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The Indiana Daily Student

arts

Lorde's "Melodrama" promises anxiety, euphoria

Arts Filler

It was the song that inspired a thousand cover videos and a cappella mash-ups. The song from the young woman from New Zealand who wore her hair in wild ringlets. With “Royals,” the 17-year-old girl who sang she had, “never seen a diamond in the flesh,” introduced the world to a new, mononymous pop star — Lorde.

“Royals,” and its accompanying album, “Pure Heroine,” was only the beginning of Ella Yelich-O’Connor’s rise to fame. Next came “The Hunger Games” soundtrack she curated, collaborations with Kanye West and Disclosure and an arresting tribute to David Bowie at the 2016 Brit Awards.

The reclusive teen gradually revealed herself as a young woman who was capable of simultaneous awkwardness, vulnerability and charm. No Jennifer Lawrence machinations here — Lorde was the real, authentic deal.

In 2017, she’s no longer “in line for the throne” as she sang on 2013’s “Tennis Courts.” She has inherited the throne, and whatever scant anonymity might have protected her in 2013 has long since evaporated.

Although the bulk of her sophomore album “Melodrama,” due this Friday, was written in New Zealand, Lorde now sings from the upper echelons of the music industry. Close friends with celebrities like Taylor Swift and Lena Dunham, Lorde has probably seen a diamond or two in the flesh by now.

In her new music, she tests the elasticity of her audience’s empathy with lyrics that are no longer set in the world of a shy teenager, but instead an international pop star’s.

To Lorde’s credit, she does a lot of heavy lifting to make her lyrics universally accessible, using the euphoria and anxieties of a single house party as the inspiration for the bulk of the singles.

“‘Cause we are young and we’re ashamed... all of our heroes fading, now I can’t stand to be alone,” she sings on “Perfect Places,” proving she’s just as fluent in her audience’s feelings as she was on “Pure Heroine.”

Jack Antonoff of fun. and Bleachers worked on two of the new singles and helps usher in a fuller sound for Lorde. After working in sparse electropop on “Pure Heroine,” Lorde has graduated to productions that incorporate brass blasts (“Sober”), insistent piano riffs (“Green Light”) and heavy vocal layering (“Perfect Places”).

The singles only feel jarring because they are completely fresh, completely new.

As with any album, there were two versions of “Pure Heroine” — the album with its objective, musical merits, and the album as remembered through the screen of nostalgia.

After three years of sustained, intense nostalgia attached to Lorde’s music, we’re being dragged back into live time, experiencing Lorde’s struggles and torments alongside her.

It’s a mark of Lorde’s incredible skill as a songwriter that she’s able to make her lyrics sear on first listen, even before the ensuing memories and emotions come flooding in.

The singles and the impending album stand as a blank slate awaiting the memories and emotions with which her fans filled “Pure Heroine.” It’s simultaneously daunting and exhilarating.

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