. I came up with the lyrics and the melody for 'Good 4 U' one morning in the shower."
"What's so beautiful about music is that it can be so inspired by music that's come out in the past. 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 are four chords in every song. That's the fun part — trying to make that your own."
She’s emphasizing that everyone gets inspiration from others and that “nothing in music is ever new.” She is also emphasizing that she is a songwriter and regardless of the credits, what she came up with was her own.
… which knowing the information that I’m about to tell you, I feel like she is throwing a little bit of shade about what went on behind the scenes.
According to my source, Olivia had a rude awakening when her idol’s people came knocking on her door (figuratively not literally) and said … “uh hey! Yeah your inspiration doesn’t run in the real world. You’re gonna have to share the profits.”
My source said that the way it was described to her was as if everyone worked overtime behind the scenes and were nit-picking to find similarities between anything even if it’s 2 chords.
This in turn made Olivia feel some type of way that everyone was quick to belittle and profit off of someone else’s hard work and success. She felt that in return, her original creativity was overshadowed by inspiration that in her opinion, wasn’t actually sampling.
After all, “nothing in music is ever new.”
My source says that she feels like it was a pressurizing situation for Olivia and that older artists in the game wanted to capitalize off of her.
And Olivia felt like she couldn’t stand up for herself or say anything because she was a fan of these artists.
Also, my source emphasizes that these feelings and drama behind the scenes, were more toward Taylor than Paramore because ‘good 4 u’ did obviously sample ‘Misery Business’ whilst, ‘1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back,’ wasn’t a direct sample of Taylor’s ‘New Year’s Day.’ It was just that piano melody was recreated. That’s called interpolation which I’ll get to in a bit.
My source also says that there was a lot of drama going on behind the scenes so she’s not sure what exactly was targeted at Paramore and what was targeted at Taylor since the drama involved all 3 (Hayley and Joshua from Paramore).
Olivia even seemed to defend herself directly from Taylor by saying, "I came up with the '1 Step Forward' concept and I sort of wrote a verse and a chorus. I was in the car on a road trip, and when I got home, I decided to sing it over the chords of 'New Year's Day.' I think they're really beautiful chords. I was lucky enough to get that approved, and it's on the record."
So she got it approved and later on Taylor was added to the credits…
And because she was deemed a “huge quirky fan,” that narrative was easy to run with and be like “ha well yeah obviously, you are clearly inspired now give me my share of the profits.”
Sampling and inspiration is a very confusing thing in music because ain’t nobody gonna invent a new genre or a new chord progression.
This is why other artists came to Olivia’s defense.
Elvis Costello responded to accusations that a guitar riff from one of his songs had been copied for Olivia's album-opener "Brutal."
He said, "This is fine by me. It's how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That's what I did."
Adam Levine also stepped in to defend Olivia against accusations of copying other artists and said that it was a "gray area" in the music industry.
Adam said:
"These are tricky things and anyone who's ever written a song knows that you rip something off inadvertently, and it makes it to tape, and then it's released and then there's a lawsuit. It's a natural thing for it to happen, and sometimes it gets ugly and sometimes it's warranted that people take legal action."
"Sometimes it's not warranted that people take legal action. And I think there's definitely become more of a gray area that's reared its ugly head these days."
"I do think that we should probably meet this with a little more compassion and understanding and try to find a way… All this calling out, it's like, music is a creative thing and I just hate to see it crushed."
Taylor and Jack Antonoff were also credited on Deja Vu because they argued that Deja Vu included interpolation of Taylor’s song, Cruel Summer.
Here’s how Buzzfeed explained it:
So basically there was some tension behind the scenes because…
one half feels like Taylor is getting rightful recognition while…
the other half thinks that Taylor is nitpicking and wants credit only because Olivia is successful while in reality… rearranging chords and using a similar chord progression isn’t something that Taylor invented.
I asked my source if this applies to Paramore and she said “well Olivia directly sampled Misery Business. It was only afterward that they requested credit because Olivia’s team had approached them beforehand. They weren’t credited in the beginning.”
Sources are even saying that it could be argued that Olivia didn’t “sample” Taylor’s music, but Taylor kind of took “advantage” of a fan’s naivety in the music industry instead of supporting her.
As for Paramore, they were approached by Olivia’s team beforehand but only took action after the song’s success.
One of my sources infer that they didn’t see the similarities as a big deal beforehand and actually believed that their sampling claims aren’t that strong enough, but after the song’s success and public opinion saying that the songs are highly similar, that’s when Paramore’s team took action and got Hayley and Joshua credits.
As you can see… everything is divided. There’s a group that thinks one way and another that thinks the other way.
My source says that Olivia was advised to stop acting like a fangirl and start acting like the celebrity she is.
This is why you guys don’t see any more praise toward Taylor. Olivia is being primed as an artist and being told to act like a famous celebrity and not a fan.
As I already stated, Olivia seemed very upset with Taylor because it seemed like Taylor couldn’t turn off her business mind and still went and made sure that she got credited on something that some may argue was not necessary.
Again… this is how Olivia feels and how sources perceived everything. These aren’t my thoughts. I’ll tell you my thoughts in a moment though don’t worry.
Another source of mine directly said:
“Olivia was upset because she thought that Taylor would show her the ropes in the industry and give her advice on how to not be caught up in a songwriting scandal like this, but instead, it was Taylor behind the gun taking credit for something that Olivia perceived as minimal.”
“She felt like it discredited her as a songwriter and her creativity was overthrown by Taylor. Her [redacted] even believes that Taylor knows it wouldn’t have held up in court, but she also knew that Olivia wouldn’t have let it get that far because, at the end of the day, she’s a fan. It’s also not a good look for an artist to be in court over legal writes in their debut year.”
“Olivia was put in a weird position business-wise and was advised by her management team to give the credits.”
This could be subjective.
One could argue that it’s Taylor’s right to hold on to similar piano chords while others could say that Taylor took advantage of Olivia’s naivety. That’s something you guys can discuss in the comment section below.
My source even elaborated and said that it seemed like Taylor was quick to use Olivia’s current relevancy to promote Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in April 2021, before they officially met in May 2021 and in a way, Oliva could feel a little used.
My Thoughts
You see… what’s happening right now is the difference between fan behavior and businesswomen.
It’s this thing that influencers go through. Many influencers that have a huge following, fangirl when their favorite brand reaches out to them because that’s a huge billion-dollar brand, right? Some have even made the mistake of settling for a small sponsorship because they are grateful that a huge brand wants to work with them. In reality, brands take advantage of an influencer’s naivety by offering them an amount that’s too little because of their name recognition.
This is a possibility of what happened between Taylor and Olivia. I’m saying it’s a possibility because there wasn’t a direct fight between Taylor and Olivia. To my sources’ knowledge, they communicated through their people for this.
I personally think that Taylor could afford to let Olivia get away with a few piano chords. It’s hard for me to believe that the piano chords that Taylor used were something that Taylor invented.
However, I’m not that educated in this specific topic nor that interested in chord progression, sampling, and all of that. I’m not shy to admit that. I don’t know what would hold up in court or not. Maybe Taylor did invent the chords, idk LMAOO
I will say that Olivia’s success did threaten a lot of people and the industry is very competitive. I can’t help but think that Taylor was threatened by Olivia and in return, Taylor didn’t want Olivia profiting off of her or using her work. And we all know Taylor isn’t someone to back down… from anything.
The funny thing is Olivia was out here promoting Taylor which is something that her team told her to chill with.
not just the promoting but the whole acting like a crazed fan thing
I sympathize with Olivia because she was frustrated and didn’t want her work to be reduced to something that she sampled when in reality, it was probably really good lawyers that pointed out some similarities.
After all, it was interpolation and not sampling.
It’s not like Olivia was full on Ava Max type of sampling.
I don’t think anyone is necessarily wrong or that Taylor is evil and Hayley and Joshua from Paramore are money hungry. What can I say? It’s a shark industry. Surely there are instances where you won’t meet sharks in the industry, but it’s you and your luck.
I think Olivia was looking for a Justin Bieber x The Kid Laroi type of relationship with Taylor. Justin took Laroi under his wing and tried to show him the ins and outs of the industry. Same with Justin and Billie Ellish. It was like a “lemme protect you and show you the ropes” type of relationship. And as you can see, Laroi and Justin are working together.
how tall is this man LMAOOO
Meanwhile, Taylor and Olivia ain't working together. Instead, Taylor is behind the gun demanding recognition.
Olivia definitely feels some type of way but this doesn’t mean that she won’t praise Taylor or they won’t pose together at events. It’s just that things have taken a different turn and the ass licking calmed down a bit.
Olivia definitely got a rude awakening of what a shark industry is like especially when your idol is the head shark.
Btw, I’m not saying that either Taylor or Paramore are wrong. Your art is your art. Protect it however you like and if someone else is interpolating or sampling, you have every right to get your credit. I think the tension just comes from people (including Oliva) who thought that Taylor wouldn’t do that to Olivia, especially in her debut year. Like I said, they were aiming for a more Justin x Laroi type of friendship.
What do you guys think? Do you think that Olivia shouldn’t be frustrated and should joyfully share her credit with veterans in the industry or do you think that Paramore and Taylor are money hungry? What are your thoughts on Taylor’s role in all of this?
Let me know in the comments down below! Also, should I open up an ask box soon?