Lorde has always been ageless. On some of her songs, she expresses wisdom well beyond her years — on others, she has the giddiness and joie de vivre of a bubbly tween. She’s a cipher, unwilling to be pinned down, flitting between posh and poptimistic. It’s a strength and a weakness: she’s versatile, but seems unattainable, a friend of a friend with whom you never seem to be able to start a conversation.
Pure Heroine, her debut, was an often straight-faced and disaffected work; Lorde was touching from a distance, always keeping one foot out of the pool. On Melodrama, she finally takes the plunge, and we’re all better off for it.
From the moment album opener “Green Light” kicks into full gear, it’s clear that the New Zealand singer’s sophomore effort is no slump: there’s enough energy and vivacity here to power a four-wheeler through a busy intersection. A demanding drum beat and bouncing piano line announce an album that intends to peel back the layers of her previous persona, introducing someone both younger and older than the precocious 16-year-old who dominated the airwaves with “Royals.”
More than anything else, what’s exceptional about the album’s first single is its earnestness — its opening lines about a former lover’s capriciousness and white lies is like a raw wound, barely healed and impossible to ignore. The heel-face turn that comes between those first piano chords and the song’s irresistible chorus is as arresting as any moments from her debut, and the song’s refrain of wanting to, but being unable to, let her past flame go echoes throughout the album. Taking her first steps out of the shadow of a first love, Lorde sees the sun and refuses to wear shades. We’ll watch her disappear.
The album’s best songs recreate this sense of empowerment and affirmation. “Supercut” is pure power pop, a Robyn-esque romp that ties up all the loose threads left by “Green Light.” The ska-inspired horns and New Order drum machine churn of “Sober” always seem to be on the edge of an anthemic chorus that never comes. The album’s highlight, “The Louvre,” deftly balances Lorde’s confessional style and straightforward delivery with the bare bones of the top 40 hit it deserves to become.
Radical self-acceptance is a trend that carries throughout the album. “Hard Feelings/Loveless” replaces love for another with determined self-care, whereas tearjerker “Liability” acknowledges the singer’s limitations — she’s demanding, she’s hard to get to know, she’s melodramatic — while offering no apologies to anyone unwilling or unable to go toe to toe with her. “The song kind of ended up turning into a bit of a protective talisman for me,” Lorde told Beats 1 Radio. “I was like, you know what, I’m always gonna have myself so I have to really nurture this relationship and feel good about hanging out with myself and loving myself.”
Melodrama is about the reclamation of one’s selfhood after giving it away to one person for so long, and the sound of Lorde holding true to herself is exhilarating.
While this is a different album than its predecessor in so many ways, a constant is Lorde’s wry sense of humour: her tongue-in-cheek “I guess we’re partying” line in “Homemade Dynamite,” the entirety of the pleasantly half-baked second half of “Hard Feelings/Loveless,” and the album’s final pressing question: “What the fuck are perfect places anyway?” That Lorde can write an album twice as sincere and half as serious as Pure Heroine without losing her detached wit points to her skill as a songwriter, and makes the album even more of a delight.
But despite how grand and triumphant the record feels, where Melodrama really shines is in its smallest moments. It’s the way she channels Kate Bush in “Writer in the Dark,” the throwaway “who cares, still the Louvre” in the track of the same name, the whispered “boom” in “Homemade Dynamite.” Lorde’s best songs are unforgettable because of those moments of humanity, those rays of sunlight that come through the cracks.
This is a bedroom record meant to be played in stadiums, a diary entry destined to be displayed in bright neon. It’s the most compelling effort yet from a singularly brilliant songwriter and performer, one that has already earned its spot among the best pop albums of the year.