The opening track of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album Sour officially has a music video, and it’s brutal out here for dancers and teen singers alike. The video opens with Olivia in a studio surrounded by ballet dancers when a rolled ankle puts her on the ground (literally!) while they dance around her.
Embracing the 2000s aesthetic that has been a major part of Sour, the “brutal” video opens as a flash game. The characters featured on the start screen are various Olivias that feature in the music video, complete with face filters of flaming eye makeup, hearts, “brutal out here” written on bandaids, and more. Throughout the video, we move from one Olivia to the next as she takes on newscasting, livestreaming, modeling, and just being a teenager.
Like her Jennifer’s Body-inspired “good 4 u” video, “brutal” was directed by Petra Collins and is a fast-paced collage of scenes and looks matched with Olivia’s spot-on acting. The video is also full of the Sour angst that everyone has come to love and celebrate. Oh, and those dancers? They return at the end to take their ballet moves into traffic and dance on the hoods of cars. It’s definitely not your average day in the studio.