Elvis Costello Shares Adorable Photo With Olivia Rodrigo

Elvis Costello and Olivia Rodrigo were both at the 2023 Grammy Awards on Sunday night (Feb. 5), and the rock legend shared the sweet moment he met the pop star.

“Great to finally meet @OliviaRodrigo,” Costello captioned a photo in which the duo pose for a photo, arms around each other and smiling wide.

Costello has frequently shared his love for Rodrigo’s music, and even defended the 19-year-old singer when the internet pointed out that the “Drivers License” star seemed to have taken some inspiration from his angsty 1978 anthem “Pump It Up.”

The song from Costello’s This Year’s Model album has a driving rhythm that sounds updated by Rodrigo on “Brutal” from her debut album, Sour. When someone tweeted that “first song on the album is a pretty much direct lift from Elvis Costello,” the English icon had the perfect response.

“This is fine by me, Billy,” he responded. “It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did.” Just to put a finer point on it, Costello included the hashtags “#subterreneanhomesickblues” and “#toomuchmonkeybusiness,” in reference to the, respectively, Bob Dylan and Chuck Berry songs that influenced “Pump It Up.”

Rania Aniftos

Billboard