Lorde - Solar Power

Oh, Lorde. Alright, go ahead, give us the exit to eternal Summer slacking. Where are we going without even knowing the way? Here's Solar Power. 

That was foreshadowing, by the way. Fallen Fruit sounds exactly like a Pharrell Williams reverse-engineering of Fastball's The Way. But that's not why we're here. We're here to stare at Lorde's crotch. No, that's not why. An album, yeah that's it, she made an album 4 years after. She's like a prettier Jesus, or something. Oh, oh, now i remember, Royals made her a one-hit wonder but what she really is is the Alternative to something. Who or what, though? Billie Eilish and Phoebe Bridgers spring to mind. St. Vincent, maybe? 

Note to retailers, placing a sticker over said crotch-shot actually makes it worse. Remember when they placed the parental warning so that it looked like Kendrick Lamar was saying DAMN. and feeling dejected about the world warning you that his ideas and opinions are dangerous? Well, all the sticker does here is say "lady parts are naughty. Buy this album so you can see what we're hiding." One time my friends and i were lying down on the grass at a Rennaissance festival and some of the lady cosplayers walked over us just like this cover. Somebody had a wax sculpture of their middle finger made. They taught us how to actually win that climb the rope ladder carnival game. Fun times. Oh, right, the Lorde's choir and happy loser songs in actual Pop format. Having trouble focusing today. 

I'm not gonna buy the album, we'll just fire up the old youtubulator and try to piece it together in between the Geico and Aflac and Mastercard commercials. What are the criteria for whether this is good or not? Well, Lorde's claim to the Pop pantheon is the strength of her songwriting. Basically, as long as these things are multifaceted expressions of her thoughts and feelings about life without any cheesy or cliched garbage, then she succeeded. 

The world's on opioids, good lead off. She's run off to an island and doesn't want the outside to contact her. We're all broken, maybe some Vitamin D will help. 

Oooh, nice, these are just my thoughts from actual experience, take 'em or leave 'em. 

She's 22 now and starting to feel self-conscious about her earlier work, and who is the princess of Norway? Apparently she's a self-proclaimed clairvoyant. There's a bit of Des'ree Goop about this album so far, but i think it's just a natural part of the "world is fake" subject matter, part of the problem so to speak. 

Oh yeah, Leader of a New Regime is fantastic. 

Ok, i think this is a sarcastic album. Like hard-core sarcasm, Mood Ring is just vicious: actually begging your mood ring to tell you how to feel? Ouch. 

It's all about the quarter-life crisis, nobody else has the solution for you, you have to go find it for yourself. My answer may not work for you, but you'll never find your answer if you don't actually go out and look for it. 

Two thumbs up from Bottle, this is actually a fantastic album. I submit that the haters are the worst offenders in the "pigeon-hole Lorde into pleasing you" contest of Doom. Not a single doop-dee-doo or cheesy pre-packaged sentiment to be found anywhere on it. It sounds like a trippy lucid dream, with all the dark guitars, and floating harmonies, and breathy vocals, and choir verses. Yes, the verses are often in chorus, like she's speaking for all of us, but not in a pretentious or underhanded way. She's saying this world you guys are trying to conserve is pretty terrible and we don't want to participate in it anymore, the party to mask the pain mentality hurts more than the pain itself. 6 out of 5 stars, i'm still not gonna go buy a copy, but i've got nothing bad to say about it. This is a fantastic album. Go give it a listen and see how it strikes you.