New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde’s comeback with latest album ‘Melodrama’ from 2013’s ‘Pure Heroine’ has definitely made it into one of the highlights of 2017.
The ‘Royals’ singer approaches this album as the ultimate post-breakup cycle that most people go through when they’ve fallen out of love. Kicking off the album with ‘Green Light’ Lorde highlights the shattering empowerment one feels post-breakup. There’s a sense of anger towards them ‘they have big teeth...oh, they bite you’ yet later on she still haunted by the memory of their relationship, ‘but honey, I’ll be seeing you down every road.’
Then the album progresses to partying, which is a main theme in the album, as Lorde mentioned in an interview with ‘Consequence of Sound’ when she was going through this period of transition into adulthood ‘all she wanted to do was dance.’ The track ‘Sober’ when you go out find someone seem to be ‘impressing’ them ‘then embarrassing yourself.’ It’s that feeling of trying not to care but caring oh so much and everyone is fooling each other about it whereas ‘Sober II (Melodrama)’ it’s the morning after, the dance floor has been cleared. Maybe us caring but not caring has had an adverse effect on how we love each other. Is there much point when all we do is ‘kiss and kill each other’ through one-night stands and unfaithful relationships?
Another one of the party songs is ‘Homemade Dynamite’ potentially reminiscing over the New Zealand house parties with just a couple of friends.
The album then moves to the heartbreak songs, ‘The Louvre’ of which heartbreak is broadcasted in stages from the first rush through to the breakup and it’s almost hung up in ‘The Louvre’ for everyone to hear. It seems like it’s predominantly coming to terms with the breakup through writing the album for everyone to her. Up next, the ballad ‘Liability,’ can be translated as another break-up song and probably the saddest track on the album but it also relates to the strains that come with the job of being a singer and that it can sometimes be a burden on the people around you and it’s just coming to terms with being comfortable on your own, hanging out with yourself because that’s all you’re going to have. ‘Liability (Reprise)’ is like a warped mirror of ‘Liability’ it starts off with the same lyrics but is more like the come down from youthfulness into adulthood, maybe she’s not a liability after all. This is how things have to be - no melodrama. ‘Hard Feelings/Loveless’ are slightly different in the mix of heartbreak songs ‘Hard Feelings’ fully immerses you into the relationship and break-up - it happened a while ago in the eyes of everyone else and it’s still re-running in your head as you try to figure it all out. It’s probably the 1st time it all makes sense and you’re able to properly let go. ‘Loveless,’ however, seems to be a satirical track for our current generation’s idea of love maybe wanting to feel more than to commit and how that has a domino effect on the rest of our relationships. The cinematic ‘Writer in the Dark’ is the epitome of every writer who has ever loved. You will write everything, you will feel everything and recreate that person locked up in a coded message on a page because that’s what you do. That’s how you live, how you feel and how you escape.
Melodrama begins to brighten as the sun rises on the horizon with ‘Supercut.’ Here, Lorde realises that it’s not that bad but she’s been fooling herself with the highlights of the relationship. She misses them, so whisks herself back to those to moments to make it right.
The album finishes with ‘Perfect Places’ a track that seems to have that kind of willful achievement. We’ve made it! We’ve made it through the breakup, we’ve made it to adulthood, we’ve learnt how to be alone - now let’s celebrate! It’s realising that ‘Perfect Places’ don’t exist so we should appreciate all these small cool parties ‘spent off our faces’ as our means of escaping and being carefree.’
So if you're going through a big change, break-up or just love to party, Lorde's Melodrama is the album for you.