• Source: All-American Bitch

"All-American Bitch" (stylized in all lowercase) is a 2023 song by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo from her second studio album, Guts. Rodrigo wrote the song with its producer, Dan Nigro. It became available as the album's first track on September 8, 2023, when the album was released by Geffen Records. "All-American Bitch" begins as a folk song and transitions into pop-punk during the chorus, incorporating influences of punk, rock, grunge, and pop rock. Lyrically, it is a satire song and explores society's double standards and contradictory expectations for women.
Music critics believed "All-American Bitch" was a successful opening track and appealed to Generation Z. They commented on Rodrigo's vocal performance and the production, comparing the song to the work of other rock artists. In the United States, "All-American Bitch" debuted at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song reached the top 10 in Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, receiving a platinum certification in Brazil and gold in Australia and Canada.
"All-American Bitch" was promoted with a rehearsal video and a Vevo Live performance of it in an abandoned theater. Rodrigo also performed the song on Saturday Night Live, where she stabbed a blood-colored cake at a tea party and splattered it on her face; the performance received positive reviews from critics. She included the song on the set list of her 2024–2025 concert tour, the Guts World Tour.




Background and release



Olivia Rodrigo's debut studio album, Sour (2021), was released in May 2021, following which she decided to take a break from songwriting for six months. She conceived the follow-up album, Guts (2023), at the age of 19, while experiencing "lots of confusion, mistakes, awkwardness & good old fashioned teen angst". Sour's producer, Dan Nigro, returned to produce every track on it. Rodrigo listened to Rage Against the Machine on her way to studio sessions, and they became her favorite band. She wrote over 100 songs with Nigro, of which the more rock-oriented tracks were included on the album because they drew a bigger reaction from Rodrigo's audiences during live shows.
Rodrigo and Nigro had completed two disparate sets of songs for Guts, some that were fun and uptempo and others that were serious ones. Nigro wondered how to "bridge this together", worried that the two halves sounded too different from each other. Rodrigo conceived the idea for a song titled "All-American Bitch" while reading the titular essay in Joan Didion's 1968 book Slouching Towards Bethlehem, where one of the runaway hippies describes his mother as an "all-American bitch". She was stimulated by the affronting nature of the words: "I was like, 'Wow, that's so cool.' It's such a provocative set of words." Upon receiving the idea, Nigro was thrilled and envisioned it as the album's opening track. Initially written on a piano, the song was turned into a rock song with a live band. Rodrigo lost her voice after screaming for 15 minutes in Nigro's garage, which he layered until they had a "choir of screams" for the song. She viewed it as one of her best-written songs and believed it expressed feelings she had repressed since the age of 15. Rodrigo had always felt emotional turmoil over her rage and dissatisfaction, which she could not express due to the pressure to portray gratitude, and she struggled wanting to be the "perfect American girl" but not always feeling that way.
Rodrigo announced the album title on June 26, 2023, and its lead single, "Vampire", was released four days later. On August 1, 2023, she revealed Guts' tracklist, which featured "All-American Bitch" as the first track. The song became available for digital download on the album, which was released on September 8, 2023. A rehearsal video accompanied its release, in which Rodrigo sports a shirt with a picture of Fiona Apple. Upon the album's release, an online TikTok video compared the chorus of "All-American Bitch" to Miley Cyrus's 2008 single "Start All Over".




Composition



"All-American Bitch" is two minutes and 45 seconds long. It was recorded at Amusement Studios and East West Studios in Los Angeles. Nigro engineered the song with Sam Stewart, Sterling Laws, Dave Schiffman, and Jasmine Chen and provided production and vocal production. He played acoustic guitar, electric guitar, percussion, bass, synthesizer, and drum programming; Stewart played acoustic guitar and electric guitar; Laws played drums; and Ryan Linvill played bass. Spike Stent mixed the song at SLS Studios in London, and Randy Merrill mastered it.
"All-American Bitch" begins as a folk song and transitions into pop-punk during the chorus, incorporating influences of punk, rock, grunge, and pop rock. Spin's Ilana Kaplan believed the song combines Hole's grunge sound with the pop-punk essence of Avril Lavigne and the fictional band Pink Slip from the 2003 movie Freaky Friday. It begins with gently strummed acoustic guitars and Rodrigo delivers falsetto vocals with a soft coo. She assumes a gentle tone in the verses and a furious one in the choruses. A full band plays electric guitars and drums in the chorus as Rodrigo's delivery gets more aggressive. She screams loudly after mentioning her internal screaming in the song's lyrics. Hannah Dailey of Billboard believed it shifts from "ethereal choral moments to screamed grungey punk sections", and Heather Phares of AllMusic compared the transition to the work of Phoebe Bridgers and Courtney Love. Rodrigo credited the transition to the influence of Rage Against the Machine, which American Songwriter's Patrick Hosken also observed. Writing for The Forty-Five, Rhian Daly thought Rodrigo's delivery went from "pretty to blood-curdling", and Pitchfork's Cat Zhang likened her jeering tone to Lavigne and the All-American Rejects. The song's production received comparisons to Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, and Paramore.
"All-American Bitch" is a satire song, in which Rodrigo explores society's difficult expectations for women by sarcastically describing herself as someone who satisfies them. She uses pop culture references to highlight the expectations' contradictory nature, that women are expected to be alluring yet innocent, selfless yet ambitious, and also constantly grateful: "I am light as a feather, I'm as stiff as a board." Among other inconsistencies, Rodrigo calls out how they are supposed to allow crude jokes to pass unchallenged, be empathetic but never to the point of making others uncomfortable, never show their anger, and internalize their emotions. In the chorus, Rodrigo announces that she is aware of her age and acts accordingly, reflecting a common motif in most of her music. She references the Kennedy family while encapsulating her desire to meet ideals: "I got class and integrity, just like a goddamn Kennedy". Some lyrics focus specifically on Rodrigo's experiences as a famous young lady and how prominent women face pressure to not appear too emotional. The song closes out with Rodrigo alluding to her award acceptance speeches in the final lines. Writing for The Guardian, Laura Snapes described the song as "a satirical diatribe against the expectations and double standards she still feels bound by", and PopMatters' Jeffrey Davies called it a 2023 version of Meredith Brooks's 1997 single "Bitch".




Critical reception


Music critics believed "All-American Bitch" fulfilled its job as the opening track of Guts. Elle's Erica Gonzales thought it was a "killer opener", and The Australian's Jules LeFevre believed the song was an ideal way to begin the album. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone thought it started Guts off with "a fantastic pop-punk angst rant", and Sowing of Sputnikmusic believed the album's irrefutable success began with it. Writing for Billboard, Jason Lipshutz ranked "All-American Bitch" as Guts' second best track and thought it illustrated Rodrigo's talent for "genre refraction". He was joined by Sheffield and The New York Times' Lindsay Zoladz in comparing it to Sour's opener "Brutal".
Reviewers also commented on Rodrigo's vocal performance and the production of "All-American Bitch". Kaplan and The A.V. Club's Mary Kate Carr opined that the song would be suitable to soundtrack the 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You. Punch Liwanag of the Manila Bulletin believed the production and Rodrigo's vocals on "All-American Bitch" came across as effortless, and Gabriel Saulog of Billboard Philippines thought the guitar riff flawlessly captured her turmoil and inner struggles. Gonzales believed the drums in the chorus of "All-American Bitch" hit "like a tantrum" and the melody oscillated from "sweet to sour" and "angelic to chaotic". Several critics described Rodrigo's vocals in the verses as angelic, andMusicOMH's John Murphy believed her screams in the latter half were attention-grabbing and could compete with Black Francis.
Critics also praised the lyrical themes of "All-American Bitch" and believed it captured feelings experienced by Generation Z. Beats Per Minute's Lucas Martins thought the song combined youthful drama and introspection to create an earnest expression of frustration, which embodied Rodrigo's generation and resonated perfectly with the zeitgeist. Chris Willman of Variety believed that it tapped into a significant aspect of Rodrigo's appeal, embracing the essence of adolescence without attempting to sound prematurely mature. The Line of Best Fit's Matthew Kim viewed "All-American Bitch" as a compelling work of social commentary, and Lipshutz stated his respect for the lyrics about Rodrigo's award acceptance speeches. Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Bob Gendron called the song a potential "generational anthem".
Sheffield ranked "All-American Bitch" as Rodrigo's fourth-best song in September 2023, describing it as a display of her attitude and the "perfect theme song" for Guts. He picked his favorite lyric: "I know my age and I act like it/I got what you can't resist/I'm a perfect all-American bitch." GQ included the Kennedy reference in its list of the album's standout and "gutsiest" lyrics, and Nylon included it alongside the titular lines in its list of Guts' most impeccable lyrics. It was placed on critical lists of the best songs of 2023 at number five by BBC News and in the top 20 by Esquire. The latter magazine's Bria McNeal believed that though Rodrigo traipsed through an age-old story, she transformed it into something completely modern and displayed "perfect, unfiltered rage against the machine".




Commercial performance


"All-American Bitch" debuted at number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100 issued for September 23, 2023. In Canada, the song entered at number 15 on the Canadian Hot 100 issued for the same date and was certified gold by Music Canada. It debuted at number 78 on the UK Singles Chart. "All-American Bitch" received a silver certification in the United Kingdom from the British Phonographic Industry, and the Official Charts Company declared it her 17th-biggest song in the country in February 2024.
In Australia, "All-American Bitch" entered at number 10 and became Rodrigo's eighth top-10 song. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for selling 70,000 equivalent units. It debuted at number seven in New Zealand and became her 10th top-10 song. "All-American Bitch" charted at number nine on the Billboard Global 200. Elsewhere, the song reached national record charts at number 7 on the Sweden Heatseeker chart, number 8 in Ireland, number 22 in Singapore, number 29 in Greece, number 34 in Portugal, number 96 in Poland, and number 171 in France. It received a platinum certification in Brazil.




Live performances and other usage



Rodrigo performed "All-American Bitch" at the Ace Hotel Los Angeles on October 9, 2023, in an exclusive concert for American Express cardholders. On December 1, 2023, she reprised the song at the KIIS-FM Jingle Ball in a red leather mini-dress with a bejeweled top and ebony knee-high boots, fluctuating between jumping, screaming, and singing delicately.
Rodrigo sang "All-American Bitch" on Saturday Night Live on December 9. The performance began with her innocently sitting at a tea party in a high-neck pink dress, drinking tea behind a table covered with cakes and other items and humming soft vocals. During the chorus, Rodrigo jumped up and laid down on the table, stabbing one cake with a knife and dancing on the others, as the lights changed from white to quick red flashes to reflect the change in her mood. As the song approached a climax, she screamed while splattering blood-colored cake on her face. Rodrigo concluded by sticking her tongue out for the camera. The performance received positive reviews, with critics describing it as stunning, stellar, scorching, and memorable. Exclaim!'s Vish Khanna called it "a blast of theatrical mall punk" and believed the props were used creatively and Rodrigo was mesmerizing. The bakery that provided 20 cakes for the performance became popular on social media. On December 13, the singer Noelle Denton alleged that the concept was "stolen" from the music video for her 2021 song "Your Mom Calls Me" and the creative director might have seen her video when it was shared by a mutual friend.
On December 15, Rodrigo uploaded a Vevo Live performance of "All-American Bitch", in which she performed in an abandoned theater in a shiny blue dress. The song was included on the set list of her 2024–2025 concert tour, the Guts World Tour, as part of a set of rock-oriented songs, alongside "Brutal", "Obsessed" (2024), "Good 4 U" (2021) , and "Get Him Back!" (2023), which recalls 1990s rock artists like Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani according to Chicago Sun-Times' Selena Fragassi. Rodrigo performed it in a red bodysuit while red talking lips, pictures, and news stories symbolizing misogyny and unattainable beauty ideals were projected on the screen behind her. She replaced the word "hips" and sang the original lyric: "Perfect all-american tits". Midway, she asked the crowd to think of a person or thing that really upset them and scream, to which the audience obliged; Rania Aniftos of Billboard described this as "a hilarious and healing moment of emotion" and included it among the show's five best moments, and Carly May Gravley of Dallas Observer believed it led to an intense emotional release and left everyone's hearing permanently damaged. "All-American Bitch" appeared in the trailer for the Apple TV+ series The Buccaneers (2023).




Credits and personnel


Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Guts.

Dan Nigro – producer, songwriter, engineer, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, percussion, vocal producer, bass, synthesizer, drum programming, background vocals
Olivia Rodrigo – vocals, background vocals, songwriter
Sam Stewart – engineer, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Sterling Laws – drums, engineer
Dave Schiffman – engineer
Jasmine Chen – engineer
Ryan Linvill – bass
Randy Merrill – mastering
Spike Stent – mixing




Charts






Certifications






Note






References

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