I loved Olivia Rodrigo, but i’m sour about the greedy release of ‘drop dead’ and its variants

I’m as obsessed with Olivia Rodrigo as the next basic Gen Z girl, but the rollout of “drop dead” has left a sour taste in my mouth. We all like to believe our fave musicians are authentic artists, and not money-making machines. But Olivia Rodrigo just churned out 20 variants of the same song, and her official fan club is sharing tactics to boost it in the charts. It’s giving greedy. This is a bad idea… right?

Who needs to spend money on 20 different versions of the same song?

On iTunes right now, there are nine separate versions of Olivia Rodrigo‘s new song “drop dead”. There is *takes deep breath* the single version, the version on the upcoming album, the lyric video, the original music video, the singalong audio, the singalong video, “drop dead (we can go real slow – slowed & reverbed)”, “drop dead (most alive i’ve ever been – sped up)” and “drop dead (iTunes limited cover)”. Nope, that last one is not a joke. You can buy the same song… with a different picture in your music library.

The official fan club made a checklist
(Image via Instagram)

If you have the equipment (or a shelf to decorate), you can buy a CD, cassette tape or vinyl of “drop dead”. Of course, the track will be part of the the album “you seem pretty said for a girl so in love”. You can already splash cash on a CD, two different cassette tapes, and three different vinyls of the album *jazz hands*. And it’s not out for another two months.

There’s also a “drop dead (stalked you on the internet)” music video exclusive to Apple Music, and a “drop dead (taken that eurostar to france)” video only on Spotify.

So, that’s 20 different versions of the same song (thus far). None are even are remix featuring a different artists.

Now, in case you’re uninitiated, most music charts count different versions or remixes of one song as the same track. For example, if a very dedicated Olivia Rodrigo fan were to buy seven variants of “drop dead” on iTunes, that counts as seven sales of “drop dead”.

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It seems to be a common strategy for artists seeking the top spot to release a tonne of remixes, or different coloured vinyls. The artist rakes in more cash, plus the sales and streams boost that song in the charts. Remember when Taylor Swift released no fewer than 34 versions of her album The Tortured Poets Department? Or when Ariana Grande churned out 12 variations of the song “yes, and?”

I get that some people out there may like a slowed-down version of “drop dead” to fall asleep to, or to make overly sincere self-congratulatory TikToks to. But does humanity need this many versions of one song? Should Olivia Rodrigo’s hardcore fans – many of whom are teens with limited money and sense – be spending that much?  And if mahoosive record companies can bash out a thousand different remixes and vinyls and CDs to lift a song’s performance in the charts, is that not unfair to lesser-known artists with fewer resources to do this?

The official fan club is instructing listeners to ‘support’ the song in the charts

I am not making this up. Livies HQ is the official fan club for Olivia Rodrigo. They posted a guide for how listeners can play the Billboard Hot 100’s system and get “drop dead” up in the charts. Oh, and lest you forget, Olivia’s Livies shared a checklist of all the variants fans can buy on iTunes.

This is very thoroughly researched
(Image via Instagram)

This isn’t an entirely new approach to streaming music. For example, I’ve seen many Taylor Swift obsessives decide it is their sacred duty to get a track to number one, then rally other fans to use these strategies. But it’s unusual for an artist’s official fan account to flat-out post a tutorial. (Although, in 2020 Justin Bieber did share guides to getting “Yummy” to number one.)

Here’s a novel idea. Next time an A-list artist releases a song, could they just… release one song?

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Featured image via YouTube.