She is Lorde, Ya-ya-ya
(get that out of the way, that’s your lot)
Yep, neither Lorde nor Kendrick Lamar is my number one album: who could it possibly be?!
Have a think about it…
Yeah, it’s that one.
Maybe you haven’t heard Lorde’s Stone Cold Masterpiece of a second album, because you’re a fucking idiot, but you know what it’s about don’t you?
I mean, her 2013 debut was written when she was only 14 years old
and showed a prodigious level of writing ability that arbalested her to worldwide attention. It was a far better written (and plain better) debut album than the Arctic Monkeys’ was in 2006, and back when that was released there were some people unconvinced whether lyrics so good could have been written by someone in their late teens, and conspiracy theories abounded. There was no such debate over the much younger Lorde, because she was (and, brace yourself, still is) female, and so all of her art will always be undervalued, and people will just assume that a more naturally talented man was actually responsible for writing the songs, and Lorde just added bits about makeup and Kim Kardashian to get the writing credit.
(Hmmm, if you haven’t seen ‘The Trip‘, that Michael Caine picture might look a bit like I’m accusing him of something rather uncomfortable. Mind you, this is a guy who said he legally changed his name to Michael Caine because of ISIS, so I don’t really care)
Because of achieving such overwhelming success at such a young age, it’s obvious what her second album four years later will concern, isn’t it? It’ll be about how- actually– being famous isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, that endless touring is getting her all upset, how it’s impossible for you mere mortals to fully comprehend how emotionally draining doing a lot of press interviews is, how Mr. Writer never tells it how it truly is, how she really wishes that they didn’t have infinite amounts of money so she “Could just have a normal life, y’know??”, how you puny mortals were really the millionaires because you didn’t have to appear on The Jimmy Fallon Show once every 18 months, and basically 10 different versions of Lorde shamelessly lying and trying to convince us that- actually– she really wishes she had our life, and that we were actually the lucky ones, because according to Lorde being rich and famous is literally the worst and most horrific thing ever. I mean, Jesus, Muse were so desperate to get to that stage they were doing those songs on their first album.
You should have more trust in Lorde: I think by the point ‘Melodrama’ was released she had already provided more than enough evidence that she is far smarter than you– perhaps almost as clever as me. Almost- and that she was at least aware enough of how little sympathy we’d be likely to have for a multi-millionaire trying to convince us that somehow her life is anyway as shit as ours’. I mean, we actually live our lives: we know it couldn’t possibly get any shitter.
Instead, Lorde recognises what she does best- chronicling the emotional turbulence of relationships- so lyrically generally sticks to what she’s best at, but simply decides to build and improve on every single thing that made up her sound previously and constructing an absolutely perfect pop album. The four years since her debut must simply be because even for the most absolute and undeniable pop geniuses (a category to which Lorde, and perhaps myself, definitely belongs) it’s actually impossible to write pop songs this perfect at a better rate of once every four months and every 10 days. This actually makes me feel a little better about my success, as her record isn’t too much better than my rate of once every 411 months (I actually wrote Cleopatra’s debut single. Remember I have that one Cleopatra anecdote that you can’t quite remember? Well, that was it. I don’t like to go on about it).
Lyrically, Lorde ensures things are more universal by, counter intuitively, keeping it personal. I’ve already said how SZA’s album may be the greatest and (presumably) most relatable album released in recent years about being a young woman, but I think Lorde’s talents may be more universal.
I’m a lot, lot, lot (lot. Lot. Lot, lot, lot) older than Lorde, and possess presumably an entirely apposite genitalia makeup, but one of the reasons I love her second album with a passion that would have been illegal were it her debut is because I can still nonetheless relate to the feelings she admits to and experiences she chooses to document. ‘Melodrama’ is a magnificent and universally understandable record about being a human being.
I was going to poke fun at one review presumably written by someone closer to Lorde’s age that pointed to one of the lyrics in Green Light (one of the absolute best songs of the year. I’ll honestly prove that sometime next week when I get around to counting that down)- “We order different drinks at the same bar”- and embarrassingly declared “that’s definitely a thing!” (italics, sadly, not my own). As if drinking differing beverages at nonetheless similar drinking establishments was a crazy thing invented by millennials and probably the reason they can’t afford to buy a house, like dabbing and having sex.
Until, I was listening to The Lourve (“But we’re the greatest, they’ll hang us in the Louvre/Down the back, but who cares, still the Louvre”) only this afternoon and heard a line that had never registered with me before:
and thought to myself “OMG! Megalolz! I do that! Hashtag awks! That’s definitely a thi…”
Then I realised what I was doing, and stopped.
Also, I can’t remember which review said it, and couldn’t be arsed doing the research needed to remember, because I’m not a proper journalist, so I decided it’d be best just not to mention it at all.
Oh, and this album is also far better than any one released by the Arctic Monkeys. Forgot to say that. It is, and if you don’t agree it’s because you hate women.
And finally, as for South Park: a lot of idiots have pointed to Lorde’s reaction to her being revealed as actually a being one of the main character’s fathers dressing up as proof that she laughably doesn’t get it, and more reason to laugh at women not having a sense of humour. As if the ‘joke’ was that Lorde was actually a middle aged man in drag. If you actually watch South Park, you’ll see that Randy is convinced to get back into his Lorde persona after his wife points out that Lorde was something important to young girls precisely because she offered something different.
What I’m saying is of course Lorde liked it, because it was actually saying how awesome she is: she’s a shameless self-publicist…
Score
Age: 20 (+500)
in this one case, the fact that she’s so much younger than me but still manages to resonate emotionally is in fact worthy of points.
Album Number: 2 (+24)
Album Length: 40 minutes (+24)
Very Good Songs: 0
Brilliant Songs: 7 (+140)
AMAZING Songs: 4 (+160)
% of Album Worthwhile: 100
Cover:
Pfff, you think that’s a real painting?? I could do something probably definitely even better just using Pixlr:
I take it back: it took me fucking ages to take that photo…
+30
Previous Entries: 2013 No.16
+100
Meta Critic: 91
You’re damn fucking right.
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