Olivia Rodrigo has just kicked off what’s set to be the biggest tour of the year. The Unraveled Tour will see the most successful pop star of 2026 who isn’t called Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny playing 86 dates across North America and Europe in support of her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. But while her huge pop stardom is undeniable, the 23-year-old seems to be on an unlikely side-quest to become the most high-profile champion of 90s and 2000s alternative rock.
Rodrigo grew up listening to the bands her parents loved, including No Doubt, Pearl Jam, Weezer (her first ever-concert) and The White Stripes (in 2023, she said latter’s Elephant was the album she listened to the most). Her 2021 debut album, SOUR, owed a debt to 1990s pop-punk, while Rodrigo hailed '90s alternative rock artists Babes In Toyland and Rage Against The Machine as core influences upon 2023‘s acclaimed follow-up, Guts.
In an interview with Rolling Stone at the time, Rodrigo revealed that, when she was a teenager, she would sleep with a turntable next to her bed, and her mother would wake her up each morning by dropping the stylus on Babes In Toyland's Fontanelle album.
“Rock in that feminine way, that’s just the coolest thing in the world to me,” Rodrigo told the magazine, revealing that she tried to tap into the Minneapolis band's aggression and energy on the punkier songs on Guts, particularly opening track, All-American Bitch.
“I think everyone can relate to being put in a box in some sense,” she said. “Something I always grappled with, especially when I was younger, is feeling like I couldn’t be angry or express dissatisfaction or complain for fear of being ungrateful. It was drilled into me, and it caused a lot of problems. I had all this anger bubbling up inside me - especially when you’re a teenager and you’re confused and you feel like the world is out to get you and you’re so insecure - and I’d have dreams where I was going crazy. I felt like I could never be like that in real life.”
Rodrigo also credited Rage Against The Machine for inspiring All-American Bitch's quiet/loud dynamics. “I have been listening to so much Rage Against The Machine this year,” she said. “That’s my favourite band right now. I would just play it over and over again on my way to and from the studio.”
She underlined her alt-rock bona fides by inviting The Breeders – the band featuring former Pixies bassist Kim Deal and her sister Kelley – to support her on the GUTS tour. Rodrigo first heard The Breeders’ 1993 single Cannonball as a teenager, and both the song and Kim Deal left their mark.
"I thought Kim was the coolest girl in the world," Rodrigo told the New York Times of her love of The Breeders. "I’m very inspired by them and everything they stand for. They are absolutely iconic."
“She’s a fantastic singer, really super at what she does, and she’s been very supportive of us,” Deal told Mojo. “There’s a section in her show where she’s at the piano and talks about how, for her, there’s ‘before hearing Cannonball’ and ‘after hearing Cannonball’, and how Cannonball broke her little brain.”
Rodrigo dialled things up even further earlier this year with the launch of the inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival. A cross between landmark 90s festivals Lollapalooza and Lillith Fair, the female-led bill featured Stevie Nicks, Bikini Kill, Die Spitz, Doechii, KATSEYE, Garbage, Chappell Roan, The Breeders and more (profits were donated organisations including the Center For Reproductive Rights, National Women’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood, dedicated to supporting and advocating for women and girls).
"The lineup is truly insane and full of my heroes and friends," Rodrigo said. “I firmly believe that joy, community, and music can be the drivers of meaningful change and I’m hopeful this festival will be just that.”
This alt-rock love-in goes both ways. Rodrigo brought The Cure’s Robert Smith onstage at her 2024 Glastonbury, with the pair duetting on covers of Cure classics Friday I’m In Love and Just Like Heaven. Smith returned the favour, appearing on the song What’s Wrong With Me from You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. “I bought Sour, and then Guts,” Smith told British Vogue. “Although most of the songs on those two albums are not really ‘aimed at my demographic’, they are all so good that it is hard not to fall in love with them.” (Tellingly, Rodrigo’s album also featured a song called The Cure, though he was absent from that one).
Smith isn’t the only alt-rock icon to receive this pop star papal blessing. Weezer joined Rodrigo onstage at Lollapalooza in 2025 to perform their mid-90s hits Buddy Holly and Say It Ain’t So, while David Byrne duetted with her on The Talking Heads’ Burning Down The House at the Governors Ball festival the same year. Alanis Morisette, No Doubt and Jewel have all appeared onstage with Rodrigo (so have Stevie Nicks and Billy Joel, proving she’s nothing if not generation-agnostic).
Not everyone is all in on the idea of Rodrigo as an alt-rock cheerleader. Courtney Love called her out over the similarity between a prom queen-style promotional photo for 2021’s SOUR Prom virtual concert and the cover of Hole’s 1994 album Live Through This. But any beef was quickly squashed after Rodrigo responded that she was “flattered that Courtney Love knows that I exist”. Fans of both musicians have pitched Love as a perfect addition to next year’s Daisy Chain Fields festival.
Given that she seems to relish sharing a stage with the musicians who make up her parents’ record collection, there’s every chance that The Unraveled Tour will see more guest appearances. It‘s reassuring to know that 90s and 2000s alternative rock is safe in the hands of a 23-year-old pop megastar.
