But everybody's like Cristal, mayback, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.
We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair.
And we'll never be royals,
It don't run in our blood
That kind of lux just ain't for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz.
So probably the main thing I do at work all day is go on spotify. I really never used it before but since I work from 8:30-4:30 in a basement of an old funeral home, me and the zombies have plenty of time to listen to some jams. Originally, I was listening to Pandora, but I was getting pretty sick of listening to the exact same 7 songs over and over again. I was hearing NOTHING new. So switched over to spotify so I could at least have some control over my playlist. To my surprise, spotify was also great at finding me new music. One of the artists I've become obsessed with is Lorde.
When Lorde originally came up on my spotify radio, I assumed it was so crazy indie weirdo chick based on her super strange indie illustrated EP cover. I assumed she went to some sort of liberal arts school and lived in Brooklyn or maybe someplace even more obscure. But despite her strange cover, her music was really catchy. I loved the use of background vocals that reminded me of my chorus days. I often feel like musicians rely far too heavily on pure electronic sounds these days in their production, but Lorde uses both these new methods with vocal embellishments that make the sound more unique and spooky.
Lorde was first discovered by Universal at a talent show when she was thirteen, now she's sixteen and just came out with her first singles this past year. The single that really got her some buzz online and made her a huge sensation in her native New Zealand was Royals. This song, besides being super catchy, is really relatable. She talks about how she and her friends listen to artists like A$AP Rocky or Lana del Ray who just talk about drinking Cristal or walking a tiger on a leash. Basically, they talk about lifestyles that are completely unrelatable to her broke sixteen year old friends who are trying to scrape up enough cash to buy some booze for a party. The music video perfectly illustrates the mundane character of teenagers real life. It's nothing like these music videos or Skins, but just kids watching tv and driving around the suburbs.
How she manages to stay so relatable is because she writes her own lyrics and music. And an even bigger plus, she writes her own stuff without talking exclusively about her ex-boyfriend or some boy she has a crush on (cough cough Taylor Swift). Lorde's ability to write lyrics with meaning and a continuous theme while incorporating catchy hooks and nice beats is why she's going to be a mainstream success that will not end up in my "guilty pleasures" playlist. I think Lorde is a kiwi to watch this year as she works on her first album. I also think she's an artist to watch out for in the next five years or more. After all, she's only sixteen and both her vocals, lyrics, and composition capabilities can only mature from here.
this is the song that really uses the vocal backgrounds
Catch Lorde in concert this week August 6 at le Poisson Rouge in NYC and then in LA on August 8th.
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