Oh My Lorde4 Out Of 5 Stars
New Zealander Ella Yelich-O'Connor (aka, Lorde) comes on like Adele or Lana Del Rey with big beats on the debut "Pure Heroine." Hard to believe that such a big voice is coming from a teenager, but she has the depth and blue-eyed soul power of women two times her age. Match that big voice up with some hip-hop percussion, and you have some potent combinations. The whole album is a solid from start to finish, although you can't beat the singles for pop thrills.
By now, you've likely heard "Royals" and "Team," with their seductive grooves and shimmering electronic sound. This is teen-angst at its best, and Lorde plays her age to the maximum. She has the knack for teen girl melodrama like Del Ray (or to court another teen sensation, Taylor Swift), as seen in "White Teeth Teens" or the saga of high school class strata in the opening "Tennis Court."
"Baby be the class clown,
I'll be the beauty queen in tears,
It's a new art form,
Showing people how little we care."
She has mastered both the yearning want and detached view of a typical teen, and the music matches her personality. "Glory and Gore" serves as more than a song title, it's the way Lorde pushes at her material. She's self-confident, of solid voice and the will to attack her subjects head on. It takes a special kind of new songwriter to have mastered these multiple personalities the way Lorde does, and she has done so here. "Pure Heroine" keeps the music in a match to the singer, the background throb of the electronics to the self searching and expressive lyrics of her debut. There's a huge potential for growth here.
No comments:
Post a Comment