posted by Staff
September 2013

Ella Yellich-O'Connor, also known as Lorde, is the world's latest and greatest upcoming superstar. The princess of pop hails from New Zealand, and is only 16 years old (fact: she is less than a month younger than me). If you listen to Pure Heroine, you may or may not pick up on that important detail. This is her debut full length, and it is one of my most anticipated releases of the year, as well as many others, I'm sure. Did she live up to these extremely high expectations, or did she fall short, like so many others have in the past?

The album starts off with the song that got a bit of press upon release, "Tennis Court". While it's good, I really don't think that, for an album opener, it's the best fit. Openers should catch your attention as soon as you start listening, not a minute or so in. Especially if you're a pop musician, where your career depends on your ability to grab attention quickly. The following track, "400 Lux" would've been a much better and more natural fit.

Next is "Royals," the surprising smash hit around the world. Chances are greater than none that you've heard it. This artsy pop anthem is sandwiched between two highlights of the album, the aforementioned "400 Lux" and the minimal "Ribs". The latter is, well, something special. She laments about how getting old is so scary, while she's still extremely young, especially compared to many of her pop cohorts. It is this maturity that I, and I'm sure many others, first fell in love with. It's an easy favorite.

We progress through two maybe "forgettable" tracks, "Buzzcut Season" and "Team". Yes, they're musically good, but they're rather boring and simple. For a debut album, and one with such high expectations, this is not good. Not. good. Then, there is "Glory and Gore". It's unique, as she comes close to what could be considered rapping. But, she's somewhat hypocritical on it, so I find. She sings about being a gladiator, where glory and gore "go hand and hand". It's a rather unique and interesting comparison that I've yet to hear before. Yet, glory is fame, is it not? Fame then leads to a metaphorical sense of royalty, correct? 'Tis only a mere 5 tracks ago (on "Royals") that she claims that she will never be royalty. This hypocritical undertone is repeated in the next track, "Still Sane". And, for me at least, is just too many occurrences to be meaningful.

We move on to "White Teeth Teens," which I have, with the utmost affection, renamed "The Love Club, pt. 2". She basically says she is not one of the crowd ("I'll let you in/on something big/I am not a white teeth teen") who has everything perfect. Same message, different song, but still, a very enjoyable listen (especially that harmonious ending!). She ends with the less interesting track "A World Alone". It makes sense that it's the ending, because it's one of the slowest tracks on the album and probably best one to calm down to. But Lorde just does not sound as good on this song as she has for most of the album.

If I were to compare this album to another debut in recent memory, I would choose to compare it to Lana Del Rey's Born To Die. Each had unreasonably high expectations after the release of a single that exploded out of proportion. With their full album, however, each of them severely underwhelmed, and this is coming from a huge fan of both. Pure Heroine has a handful of tracks that will surely be on repeat for weeks to come (look at "400 Lux", "Ribs", and "White Teeth Teens"). However, the majority of the album is, well, skippable, if you will.

I will end this by saying I am a huge fan of Lorde. I wrote my first official review for the 'Fox about her lovely track The Love Club. I will also say that Pure Heroine is fantastic background listening for most any occasion. But I did not fall in love with her back in February for the somewhat mindless pop that makes up a lot of this album. Hopefully, future releases will remedy the mildly bad taste this album has left in my mouth.

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