Lorde’s debut album combines jazzy sounds with relatable lyrics
The singer, who is only 16-years-old, has a voice comparable to the likes of Etta James.
After an extremely successful of a summer, that included becoming the first female artist to top the alternative charts in 16 years with the hit “Royals,” Lorde has finally released her debut album, Pure Heroine. The album is a brilliant, self-assured debut from a girl beyond her years.
Pure Heroine is full of minimalistic synths that make the tiniest speakers shake with a magnetic furry. The album begins with Lorde crooning the question, “Don’t think that it’s boring how people talk?” in “Tennis Court,” which sets the tone for the rest of Pure Heroine. It’s full of 90s teen angst a la Nirvana but infused with an R&B soul worthy of 1950s crooners like Etta James.
The album hits its high note early with “Royals” and then turns into background music, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing because it’s wonderfully relaxed background music. Each song is infused with a unique energy that makes Lorde extremely relatable. She doesn’t sing about multiple boys breaking her heart but about her seemingly normal life—she stresses about the popular kids, her friendships, her future, and her life, etc.
Easily the best song of the album, “Royals” has a simple beat that stays with the listener after just one listen. It’s lyrics are sharp and critique pop music’s obsessions with material items and labels. “I’m not proud of my address, / In the torn up town, no postcode envy,” Lorde sings about her childhood in Auckland, New Zealand. It’s a refreshing change of pace from clichéd lines on how glorious an artist finds their hometown.
If there’s a weakness to Pure Heroine it’s that the album seems to have been put together in a haste to make a deadline. Many of the songs later in the album sound like fillers between hits. It’s almost as if Lorde said got all of her favorite songs together and realized they weren’t enough to make an album, so she just threw another five songs in, which is disappointing because her previous EP, The Love Club, felt so intricately put together. Luckily, the filler songs are still entertaining enough to sustain the listener from hit to hit, making them not total duds.
Her lyrics are smart and posses the self awareness of a poet but are ultimately simple and one doesn’t need to endlessly analyze a song to fully appreciate it. One gets the feeling that you could run into Lorde at some dark basement party just strumming a guitar and humming a really obscure song about buzzcuts (see “Buzzcut Season”). That’s the best element about Pure Heroine: it can be jammed out to, but it can also be played for mood music at a swanky urban party.
