Lorde: “Pure Heroine” (4/5)
Lorde made a name for herself with debut album Pure Heroine, a sleek anthology which illustrates Hollywood vapidity, high school cliquiness, and growing up.
Until Ella Yelich-O’Connor released Pure Heroine in 2013, the most interesting thing New Zealand had produced was the slightly bizarre fact that their sheep to human ratio is 7:1. So when this album placed in the top 10 in the US Billboard 200, the world tuned in to what this country of less than five million had to say — or sing.
Having been signed to Universal three years prior, Yelich-O’Connor, better known by her stage name Lorde, remained “another 15-year-old mooching around her cataclysmically uneventful Auckland suburb of Devonport” until she penned the album at the tender age of 16, thus it’s no surprise that it chronicles the theme of youth. And by 17 she had won the title of International Female Solo Artist at the 2014 Brit Awards, so let’s take a further look at the colossal transformation brought about by Pure Heroine.
Throbbing drum beats are a huge part of what characterise the album, initially established as a backbone in Tennis Court. The album’s antsy introduction provides a vehicle for Lorde to proclaim her claustrophobic restlessness in her hometown; 400 Lux, its successor, sustains these rhythmic foundations and sings praises of the familiarity of her neighbourhood in the gloaming. Simultaneously, “steering wheel”, “long sleeves”, and “orange juice” serve as a teenager’s dusky Instagram-like snapshots against a suburban backdrop.
The album’s most successful track, Royals, was released online for free before going viral, which kindled Lorde’s rise to fame. Its howled hook, enshrouded in a rousing pre-chorus of arpeggios, enable her to denigrate what she calls the “ridiculous unattainable opulence” exhibited by the mainstream music industry — probably a good thing, yet it has endured an expanse of scrutiny. It was slated by website feministing.com, which claimed that the racist disdain for stereotypes of African-American music (“gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom”) featured in the bridge is abhorrent: “What did this white girl just say?” However, Lorde has acknowledged these allegations, blaming its flaws on youthful ignorance; Royals was written significantly earlier than the rest of the album, after all.
Ribs, an aurally electrifying strata jammed with childhood references builds repetitively towards a frenzied zenith before breaking off abruptly. Its silky, angelic chorus is paired with the raw drum beats that typify the album, making for a dizzy ode to growing up. Buzzcut Season, a melancholic depiction of the mundane lives of teens who dream big, enables Lorde to declare the very belief of which the album is borne: “People should see how we’re living”. Its cosmic chimes are shattered with third single, Team, the acapella opening of which rapidly descends into an anthemic blend of sardonicism and outgrowth as Lorde illustrates the insular nature of the domain fondly referred to by her and her friends as The Bubble: “We live in cities you’ll never see on screen / Not very pretty but we sure know how to run things”.
It’s true that Pure Heroine lacks sonic diversity, and as music critic John Murphy puts it, “by the time Glory and Gore and Still Sane roll round, the template’s starting to get a bit tired”. The cynical commentary on pop culture which crops up yet again in tracks seven and eight are debatably overegged, and you sort of want to sigh and say, “Okay, Ella, we get the message: our obsession with glamour is screwed up, and Kiwi teens harbour a lot of nocturnal angst”. However, the album awakens once again as popularity is explored in a poised reflection upon high school cliques, White Teeth Teens. It resumes the message introduced in eponymous track The Love Club, from her junior EP, which denounces the incandescent pedestal of adolescent validation coveted by many. The poignant, astral conclusion to the album, A World Alone, is outstanding. It is robust, and soars with a quiet kind of independent excitement for the future, while the final lines, “The people are talking… let them talk”, demonstrate a neatly executed response to the opening lines of the album: “Don’t you think that it’s boring how people talk?”
It could be said that the percussive facet of the album requires more nuance: the punchy synthpop pulses and their unrefined nature dry up by around track six, but the subtle, well-thought-out timbre makes up for it. The pensive trills, the placed plinks — uneasily discordant at times — act as whispered undertones that hint at latent adolescent apprehension. This minutiae is aptly juxtaposed with Lorde’s abstract, poetic lyrics, which can be attributed to reading voraciously as a toddler, instilling in her what satirist and family friend David Slack describes as “a love of language and a fascination with it”.
This album is not at all a conventional masterpiece, but no one expects it to be; it’s still more of an achievement than most teenagers can put on their university applications. Lorde has flourished in the three years since Pure Heroine was released, earning the name of “the future of music” from the legendary David Bowie, which prompted her performance tribute of Life On Mars in 2016. She remains unfazed by stardom, appearing dynamic and rambunctious in interviews, and she’s quick to critique anything she doesn’t like: MTV even call her, “the go-to source for journalists looking for an eye-raising assessment of her pop contemporaries”. If you must dismiss Pure Heroine as childishly inexperienced, as some critics do, there’s no point: Lorde got there first, claiming “maybe I’ll hate it in two years because that’s the nature of being my age, but for now it’s the most powerful thing I can give”. Lorde’s repertoire presents a profound self-awareness and a lyrical articulacy reminiscent of Sylvia Plath and e. e. cummings; indeed, Pure Heroine paves the way for her intriguing sophomore album, Melodrama, out June 2017.