Lorde//Melodrama - Album Review

*Album contains profanity and explicit content*

Album available from Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube

Rating - 4/5

(well worth the wait and definitely something to make room on the shelf or in your storage for)

New Zealand born Lorde is pretty much what us young alternative-music-loving kids, really needed. A fresh voice. A dark voice that is not identical or mimicking of Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry or Rihanna or any of her musical peers. Hers, is a voice that mocks pop culture, talks of bigger topics and has the ability to give music it's life and purity again. She is a born artist, sticking to her own vision, style and opinion. An anti who still manages to visit the pop world, without ever being forced to live there.

Melodrama - her sophomore album - contains a new era for her. After cutting off her mane, ditching the (scary) black lipstick, winning two Grammy's (at eighteen! Making all of my life achievements thus far seem inferior) and having her first real heartbreak, Lorde re-emerged as a smarter and more elegant twenty year old.

The album runs at eleven tracks and about forty minutes. Lorde claimed it was a concept album and the whole thing takes place in a single party - which personally, I think is pretty cool.

Green Light obviously caught my attention the most. With the stuttering piano, moody lyrics, intricate melody and shrieking chorus - it manages to ride all of the emotions a song should convey. It sounds like an entire album - in under five minutes.

As for the rest of the album, it consists of reprises and two songs hidden under one song and other various sleek production ideas that remind you of those dry clicks in Royals that were simple but so effective, really it causes you to stop and think; how did a twenty year old come up with this?!

With comparison to Pure Heroine - this album shows more care and maturity. It is far from the aloof, jaded and snarky cool of sixteen year old Lorde whose low register and long hair helped her to disguise her emotions and shrug off excitement, thereby making the whole album sound apathetic. However, with Melodrama there is so much emotion that it's hard to escape it. It leaks from every smart and intricate lyric, even from Green Light with her yelling "I want it", already displays so much more vulnerability than with the eye roll of Pure Heroine.

The whole album comes off as a tracking shot through the swinging doors of a house party, as we peer into different rooms; the drive over (Green Light), the buzzing living room (Perfect Places) and the girl crying in the bathroom (Liability). Or, it is a swirling nightclub carnival, a screaming parade, amidst crowds of people, neon lights and set on the most unpredictable dancefloor ever.

Once again, Lorde manages to create a pop masterpiece, but with her authenticity as she limits her co-writers to only Jack Antonoff who also took control of the production of the album. Her exploding charisma is also evident, along with sharp lyrics that make your head snap up and melodies that remind you of Robyn and Lana Del Rey -  catchy songs that you can play from the car, but still cry along with too. Her daringness and the challenges she takes on are almost unnecessary, as surely, she could have released a pop album and the whole world still would have loved it just as much. Instead, she takes a four year break, records in Jungle City and creates an even more confusing, wild and dizzying body of work than last time. Honestly? It's refreshing as hell.

It is filled with edginess, confidence, the almost too intimate whispering and whimpering and the devastating emotion that is wrapped up into an impossibly cohesive soundtrack that outstretches it's hand and takes you along on the journey of the album. Ultimately, Lorde has stamped her own style all over her work and it's hard not to like it - or at least not notice it and be very, very, intrigued. Melodrama is not the cool or popular choice; but it is most definitely a party. An anti-party.


Favourite Songs: Sober, Writer in the Dark, Perfect Places, Hard Feelings