Do I need to relate to Olivia Rodrigo to enjoy GUTS?

Applying a Business Decision Model Analysis to the relatability of GUTS.

‘GUTS’ album cover from Geffen Records.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what it is that connects us with the artists we listen to, and the decisions we make when evaluating whether to persist or abandon a particular recording if the motivation to listen isn’t immediately validated.

We all have subconscious incentives for deciding what we’re open to exploring, and sometimes that connection with a recording is immediate — it’s like a prompt to an AI generator that outputs exactly what the user wanted — even exceeding expectations. When it comes to making the decision to listen to anything new or unfamiliar, we all have some level of expectation as to what we’ll gain from the experience, and depending on how immediate that satisfaction is achieved, will influence whether we persist with the nominated album, as is the case here.

What makes a listener choose to work at an album when they could just skip to the next one?

When we talk of connection, we’re delineating between an artist we recognise (even peripherally) as credible, versus a sugar rush kinda performer who drops a phenomenal track but doesn’t offer us anything more substantive that we can relate to. My goal isn’t to marginalise — everyone…