How to play Brutal by Olivia Rodrigo
A surprisingly rocky number, Brutal is neo-Punk and demonstrates Olivia’s variety and depth of songwriting. Despite being the fifth single from Sour, her 2021 debut album, Brutal still reached the top 20 in several countries, including the USA and Australia. Other popular Rodrigo songs include the 2021 hit Drivers License, and her 2023 hit song Vampire.
Chords : B B♭ A A♭ G F# E
Equipment : definitely the electric guitar! Set your amp to overdrive mode (distortion). If your amp doesn’t have this feature you could use an overdrive pedal.
Pick or fingers ? and definitely use a pick; finger-style does not create the tone or energy of the rhythm attack on the recording.
Rhythm production : Play short, hard attack downstrokes in the verses to get that edgy, punk tone. In the chorus play constant down-up strums to create a contrasting, flowing rhythm sound.
Outro chords : The intro, and outro of Brutal feature the same washed-out, dreamy bowed strings harmonies. The guitar is barely evident but can play chords that match the violins sound. The chords indicated in this outro give a close representation of that. The wavy line with the arrow-head pointing up is a ‘slow-attack downstrum’ - this indicates a slow, raked strum that accentuates all the chord notes clearly.
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 2 : To learn more about bar-chords and Rock styles, check out Modern Guitar Chord Styles 2 ; it focuses solely on electric guitar chords, rhythms and style. Pages 4 - 6 give a detailed explanation of the common major bar-chords used in Rock styles, and pages 8 - 9 are all about the power-chord versions of them.