LORDE - MELODRAMA

1) Green Light; 2) Sober; 3) Homemade Dynamite; 4) The Louvre; 5) Liability; 6) Hard Feelings/Loveless; 7) Sober II (Melodrama); 8) Writer in the Dark; 9) Supercut; 10) Liability (Reprise); 11) Perfect Places

A landmark that clearly aspires to be a landmark - and fair play, it works.

Melodrama is billed as a break-up album and it has all the theatre and big emotion we expect from such as things as consumers, but it's self-aware about it: it knows the role it should play and performs it with gusto. If it hasn't clicked with the listener that Melodrama is playing up its concept and having fun with it by the time "Writer in the Dark" appears - a song where Lorde explicitly warns her ex about the dangers of ending a relationship with a songwriter who'll immortalise them in a song - then it's not because Lorde hasn't been dropping enough hints along the way, including the wink and nudge of the title. It's no wonder that this has become such a revered record in the modern pop scene - it gleefully gives its audience exactly what they want when they hear the plot summary of a big pop artist making an epic personal tale of a record about their relationship woes.

The other thing Melodrama does is take great strides in reinventing Lorde. Pure Heroine was skeletal and cold: aspects that made it stand out so much to begin with and which then left ripples in pop for years to come. Trying to repeat the same approach would have been stale on arrival and in order to break free from its shadow, Lorde's opted for the complete opposite approach with Melodrama. It's laced with a detailed and layered sound, moving forward with a sense of grandeur and a higher energy - there's bigger choruses, more intricate arrangements and of course greater drama. Lorde herself is far more approachable and open to engage with the listener as well, leaving the detached teenager of her debut behind. Now she's bellowing notes and riding the music, being playful with her vocal hooks in full knowledge they'll be instantly adopted by the fans (see: the finger gun *chk-chk* in "Perfect Places". She even leaves a little space for warmth and even subtle humour in her songs: "they'll hang us in the Louvre / Down the back but who cares, still the Louvre" comes to mind the most, but there's many other moments across the album where her half-conversational, half-thesaurus-skimming style has matured and often strikes with smart lines that leave you doing a double take afterwards. Melodrama is well and truly a song cycle about her split with her ex and the life before and after, but Lorde avoids the usual clichés and frameworks for such stories, and it's for the benefit of the overall narrative. Heck, the plot twist of "Liability"'s first verse is still such a power move, keeping in mind 2010's pop's obsession with try-hard same-sex tantalisation; on "Liability" Lorde playfully subverts it yet somehow the "reveal" at the end of the verse strikes an emotional chord that you didn't necessarily expect going in and it paints the rest of the song in a different colour.

Melodrama has the air of Lorde deliberately aiming to make a grand statement of an album, like she spent time listening to similar magnum opus records in pop history and then took notes and drafted a list of items for herself to tick one after another when planning out Melodrama. It's almost too perfect from a design perspective (you even have all these reprises and vague sequel songs that signal serious art at play), but what makes it resonant above all is that Lorde has loaded the record up with really sublime songs that stand up to the lofty expectations. That's another huge difference from Pure Heroine, which held its nose up in teenage sneer about being a pop album and the results were accordingly muted. Here, Lorde sounds like she's actually enjoying her career choice. "Green Light" may have never become a genuine hit but it sure as hell sounds like a worldwide smash that we may as well retcon it into one, continuing to radiate with excitement like it was still fresh and going forward in a mad rush of hook-laden fervour - it's the best pop single of 2017 and proudly opens the album, signalling the change in attitude. There's plenty more of its caliber, too: "Supercut" and "Perfect Places" offer the same anthemic joie-de-vivre, "Homemade Dynamite" and "Sober" have a suave swagger that sounds like a grown-up version of Pure Heroine and "Hard Feelings/Loveless" and "Liability" form a gracefully touching heart in the centre. "The Louvre" is probably going to hold the title of Lorde's career highlight for a very long time, slowly and beautifully building up with grace and beauty until it finally unfolds, not with an explosion but with a gentle reveal like walking into the light after days in the dark: the Twin Peaks guitars leading the song to an ethereally dreamy instrumental outro.

What seals the deal is how the production and Lorde herself pull the songs together. Jack Antonoff's lush production gives the songs sonic depth and strength and layers to geek over - this is arguably his greatest production job out of his countless collaborations in the surrounding years, and likely the reason why so many want to work with him in the first place. Lorde's own steadfast performance now also lives up to the voice-of-the-generation reputation that some were trying to crown her with after Pure Heroine, with her sounding more engaged and confident behind the wheel and sounding every bit as mysterious and powerful as the aura she projects. Everything works almost immaculately, with only shades of flaws scattered around: the reprise of "Liability" and "Sober II" threaten to fall between the cracks but the strength in production and performance brush off the weaknesses elsewhere. There's a reason that Melodrama's reputation has lived on and formed a legacy of its own and it's how immediately impressive and undeniable in its presence it is - like it never had any choice but to become a lifeline for some listeners and still an immediately memorable highlight for others. It remains to be seen whether she'll ever actually live up to it again; - the discourse around Solar Power around its release arguably twisted Melodrama from a discography milestone into a weight on her shoulders that she's forced to carry forevermore - but it proudly stands on its own two feet as one of the key pop records of the decade.

Physically: Jewel case with a thick booklet featuring artwork, photos, lyrics and a dedication note from Lorde.