Lorde — Solar Power
Solar Power, Lorde’s sophomore album, has been one of the most highly anticipated albums of this year, especially with the artist’s nearly four year long hiatus. The resulting album is not what we expect from a Lorde record, and is in no way comparable to her earlier albums, Melodrama and Pure Heroine. While Lorde’s lyricism holds up occasionally in Solar Power, the resulting message is ruined with its subpar production and how “all over the place” the entire album seems to be.
Most people, when they heard of Lorde’s new album, expected another Melodrama, which was promptly proven false with her titular single; “Solar Power”. “Solar Power”, frankly speaking, is a good track; it encapsulates the change in the direction her music was taking, and how she wasn’t afraid to go beyond what she was as an artist, and wanted to make tracks that contained much less of the teenage angst that Melodrama and Pure Heroine both contained in spades. All in all, Solar Power was the perfect introduction to Lorde’s new direction, with its catchy hook that makes you instantly want to join in when it’s playing. However, even though “Solar Power” took off, making us all see how Lorde’s music is taking a more mature direction, and how she’s changed as an artist since Liability, the rest of the album doesn’t manage to hold on to that promise. Some tracks come close, but some even contradict the exact happy-go-lucky vibe she is going for.
Her next single, “Stoned at the Nail Salon”, seems like an almost exact copy of Liability, with her reflections on growing up, how her “hot blood’s been burning for so many summers now,” and how she has to leave her irresponsible days behind once and for all to become who she wants to be. The fact that she loves the life she has but still takes time to reflect shows that she hasn’t stopped feeling nostalgic for the times she had before with lovers and friends, taking the time to reflect on them and wonder whether her life was missing something in retrospect. “Stoned at the Nail Salon” might not have the production of some of her earlier records, but Lorde’s lyricism and her ability to imbue emotion into a song where it hits you in the heart, makes it a great song to listen to, inspiring you to reflect on your own life.
Other highlights from her album are “California”, in which Lorde recollects on how she had gotten caught up in her fame and become part of the culture that she despised, and “The Path”, where she says that “if you’re looking for a saviour, that ain’t me,” which seems to be directed at everyone who wanted her to become what they wanted her to be and held her up to a pedestal. Mood Ring, too, while also not being her strongest song on the album, does a decent job at conveying her disgust with wellness culture.
All in all, while this album was not her strongest, firmly deserving last place within her discography, it does have a few songs that makes the album memorable, though it’s not an album that I would listen to in its entirety without the urge to change the songs into something else. “Solar Power”, “California”, “Stoned at the Nail Salon”, “Mood Ring”, and “The Path” are songs that I wouldn’t mind listening to again, but will never hold up the sheer production value of her other albums.
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