Our Highest Rec: Lorde’s Melodrama
Reinvention is the constant albatross of pop-music careers. As soon as listeners sense an ounce ofrepetition, they start to lose interest and look elsewhere. Even more than age, stagnation is a musician’s kryptonite. The problem with Jay Z—sorry, I think it’s JAY-Z now—isn’t that he’s on the far side of 40, it’s that he’s made pretty much the same album three times in a row. Artists can still grow up, mature, and become “old,” they just can’t try to do the same things at 55 that worked for them when they were 25, because when that happens, it’s inauthentic, and the worst thing you can be as an entertainer in 2017 is fake.
That’s why Lorde is the best musician in pop right now. She’s legitimate in every sense of the word. Katy Perry is trying to force a new image, Taylor Swift is more machine-made by the month, and Ed Sheeran won’t stop kissing ass. Lorde doesn’t suck up to you, she doesn’t try to please you, but she still makes music that compels you to shout, stomp, or lie alone and stare at the ceiling. There’s a transference of emotion and feeling that pushes her music past anything her peers are doing. It’s a dynamic that makes you feel a part of the song, a player in its story and scenario, instead of just an external witness to its happening.
Of course, prompting this thought is Melodrama, Lorde’s second studio album that came out last Friday. Melodrama is beautiful. It’s a sensational, sweeping, evocative art piece about a lonely, euphoric, roller-coaster night out. Some of the songs make you want to belt with joy, and others make you want to belt through your tears. It’s moody and it swings back and forth and it oscillates between feelings like…well, like a young person does. When you listen to it, your mind goes to all kinds of places during those 40 minutes. You remember a lot. When Lorde isn’t painting a specific picture, she gives you lots of room to imagine your own.
The telltale sign of a Lorde song: It takes you a couple extra listens to memorize the words. Lorde is operating on a more poetic, more surprising set of controls than most other pop artists, and none of it feels pretentious or corny, somehow. Even when Lorde goes to throbbing, romantic places on Melodrama, it feels okay because, hey, look at the title. This whole thing is based on being young, hopeful, and dumber than you think you are. Even so, Lorde positions herself as one of the wisest people in the room. She’s smart, but she’s not making that the point. She’s just talking about her feelings, and it’s up to you if you want to listen.
Too many pop artists try to ironically, filter their sense of authenticity. Taylor Swift just tells you what you want to hear. Katy Perry’s recent transformation doesn’t feel self-motivated, it feels like a reaction, or worse, something her “team” thought was a good idea. The sub-25 pop crowd—Miley and Ariana and Selena—feel less like they’ve grown into themselves and more like they’ve put on costumes, whether they’re choppy haircuts or furry cat ears or soaked-through t-shirts. Lorde feels distinct now for her utter lack of forced distinctiveness. She doesn’t have a gimmick, or a façade, or a trademark. Her brand isn’t even being an outcast, or being different; it’s just being 20.
But that can’t always be her brand, and that’s why—for as terrific as Melodrama is—it still feels like Lorde is in a precarious place. Some artists grow up too fast, pushing for sexual and relational themes their personas don’t match yet, and others stay young too long, yelling and twerking even when the party ended a long, long time ago. Lorde’s at the stage now where many musicians of her ilk have determined the arc of their careers, and choosing wrong has sunk a lot of those figures. Lorde can’t stay in this realm forever—we won’t buy it—so she has to keep growing up. Thankfully, it seems like she already is. If we can trust anyone in pop to be thoughtful, honest, and stubborn about their music-making, it’s Lorde. Case in point: “Green Light,” the most traditional banger on Melodrama, was described by hit-single manufacturer Max Martin as “incorrect songwriting.” Lorde ignored him, put out her version of the song, and it debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Trending chart. She’ll be fine.
The lesson of Melodrama, then, is that reinvention doesn’t have to come through a stylistic shakeup (think Taylor Swfit’s Red or Carly Rae Jepsen’s EMOTION), it can instead just come with time. We’ve heard lots of people submit to their aging perspectives, often with profound results—Johnny Cash’s American IV, David Bowie’s Blackstar—but the already remarkable thing about Lorde is that she’s doing this from the opposite end of the spectrum. We’ve seen lifetime veterans look back and examine themselves through their music, but we haven’t seen a 20-year-old do the same. Who would’ve thought it would be this exciting, this thrilling, this triumphant, to feel the weight of our teenage years all over again.