Author | Zhao Dazhuo
Source | Very Music (ID: musiclore)
© Original article, unauthorized reproduction
In recent years, Lorde has gradually faded from the various topics of his previous album "Melodrama" and become a missing person in the eyes of fans. In 2019, she returned to her hometown of New Zealand to begin a life closer to nature. She saw the trees change from green to brown and then to gray, and thought about life and death.
These reflections were included on her new album Solar Power, which she says is "about love and loss." The beauty of New Zealand landscapes is one of the elements that influence creation. In addition, two years ago, her dog died, which she likened to bereavement, so the sad element also entered the album.
A tree loses its leaves and is reborn; a life goes through life and death, new life and decay. Such a reincarnation was something that 24-year-old Lorde hadn't paid attention to before. So she began to think about everything related to her life, in a relatively positive way, pouring the harvest into the new album.
Thus, we can clearly feel the change in Lorde. 2013's "Pure Heroine" is still exquisite bedroom pop music, and 2017's "Melodrama" creates a cool color alienation space. In Solar Power, it is like walking in the woods with the sound of a lazy guitar, occasionally getting lost, and there will be a little chill, but looking up is the dappled sun.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > Happy Hour in New Zealand</h1>
In Lord's view, he has experienced a relatively less bad period under the epidemic in the two places. When she arrived in New York, the number of confirmed cases was decreasing, and when she returned to New Zealand, the number of confirmed cases was not particularly large.
But in comparison, life under the epidemic in New York is lonely. Heading to the recording studio, visiting others, and having packed lunches outside, all alone. New Zealand has placed more emphasis on home isolation during the epidemic, and she can still live with her family and cook together. The joyous summer days in New Zealand have more or less influenced the creation of her new album.
The new album was finalized in early 2019, with only a few songs still to be composed at the time of the pandemic. Lorde doesn't think the pandemic has had much impact on the album's creation, and she didn't deliberately fit the theme of the epidemic in her creation. But coincidentally, some of the lyrics seem to be in dialogue with people experiencing the epidemic. The lyrics in Solar Power, "Forget all of the tears that you cried, it's over," seem to be closely related to the pandemic. It can only be said that among them, there are emotional commonalities in the dark.
The most important activity for people during the epidemic is to take outdoor walks to enjoy the natural landscape and the flow of the seasons. And the healing power that nature brings, or the spiritual nourishment it gives, is the proposition that Lord has been thinking about continuously for all these years. She describes herself as "spending years trying to create music on this subject."
At the same time, the concept of reincarnation always lingered in her mind.
"When you walk and admire the beautiful natural landscape, the next second you may think: this kind of beauty is unsustainable, my children can't enjoy such a beautiful view." 」 The beauty of all things and the passage of time create the duality of things, which is the theme I want to elaborate on the album. ”
The new album became a work about the energy of nature, which also starkly pointed out the problem of climate change. Lorde wasn't sure if such a subject was too grand and profound to deter listeners. But since she wants to describe the story of the natural environment and the flow of the world, she is not willing to avoid the more thought-provoking parts.
On the new album, there are also a lot of bootlegs about New Zealand life. Lorde said that "I wish this album had a New Zealand feel, it's not a documentary about life in New Zealand, but it's a very precious life experience for me".
A song like "Oceanic Feeling" records her feelings of being one with the waters of New Zealand, "The experience of floating on different seas and lakes is still fresh in my memory, it is so direct, original and eternal feeling." The occasional bug chirping in the song is also her most haunting impression of a New Zealand summer.
The Solar Power video invited 10 to 15 friends and family to appear together, shooting for 10 days, almost the longest MV shooting cycle she has ever experienced, but "inviting friends and family to appear on camera, blurring the boundaries of images made for mass entertainment, and becoming images recorded in memory of private memories, these moments become very meaningful."
As for the album's impressive cover, it stems from her skipping from her friend's body on the beach.
"It's a bit hardcore, but I'm happy. I think it's just fun, and it's a bit wild. ”
She prefers to use different time periods of the day to describe the difference between the two albums before and after.
"Melodrama is like between midnight and 2:30 a.m., dark and dark, while the new album is like the end of people's vacation time by the sea from 2 to 5 p.m., and it's also the prime time before dinner. This is a time of tranquility, laziness, and ideal for meditation. Different time periods of the day require different musical atmospheres to accompany them. ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="23" > back to the 60s and millennials</h1>
Before writing his new album, Lorde had a conversation with his manager: "I've made money I can't spend in my life, and that's enough." We don't need to make an album for the sake of making money, let's do our best to create the best music we can. ”
"I have a house and I have some lovely carpets and great furniture to be able to buy anything I want at the grocery store."
In Lord's view, he is fortunate that he has no worries about fame and fortune, and people do not have to misunderstand that they are working for money. She is more concerned about the fact that the musical works will represent her own survival in this world, and how should she leave the works that can be passed on to the world?
Lorde, whose original name was Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, was born on 7 November 1996 in Auckland, New Zealand. With the encouragement of her mother, she read a lot of books from an early age and joined the local theater troupe. Lorde is said to have read more than 1,000 books before he was 15 years old.
Lorde's dad sent videos of her singing songs to Universal Records, including "Warwick Avenue" by British singer Duffy and "Mama Do" by British singer Picksy Lott. At the age of 13, she was successfully photographed by Universal and signed a contract. She gave herself "Lorde" as her stage name.
In June 2013, "Royals" was released and quickly became a hit single — it topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for nine consecutive weeks. At the age of 17, Lorde became the youngest single creator of the Billboard Hot 100 titles in 30 years and the first New Zealand musician to reach the title of Billboard Hot 100 champion. The subsequent debut film Pure Heroine was also a great success.
But after releasing her second album Melodrama in 2017, Lorde was desperate for respite. "What am I doing here?" I need to go home. She often thinks so.
Melodrama's reputation is outstanding, and it is considered by the industry to break the spell that the genius newcomer's second album is bound to fail. But in terms of data, it still can't be compared with her 2013 debut film Pure Heroine. Her debut has sold 6 million copies, including several hit singles and the almost omnipotent "Royals" song.
"'Royals' was the first song I released, and it achieved almost everything people would expect from a song in their lifetime."
Melodrama became a longer-line hit, and even years later, "people are still listening to it and still finding it great."
Lorde believes that eventually it will lead to a richer experience.
After returning to his hometown, the almost "isolated" Lord read a lot about the 1960s and savored the social and cultural phenomena of the time. When writing new albums, she also regularly listens to songs from the 1960s and 1970s. These include Laurel Canyon-style pop, California pop and folk music, and works by Crossby, Stills & Nash, The Mamas and the Papas, The Eagles, and Joni Mitchell.
"I really like the harmony they achieve in their vocal interpretations and the warm atmosphere of the arrangement, and these natural instrumental performances are very new to me. I never wanted to add guitar to music before, but I don't think so now. I want to feel the natural sense of trees and textiles in the music, and the natural listening atmosphere. ”
The optimistic, natural, and cheerful pop of the millennials also greatly influenced her creation. All Saints, TLC, S Club 7, Natasha Bedingfield, Nelly Furtado and other iconic musical figures made her feel interesting. "Honey To The Bee," "I'm Like A Bird," or All Saints singing "Take Me to the Beach!" "Many of the beautiful scenes in these music come from the beach or nature, which haunts her.
"I don't know if it's because the economy is booming at the time or if people are just optimistic about the new millennium or something else." Lorde said. As a result, the fusion of music in the 1960s, 70s and millennials created the sound of the new album, "Maybe it will be a little bit incongruous, but I think this attempt was successful." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" > desire for deep communication</h1>
In the four years since the release of the last album, Lorde has been in an extremely low-key state, even so low-key that even social media has not bothered to update, completely "disappeared" from social networking sites. Fans want to know about her recent situation, but also have to go through the accounts of her friends and family, and some fans can't help but run to Lorde's brother's Instagram to leave a message.
Lorde also bluntly said that he is "the kind of person who doesn't quite adapt to the way Instagram socializes." Or rather, for these shallow social software, she has always taken the initiative to keep a distance.
For example, she doesn't use TikTok at all, fearing that "it will permanently change the way my brain thinks." At one point, when she first downloaded TikTok, she couldn't help but brush it for two hours in a row. Suddenly, she woke up and realized that she should not do this in the future.
"You don't have to look for me on TikTok, I think the coolest thing is that the teenagers on it are so funny, creative, so smart, and I'm like an old witch, people don't need me to show those levels." 」
She prefers old-fashioned email to these emerging ways of socializing. She feels that email can dig deeper into her inner thoughts than a vivid and interesting way of interacting in a short period of time. This kind of social way of speaking out and not caring about data traffic makes her enjoy it. She was willing to code out letters of about 1,000 words by hand and send them to fans in the form of e-mails.
This desire for in-depth communication continues into the performance schedule of the new album. During the one-year Melodrama world tour that ended in November 2018, Lorde performed at several major venues, including TD Garden in Boston and the Pepsi Center in Denver, which could accommodate 10,000 or 20,000 people. But next year, she will tour theaters in the United States, with audiences likely to be limited to a few thousand. Because the 24-year-old artist wants to communicate with his most loyal fans in a relatively private environment.
"I'd rather have a room with 5,000 people who know every word of every song and are passionate about me than in a venue with 18,000 people, but people just hear two songs on the radio and like them."
For the show planners, Lorde has been "very insistent" about this.
Having a small but dedicated fan base is Lorde's dream compared to having a large cluster. "Being able to get such a huge amount of respect, but still having my life, not being famous enough to affect my quality of life." She said.
Compared to her teenage years, Lorde has become more and more clear about some things that she wouldn't do if something made her feel uncomfortable.
Extreme fame is especially challenging for female celebrities: public scrutiny has left Taylor Swift suffering from eating disorders; Billie Eilish wears fat clothes just to keep people from dictating her figure.
"I'm wearing exactly what I want to wear. I was wearing a suit. I love suits. I think they're strong. In fact, I do it in a way that works for me – which means I don't look back and get messed up by it. ”
As for the songs of the new album, the stream is not popular, whether there are hot singles, and all of them are not within the scope of Lord's consideration. She even felt like she was about to forget how to create a pop hit. She believes that "Solar Power" also seems to be far from the current popular hits; "Mood Ring" has the potential to become a hot single, but its content is thought-provoking and not a well-known type of pop song. But whether or not the songs will hit on the radio, Lorde is very confident about one thing: there's no doubt that they're well-structured pop music.
Lorde is now only 24 years old, has achieved results that are beyond the average person's expectations, and is facing more pressure. However, from the beginning of her debut, she has matured beyond her age and behaved like an older and smarter person. As she grew older and made more music, she became more determined about her future path, and her definition of success slowly changed.
"It's coolest to be a celebrity, but it's not about me." For her today, believing in and loving her work is an important thing. In her eyes, the new album "really enters people's lives, and everyone loves and enjoys it" is the real success.
-END-