"Melodrama" is fueled by that youthful invincibility, a riveting fear of the future, and her struggle with her identity. This is what you feel when you listen to Lorde's highly-anticipated second album. In some bizarre way, Lorde’s music has grown up with her, and also with us. She’s abandoned teenage angst and superiority with uncertainty.
On Friday evening, I drove two hours out of town merely to listen to this album. I waited up until midnight for its release, only to wait another 24 hours to give it the attention it deserved. I needed to listen to it in one sitting, without distractions; therefore, as I drove to nowhere in particular, with the sun behind me, I was both comforted and terrified by the relevance of Lorde’s lyrics. Driving in silence, with only Lorde’s music surrounding me, I had this irresistible desire to just drive and never look back. Listening to the album gave me this insane bravery to experience life as fast-paced and emotionally-driven as the lyrics were, to dive head-first in the magical “divine nights” that I’d currently had too little of.
I don’t have too many experiences like that with music, especially not to that extent.
It’s an album of recklessness, sure, but it’s also an album of seizing chances, adventure, and experiencing life one moment at a time. I’ve heard dozens of songs from artists who attempt to exemplify youth in trivial, similar pop songs with generic lyrics. The meaning often isn’t there, but “Melodrama” embraces all of those feelings that pop albums typically try to gloss over, even the hard ones. Producers believe that pop albums must have this ideal party atmosphere in order for it to sell, but the result is often not entirely truthful. Because those songs aren’t real; modern pop music presents life as perfect, built on the foundation of money and success, but the people portrayed in those songs aren’t real, either. It’s a caricature of what people believe to be happiness, just bland lyrics with the same beat we’ve all heard before.
Music is originality, music is taking risks, and music, to me, is the truth. In that case, Lorde’s “Melodrama” presents something entirely new, raw and honest and absolutely beautiful. But the beauty isn’t in the “perfection” of glamor or success; it’s in her mistakes and behind her insecurities. It was vulnerable, and that’s what makes it beautiful.
I think that’s such a special aspect of this album that does not need to go unnoticed.
This album is a triumph. The choruses of "Sober" and "Homemade Dynamite" made me dance at the wheel, and I wouldn't be lying if I said I hadn't started crying during three separate songs. Future artists should follow behind her. I will forever be able to listen to this album and think of the way it made me feel on that summer night as the wind shaped around me.
Lastly, the “Liability (Reprise)” was such a shift, possibly my favorite on the album. In this song, she dismisses her own weaknesses that she was previously harboring in “Liability”, and every last hurtful thing she’d been told. All that self-doubt and hurt was personified before. But in the reprise, she writes a counter-argument, a statement that echoes through the last minute of the song: “But you’re not what you thought you were.” A reminder of self-love not only to herself but also to her audience. This really resonated with me.
Grateful for the life I lead but also terrified by my own uncertainty, I went home with the final line from “Liability” stuck in my head like a mantra.
