Whatever is happening with Lorde right now is interesting as hell. This girl is blowing up on every outlet and people are either loving it...or absolutely hating it. I first heard 'Royals' in June and have been hooked on her sound ever since. She's right up my alley with a dark/gothic electronic vibe coupled with catchy-as-hell lyrics and beats. Her album Pure Heroine is lovely. The thing is, people aren't necessarily freaking out over her music, they are freaking out about her personality.
Here's the thing. She's not pop. She's "pop" in the sense that she is "popular" at the moment, but in no way is her sound or message behind her music in the same category as a lot of Top 40 music. This, in turn, leads people to flip their tits all over the place because someone dares to be outspoken and different and interesting in the pop music scene. She's been called stuck-up, snobbish, anti-feminist etc. etc. but HELLO?! She's the opposite? I've discussed how the radio and pop music try to force artists to fit into a simple mold that can be enjoyed by the masses before and here we see it pop up again. There is no crossover in iHeartRadio...and Lorde is crossing over.
She is beyond intelligent. From what I can tell, she's not willing to sacrifice her vision of her music, and herself as an artist for some pop standard. I give her a ton of credit for turning down opening Katy Perry's world tour. She was quoted as saying "I have a pretty good gut instinct for stuff, and if it feels right, I'll do it." With that kind of head on her shoulders, in the music industry, she will do just fine. In the general music radar, she's currently being put in the same grouping as Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift...the "pop princesses" if you will. This leads to a lot of artificial shit. She's gotten bashed/threatened/whatever else by Miley's fans on Twitter (props to Miley for sticking up for her!) and outlashed by "Swifties" at around the same time because of something said in an interview. (Which, by the way, she clarified in a really awesome and brilliant way here.) I just feel like there's a real struggle between her trying to be a true alternative artist and everyone else trying to shove her in the same genre as a lot of unrelated bullshit. She has her opinions about people, music, things, whatever, because in case people have forgotten, she's a fucking human and she should be free to express that without getting backlash from a bunch of teens. ...Whoa. Calm down.
I just want to end with a couple endnotes that I feel are necessary but I don't know how to put them into paragraph form. Deal with it.:
- I think I feel defensive about what people say to her because she seems like the infinitely cooler version of 16-year-old me and I'm overly sensitive to that.
- Her tumblr is beyond words amazing.
- She's painfully shy, so stop criticizing her stage presence. She'll get there.
- CAN WE TALK ABOUT HER COVERING HOLD MY LIQUOR?!?! IT'S PERFECT.
- She likes Grimes and Die Antwoord and all those good things I like too.
- Basically, I want to be her best friend.
- For the love of god, stop talking about the way she looks. Can we move beyond this superficial bullshit for once. I don't even understand why it's relevant.
Anyway, stop trying to put her in a genre. Just let her do her own thannnng. Let's face it, she's weird. Embrace the weird. Love the weird. Keep the weird alive and well. I'm incredibly excited to see where her career takes her and Lorde knows (ugh. I hate myself.) I will be first in line to see her live when she comes to Minneapolis....hint...hint...please.....
