Lorde offers up the clearest depiction yet of what she yearns for after cos-playing as a pop star. When all of these parts are properly balanced, an immersive experience like Melodrama emerges. Besides, what unites Lorde’s previous two albums in brilliance aren’t the production choices or the musical arrangements, but the songwriting those elements worked in service of. People might’ve called George Martin a fifth Beatle, but I don’t recall anyone ever referring to Revolver or Rubber Soul as a George Martin album. In the Times, Lorde also called critics' classification of her music as "Jack Antonoff albums" “retro” and “sexist,” which it absolutely is. Anyone who had a subscription to the Disney Channel in 2003 will surely recognize the sugar rush melodies of S Club 7 on the saccharine “Secrets From a Girl (Who’s Seen It All).” And while the cheesy whooshing sound effects that recall Len’s “If You Steal My Sunshine” work here, it’s only because the lyrics are equally trite: “Everybody wants the best for you // But you gotta want it for yourself.” Is this a Lorde album or a Lizzie McGuire movie? On other tracks, the vibes are a little too on the nose. On “Dominoes,” Lorde’s rhythmic vocal delivery seems like a good fit for a gossipy song about a yuppie ex-boyfriend, but Antonoff’s pallid guitar noodling undermines her efforts. They are like pesky intrusive thoughts that disrupt a morning meditation. Too often, unnecessary production flourishes interrupt Lorde’s lyrical instincts. If that’s the case, she should’ve deployed it more. In a recent profile in The New York Times, Lorde described her working partnership with pop music’s current it boy, Jack Antonoff, as collaborative but said ultimately, she holds the veto power. And there’s plenty of it to enjoy on Solar Power, if you can get past the album’s lackluster music. This introspection, the way she instinctively questions her own commands and analyzes her feelings until they run clear, this is why we listen to Lorde.
Lyrics ribs lorde meaning full#
She’s suspicious of that other version of herself, the one she left in California, a place she accurately describes as being full of “clouds in the skies that all hold no rain.” To Lorde, California is both a “golden body” and a “cool hand” around her neck. Lorde knows better than to trust this moment of calm entirely. “Got a wishbone drying on the windowsill in my kitchen.” How lovely does that sound? Then, in the context of this perfect moment she’s just described, Lorde confesses her ambivalence. “You felled me clean as a pine,” she confesses in that depthless alto voice of hers on “Man with the Axe.” On “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” Lorde invites us into the warm light of her home by describing her immediate surroundings in cinematic detail. Beauty and nature have sharpened her poetic command of language and given her new reference points. With one or two exceptions, Lorde’s songwriting on Solar Power is the best it’s ever been. S olar Power offers glimpses into those nature-infused protocols as wall as the various obsessions-climate change, ex-lovers, the internet-that threaten to undo them. Lorde knows this and has protocols in place, a certain way of living, that she relies on to keep herself balanced. On "The Path" she describes herself in dichotomous terms: she was "raised in the tall grass" then all too swiftly became a "teen millionaire having nightmares from the camera flash." Rapid success can eat a young person alive. Being "alone on a windswept island" puts her at ease, and it's nice to see her feeling so relaxed. But mostly she’s just been soaking up the surreal, borderline stupid beauty of her natural surroundings in New Zealand. She tended to her garden and walked the dog. Written across the four years it’s been since a worn-out Lorde wrapped up her Melodrama tour, lassoed a storm cloud down from the sky, and rode it-this is how all sea witches travel-back to her native Auckland, Solar Power answers the question “What have you been up to?” with a sincere and quite literal “Not too much.” She’s been to the beach. “Now if you’re looking for a savior,” states Lorde on album opener “The Path,” “Well that’s not me.” Instead, she suggests the healing powers of nature.
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But Lorde never agreed to be Gen Z’s therapist, and on her new album, Solar Power, she gracefully but pointedly rejects the role.