Melodrama: a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions

Hopefully, for someone out there, this word makes you think of one person- Lorde. Lorde has released her new album entitled Melodrama, exposing the heat of the night and the regret of the morning and I could not be more hyped about it.

So here we are in 2017, nearly 4 years from when the singer released her first album, Pure Heroine. Some of the main tracks people will recognize are “Royals” and “Tennis Court”. And then for some you may be able to sing back every single track on the album, like me. In between now and then, she has also worked with other artists and performed songs for headlining movies. All of this was done before she turned 20 years old. However, after a year or two of being in the spotlight amidst other celebrities, she kind of… disappeared. What happened?

Well… she grew up. Lorde gave her fans notice back in August that she was coming back and that she was in the process of writing this album. She spoke about it saying it would be a bit different and slightly more mature than singing about towns she grew up in and friends that she had great memories with. And upon listening to the album myself, I couldn’t agree with her more. This album reflects the glorious and more inglorious ways of night life and the small amount of limitations she has when she is getting wild with her friends. However, she does not hide the dreaded things about these endeavors and the morning after regrets, and expresses throughout multiple verses of many songs why she is doing this: to numb something.

I, luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you see it), have not had the experience of having my heart broken. I’ve never been crushed by someone I loved and invested my time in. But people go through it every day. Among those people is Lorde. I’m not sure of the specifics regarding the ending to her relationship, but pick any song off of the album and you can see what kind of impact it had on her. She uses harsh and straight forward words to describe the madness the ensues once the sun goes down. In her first album, Lorde depicted vivid imagery with words that are not typically used to describe what she is explaining and that same method is used on this album. And as the title suggests, she uses vivid characters that fearlessly explore the wildness of the night, calling any risk that brings them a rush a party.

There’s an underlying reason why I am extremely excited about this album. When Pure Heroine was released, I was a freshman in high school, being exposed to the brutal truths that I was growing up and that things were changing. I had to decide who my friends were, and among the small sum of the friends I had chosen, very few would choose me back. I had to figure out who I could trust and who wouldn’t make me upset by picking someone else over me. Pure Heroine glorifies the closeness of the ones you trust, but also touches on the ups and downs of wanting more than what you have. “White Teeth Teens”, for example, touches on wanting to be a part of a group friends that initiate wild outings and teenage behavior but the protagonist knows they don’t belong with them. I was once part of that. I wanted to be in that group of people who let life happen and were a collective unit, not just a bunch of different people. But I slowly realized as time went on that I didn’t belong with them. She realized it too. And now she’s given us what comes after all of that innocent teenage dreaming- the not so innocent, unglamorous life. She opens up this world of relentless partying and spending time with strangers that want to feel the same rush as she does.

Full disclosure, I’ve only been to a few parties that contained outings like these, and I promptly left after the events started. However, I heard about these stories through my friends and having to reply to their drunk text messages or hungover Snapchats. Melodrama entails what it’s like after the innocence is gone and how some people deal with that innocence. In a way, I feel as if I’m evolving with her music, being exposed to the natural wildness of life with her. And for that, it creates a higher love for this album and a very large bias towards it for me.

I could describe to you everything I love and everything I’m not crazy about regarding the album, but it’s something that one must listen to to really feel how she expresses her feelings towards this person that broke her heart. But what I will say is that if you’re one of the members of the broken heart club, or you’re simply addicted to the thrills of the night to numb some sorrow, listen to this album. It may not make things better, and may not help you get over anyone, but it may help to know that you’re not a bad person for trying to cope and that you’re not alone in your coping mechanism.

Below I listed my favorite songs from the album and a brief description of what they sound like/what their lyrics are about.

“Sober”: a song about how being on a buzz can produce a great feeling but also expresses the fear of what will happen when that buzz is gone; upbeat but chill kind of feel, not too crazy

“Homemade Dynamite”: dangers and highlights of meeting a stranger while her and the stranger are both wildly adventuring with a group of friends; more of a steady flow than Sober but still a chill feel

“Liability”: a lyrical ballad with nothing but Lorde and a piano, in which she sings why she will never be good enough for anyone and how she drives everyone she loves away

“Sober II (Melodrama)”: describes the morning after all of the nightlife and what to do and how to deal with the pain once she is by herself again; has a beautiful string intro that is repeated throughout the song with a simple beat pattern