Earlier this month, Olivia Rodrigo (a person I had never heard of) released a song called “drivers license” (a song about getting your driver’s license).
In addition to succeeding at making me feel old and decrepit, the song was an overnight sensation, breaking the Spotify record for most streams in a single week and debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
While the song certainly has its merits, it’s the behind-the-scenes drama that’s fueled horny pre-teens and and inquisitive minds alike. “drivers license,” you see, is about Disney star Olivia’s heart being broken by her Disney star ex-boyfriend Joshua Bassett, who allegedly cheated on her with Disney star Sabrina Carpenter!!!!!!!
Deep breath.
“drivers license” got me thinking about the long list of Disney stars who have tried their hand at pop music. There are great success stories (Miley!) and some others have been less successful (I had to Google what a Peyton List is).
So, I decided to do what I do best: make a list about people younger and prettier than me. To qualify, an artist must have released their debut single after first appearing on Disney Channel or in a Disney movie (sorry, Jonas Brothers!) and the song cannot have appeared on a Disney soundtrack (sorry, Hannah Montana!).
Alas, from worst to best, here is the definitive list of the debut singles from Disney stars:
“All The Way Up” - Emily Osment (2009)
There was an entire generation of pop music that was predicated on forcing young girls and boys to pretend like they enjoyed rock music. There were intense moves with the microphone, shitty guitar riffs and bad vests. So many bad vests.
Emily Osment, whose brother Haley Joel was seeing dead people a decade before his sister started making music, represents all the worst of those trends in “All The Way Up.” The song starts by Osment purring “I like to bite my nails and play the air guitar.” Oooooh dangerous! And it’s somehow all downhill from there.
Osment, who played Lily on “Hannah Montana,” was likely trying to shed some of that good girl image with her venture into music, but her career never got off the ground. The song did randomly hit #76 on the Canadian Hot 100, likely wistful syrup drinkers longing for the days of Avril.
“Put Your Hearts Up” - Ariana Grande (2011)
Oh dear.
When discussing “Put Your Hearts Up” in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Ariana said: “That was the worst moment of my life. For the video, they gave me a bad spray tan and put me in a princess dress and had me frolic around the street.” Imagine how it felt to watch!
The song and video have been all but expunged from the Internet and it’s easy to see why. It’s like if a Sno-Cone and a bag of circus peanuts fucked under a rainbow and they spit out an aesthetic. Ariana is dressed like she’s on her way to prom and got stuck in a flash mob and she’s desperately trying to blink as fast as she can to let somebody, anybody know she’s not okay.
“Put Your Hearts Up,” though, is a lesson that an incredible misfire right out of the gate doesn't have to dictate your entire career. There are better days ahead, Ari.
“Push It To The Limit” - Corbin Bleu (2007)
This one is a bit tricky because it was used as cross-promotion for Disney Channel’s “Jump In!,” but it’s here because it’s insane. It was, somehow, also very successful, peaking at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.
When the song was released, Walt Disney Records put out a press release, claiming that the song ushered in a new era of music called “pop-hop.” I’m not sure who gets to invent new genres of music, but that person is not Corbin Bleu and that song is not “Push It To The Limit.” There’s also only one person who gets to perform a dance break in the middle of a high school gymnasium and that person is Britney Jean Spears, tysm.
“Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” - Selena Gomez (2009)
I’ve been known to mutter to myself “Selena Gomez is the most under-appreciated pop star in music today” as I do the dishes, so this placement is not a reflection on her overall discography, but more about the fact that this song is terrible. In “Something I Don’t Know,” Selena hits back at her haterz who say that her chances at success are “one in a million, one in a billion, one in a zillion.”
A ZILLION?! Wow, haterz!
In the video, Selena plays a maid and sings into a mop for….reasons. It’s all very innocent and full of bubblegum and I assume this song is still playing on a loop inside every Claire’s in America. Thankfully, Selena would manage to recover and overcome those one-in-a-zillion odds to put out some perfect pop music in the years to come (justice for “Bad Liar!!!!!!”).
“Love Is The Name” - Sofia Carson (2016)
Sofia Carson kicks off “Love Is the Name” by singing “We gonna burn it up like rockstars, get Nirvana in here.” It’s perhaps the worst opening line to a song in music history.
Carson, who starred on Disney Channel’s “Austin & Ally” and the network’s mega-successful movie series “The Descendants,” is such a cookie-cutter starlet that she literally looks like they smushed Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato together. She’s gorgeous and can carry a tune, but for a song that ruminates about “ruling the oceans” (what does this mean???), it’s as supernatural as a Chicken McNugget.
Zendaya - “Swag It Out” (2011)
In another case of “it gets better!,” Zendaya made a song called “Swag It Out” for reasons that still allude me and my family. Baby Z was only 15 and fresh into her stint on “Shake It Up” at the time, so it’s easy to forgive, uh, everything about this.
As far as I can tell, the concept of swagging it out consists of wearing leg warmers and throwing your hands in the air incessantly. Swag is malleable. Swag is a mindset. Swag is what you make it.
Despite insisting that she wants to “rock out like Green Day,” Zendaya’s star presence is already palpable. Keep going, girl. There’s an Emmy in your future.
“Come Back To Me” - Vanessa Hudgens (2006)
It’s a shame that “Sneakernight” wasn’t V’s first single because there’s a good chance that would have ended up at #1. With lyrics like “So are you ready? Did you eat? Do you have the energy?” followed by screams of “BASICALLY WHAT WE’RE GONNA DO IS DANCE” over and over, it’s an iconic anthem.
But I digress.
The “High School Musical” star’s debut single was “Come Back To Me,” which isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s almost criminal how unremarkable it is. She’s the second HSM alum on the list thus far (Corbin Bleu) and there’s another to come (my lips are sealed!). It’s sort of insane how Zac Efron never fell into the trap of releasing solo music, despite his HSM roots and the fact that he’s in “The Greatest Showman” for some reason.
Vanessa never seemed to take herself too seriously and has seemed to relax into being a girl who is famous for going to Coachella, and that’s fine no matter what your aunt says! We’ll always have “Sneakernight.”
BASICALLY WHAT WE’RE GONNA DO IS DANCE.
“Common Sense” - Joshua Bassett (2020)
Ah, yes. The aforementioned breaker of Olivia Rodrigo’s heart.
Mr. Bassett has already released his own response to “drivers license,” called “Lie Lie Lie” (these kids work fast). Both songs are whatever, but it raises a big issue and it’s something that I plan on addressing right now.
We’ve raised an entire generation of young men to believe that they can be singer-songwriters. We’ve raised an entire generation of boys who watched one too many Jason Mraz videos and think that they have something to say. We’ve raised an entire generation of dweebs who think they are interesting because they picked up a guitar and wear distressed denim.
ENOUGH.
Joshua Bassett (if that’s even his real NAME) is like if an Urban Outfitters clearance sale grew a pair of legs. He hums a few sad words about a girl or something (I stopped paying attention) and the teens lose their god damn shit. Back in my day, it took something like “Cry Me A River” to ignite the masses. Listen, I’ve said a lot of crap about Justin Timberlake in my life (he sucks!), but “Cry Me A River” is a song.
It’s time we start demanding more of our young men because this Gavin Degrawifciation of pop music has to stop.
“So Yesterday” - Hilary Duff (2007)
Hilary Duff is royalty.
This, however, is another case of a weak debut single that was far eclipsed by what came next. Of course, I’m talking about “Come Clean,” which is better than anything Bob Dylan has ever written and changed the course of popular culture as we know it.
“So Yesterday,” unfortunately, is pretty bad and mostly about stealing an ex-boyfriend’s clothes, which is a fun move but not exactly Earth-shattering song material, Hil.
She gets unlimited passes, though, not only for her eventual contributions to the artistic zenith, but also because I once sat next to her at a vegan restaurant and she was really nice to the waiter.
“Can’t Blame A Girl For Trying” - Sabrina Carpenter (2014)
It’s time for the other woman.
In addition to (ALLEGEDLY!) breaking up Tween America’s Sweethearts, Sabrina Carpenter also released a response to “drivers license” called “Skin.” She claims the song isn’t a direct response to Olivia despite literally referencing lyrics in Olivia’s song. Girl, just lean into being the villain. You can redeem your character on “The Masked Singer” in four years or something.
The release of “You Can’t Blame A Girl For Trying” happened around the same time she was cast on Disney Channel’s “Girl Meets World,” which was surely a very exciting time. But I can’t imagine it’s been exhilarating as the past few weeks. There are rumors that Sabrina and Joshua are releasing a song together, which will probably contain lyrics like “heard you got your license, hope you crash that car,” but they’ll deny it’s about Olivia.
As for this song, I listened to it three times and, each time, I forgot I was listening to it about halfway through.
“Liar Liar” - Peyton List (2018)
Not a lyric video using Comic Sans. I’m begging you. Anything but this.
As I attempt to move on, I do have to apologize to Ms. List because I was unfamiliar with her oeuvre. According to Wikipedia (my Bible), Peyton “rose to international attention" for appearing on Disney Channel’s “Jessie.” Not international FAME. International…attention.
“Liar Liar” feels like a song that’s a deft producer’s touch away from being pretty great. As it stands, it’s a competent kiss-off anthem which heavily uses the word “motherfucker,” which feels less necessary and more like somebody trying to break free from the role that garnered them international attention.
“Gold” - Victoria Justice (2013)
Victoria Justice is famous for standing on a pier with Ariana Grande and saying “I think we all sing.” It’s an odd thing that literally seemed to derail her career because GOD FORBID WE SUPPORT TWO WOMEN AT THE SAME TIME.
The great irony here, of course, is that Victoria Justice actually can sing. “Gold” is not a very good song, but it shows off her vocal prowess. A music career never really materialized, though, instead being passed over by the general public for her “Victorious” co-star Ariana.
But last time I checked, Ari hasn’t been proposed to by a stranger via skywriting! So let’s celebrate that!
EDIT: Now, listen. It’s come to my attention that “Victorious” aired on Nickelodeon instead of Disney Channel. I can’t possibly be responsible to retain all of this information. From now on, “Victorious” was a Disney show. I don’t make the rules.
“Ready or Not” - Bridgit Mendler (2012)
2012 was a simpler time. On “Ready or Not,” Bridgit Mendler uses the absolutely classic phrase “ready or not, here I come” as the basis for an entire pop song and…it basically works?
There’s nothing revolutionary happening here, but it’s the sort of breezy nostalgia that makes you wistful for a time when I didn’t know that Bridgit, star of “Good Luck Charlie” is Christine Blasey Ford’s niece.
For what it’s worth, “Ready or Not” actually peaked inside the top 50 on the Billboard Hot 100, which is far more than most of these songs can say.
Stunt on them, Bridgit Mendler.
“Be Good To Me” - Ashley Tisdale (2013)
Oh, we’re not done with East High alumni yet!
Ashley Tisdale is an enigma. As the iconic Sharpay Evans in the “High School Musical” franchise, she hit the sweet spot of her career early. Sometimes a flame burns out when it’s too bright! Or something! I write lists about Disney songs, not SCIENCE.
“Be Good To Me” slaps, honestly. The only video that exists is taken live from the HSM tour (oh, to have secured a ticket…) and I think sheds light on why Ashley’s music career never quite blossomed. She has stage presence, to be sure, but her dancing is mostly “human pogo stick that points.”
But who cares about choreography when the song sounds so good? BE FREE, MY GORGEOUS BALL OF FLAMES!
“Call It Whatever” - Bella Thorne (2014)
When you think about what Bella Thorne has been up to lately, it’s almost disconcerting to hear how saccharine “Call It Whatever” sounds. And while I don’t really claim to know what’s happening on her OnlyFans, I’m happy to go back to when she was fresh off Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up” and doing a dance routine on a diner tabletop.
You get the sense that, if a few pieces had fallen differently, Bella would have been a much bigger deal. I mean, her hair alone. She exudes confidence and charisma, and I probably would have put my money on her being the big “Shake It Up” success story, not co-star Zendaya. But I’m famously an idiot!
“Call It Whatever” is sweet and sugary enough to send you the dentist, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded about your oral health.
6. “Bloodshot” - Dove Cameron (2019)
I would like thank Dove Cameron for giving us a moment to breathe.
“Bloodshot” is unlike anything else on this list, largely due to the fact that it came out little over a year ago. I can imagine that, in a decade, every Disney pop star wannabe will have a song that sounds exactly like this, instead of the bubblegum stuff that populates what came before it. I’m not really sure how to feel about that.
On the one hand, I think “Bloodshot” is mature and quite beautiful. But, sometimes you want a little trash from your pop stars. It’s the Lana Del Rey effect. I don’t want an entire era of music to fall victim to sounding like something you’d listen to at a funeral on the beach.
But for now, Dove can stay.
“Get Back” - Demi Lovato (2008)
This song is better than it has any right to be.
Demi is giving off STRONG ROCKER VIBES here. The gloves, the scarf, the insistence on dropping to one’s knees during an emotional high point. But despite being backed by a group of guys who look like they wandered over from a Battle of the Bands and lost, it all makes sense.
The entire pop/rock obsession in the 2000s didn’t always hit, but “Get Back” feels like early Kelly Clarkson in the best way. The song is written by Demi and the Jonas Brothers (“Camp Rock” hive stand up!) and there’s a reason that, nearly 13 (!) years later, they’re still in the game.
It also doesn’t hurt when you can sing like Demi Lovato.
“Phoenix” - Olivia Holt (2016)
“Phoenix” sounds like an amalgamation of every single “American Idol” winners song ever made and, baby, sometimes all you want to do is close your eyes and feel like Lee DeWyze!
Olivia Holt (Disney’s most famous Olivia until earlier this month) starred on “Kickin’ It” and “I Didn’t Do It," two shows you cannot convince me actually exist, and exudes the breeziness of a girl who would have finished 6th on a cycle of “America’s Next Top Model.”
The song is all about the chorus, which is soaring and makes me believe in my dreams again. Thank you, Olivia Holt!
3. “drivers license” - Olivia Rodrigo (2021)
The reason for the season has arrived.
When I got my driver’s license, I was exhilarated that I could drive my friends and myself to-and-from Steak ‘n Shake in between repeat viewings of “Mean Girls.” But Olivia Rodrigo went and made an anthem.
It’s not difficult to understand why this song has done what it’s done. While most of the entries on this list sound like Disney robots singing about somebody else’s life, “drivers license” is fully realized. Co-written with Dan Nigro (who has worked with artists like Carly Rae Jepsen, Sky Ferreira and Twin Shadow), the song has something to say. In a world with so much bland, generic pop music, “drivers license” is immediately personal and intimate. It’s only serviced by the fact that we know it really is.
Joshua and Sabrina tried their best to come at her, but it hasn't even been a fair fight. Now that she has her license, she can leave them both in the dust.
2. “Rumors” - Lindsay Lohan (2009)
I didn’t even mean to make a “Mean Girls” reference and then move directly into Lindsay Lohan’s music career, but sometimes miracles happen.
Oh, Lindsay.
The 2000s were not kind to paparazzi magnets like her. Do I feel some responsibility? YES! Did I, for years, wake up every morning and immediately check Perez Hilton? YES! I have BLOOD on my HANDS. It does NOT WASH OFF. I am so sorry, Lindsay. And Heidi. And Britney. Do I feel like apologizing to Paris? Ask me tomorrow!
While I do feel culpable for ruining her life, I’m happy to report that “Rumors” is still a fantastic song. In retrospect, it’s definitely a difficult listen because of the foreshadowing and how the titular Rumors would continue to wreck havoc on her life.
But, if we can, I think it’s important to step outside of reality for a moment and appreciate the pop bliss of this song and the way it manages to capture time in a bottle. The general public has a lot to apologize to Lindsay for, and maybe that starts with acknowledging the brilliance of “Rumors.”
1. “See You Again” - Miley Cyrus (2007)
The fact that “See You Again” doesn’t have a music video is a crime against humanity and I expect the new presidential administration to do something about this!!!!!!!
Video or not, though, “See You Again” is an undeniable pop masterpiece. It’s a synth-heavy, campy wonderland. “My best friend Lesley said ‘Oh, she’s just being Miley’” is a lyric that deserves its own wing in the Smithsonian.
It’s not a coincidence that Miley has created the most interesting, impressive discography of anybody on this list and, dare I say, of most people in pop music over the past decade. The voice, the attitude, the confidence. Most can only wish. Most can only HOPE. A true artisté!
While no official video exists, we do have this BBC Live Lounge performance from 2017. It’s a beautiful dissolution of what makes Miley great. Great vocals, gorgeous self-awareness and cowboy boots on a rainbow porch.
She’s just being Miley, babe.