I’m Kinda Over Being Told to Throw My Hands in the Air

“For so long, pop music has been this super-shameful thing, where people don't want to be associated with it, they want to be on Pitchfork. But the way I see it, pop music doesn't have to be stupid, and alternative music doesn't have to be boring; you can mesh the two together and make something cool.” Lorde ladies and gentlemen. The teenager from New Zealand slowly rose up the American pop charts with her song Royals until it hit number one on the iTunes charts where it has locked down for two straight weeks.

Royals is a sly song that draws you in with lyrics about Cristal and gold teeth but it is not until the third or fourth listen when you realize that it not just another song about wealth and greed but an anti-materialism song making fun of the people that glorify such things. Now one has pull off this switch-a-roo better since Rage Against the Machine attacked angry teenagers with loud guitars and lines like “(Expletive deleted), I won’t do what you told me,” before getting them to realize that some that work forces in fact do burn crosses.

Royals is the only holdover from her Love Club EP (which is a shame because Bravado may be the third best song she has done while and Million Dollar Bills, Love Club as well as The Replacements cover Swinging Party from the Tennis Courts single would have also been some of the better songs on the album but I am sure they will be added to the “Deluxe Edition” at some point) to be included on her full length debut Pure Heroine. Tennis Court, which was released as a single back in spring, is also on the album. As hinted at on those previous releases, the full length album features songs that sound like what Lana Del Rey wishes she can make: music that is sparse and epic at the time and sound like what The xx may sound like if they aspired for pop chart dominance. All with lyrics by someone who realizes there is no upward mobility for her living in a city you will never see on screens and she is fine with that with shot at people who foolishly aspire to that lifestyle but do not even want to work for.

The devil may care attitude does wane near the end of the album when she starts singing about Glory and Gore and putting White Teeth Teens on blast. But Pure Heroine does finish strong with A World Apart, the second best song here after the smash hit single. It is the most danceable track Lorde has done in her short career and the first time she features a song that has something that resembles a guitar. Though the subject matter is still the same as the previous songs on the album (“people are jerks”), it is much more fun as she starts dancing in the world alone. If Lorde can put out music this good as a teen, it is hard to think how good it will be when she gets some more experience under her belt. Or maybe this is it, and she will be starring horrible Syfy movies in twenty year (sorry Debbie Gibson). Here is hoping for that former and there are enough Lorde like singers to follow that will bump the Katy's, Gaga's, and Miley's off the pop charts for good.

Song to Download – If you already picked up Royals from The Love Club EP, gives A World Alone a download

Pure Heroine gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.