Lorde’s innovative sound and lovable humility made her become one of the world’s most successful musicians at only 16 years old. Now 20 and with a legion of fans behind her, she has returned with her second album Melodrama.
Clearly just as excited about the album’s release as her fans, Lorde has slyly been dropping both singles and album tracks steadily over the last few months. Hit singles ‘Green Light’ and ‘Perfect Places’ are woven among gentler tracks like ‘Writer In The Dark’, and other sure-to-be-successes like ‘The Louvre’.
Melodrama answers many of the questions that Lorde first posed in her debut, Pure Heroine. Her writing was once obsessed with adolescence, but it was never going to stick. No longer bright-eyed and dazzled, Lorde’s maturity is beyond evident in this new collection. These days, the romance of her lyrics is undercut by her youthful cynicism.
Initially, Lorde wrote about making her own fun out of the dullness of her reality – until suddenly life offered her the abundance she once fantasised about. But as a harsh reality check to her former self, she concludes Melodrama with the words, “What the fuck are perfect places, anyway?”
Melodrama is an intoxicating album from an artist who has never shied away from originality and honesty.
Melodrama is out now through Universal.
