Lorde - Solar Power

[aaronhansome]

I find your assumptions quite irritating.

I mean, you're the one wondering how people make time for an album they might enjoy?

I wonder how people still make time to listen to this when there is so much music for every situation in live that is lightyears ahead in every single way. Lorde herself outdid herself before. And it is not about 'where are the bops'. I think everybody would be fine with a bop free Lorde album if it would showcase what made her great. Nothing of it is here.

@dodoriazarbon specifically mentioned what seemed to be the crux of your critique, which is that this album does not tell you about who Lorde is as an artist right now and I think he's correct in saying that it does. You just don't like who that person is right now. Which, like he also said to you specifically, is fine.

Other people have indeed already mentioned Mood Ring as the highlight and yes, it is very good to me and indeed boosts that back half immensely but I don't think the assumption @dodoriazarbon makes is unfair, but maybe a bit off the mark in why people point to it. I think Mood Ring has the most...polish, which may also read as Radio Friendly but more it just sounds like it had the most attention put on it, which is what you want any song to sound like. He did not specifically call you out on that part of the post but it has been a thread to follow in this thread that people follow.

I had a somewhat similar feeling last year with Sufjan Stevens' The Ascension which left me feeling very cold in a dark time when I really wanted to rely on one of my favourite artists. There were ust didactic songs lacking in the hope that underpin some of his best work. I felt betrayed almost for a period of time, angry that he would want to preach to me from his place in New York, while he watched Drag Race with his friends and his boyfriend he can't even come out with. (And look, I'm not trying to say he has no right to be quiet about his sexuality, I just felt it unfair that he would wax endlessly about the lack of authenticity in the current world when he was not putting forth his most authentic self to a fanbase who could probably use it.)

Having that...almost blow to my, I guess, fandom helped me recalibrate my relationship with his art and honestly helped me reconsider my relationship to artists' in general.

All that to say, I also think the energy in this thread is weird but maybe calling the album a pointless piece of shit is indeed actually vitriol that it doesn't deserve?

 

[enhanced CD]

Well I love this album - I have very fond memories of listening to it on my daily walk in the 3 weeks between the album release and the weather dipping below 21 degrees. That boring stretch of songs in the middle was perfect for late afternoons/early evenings when it’d get darker a little earlier every day. Sometimes all you need is the musical equivalent of a light breeze

 

[Mikal]

The album really is a pointless pile of shit. Nothing here is really worth any time.

I wonder how people still make time to listen to this when there is so much music for every situation in live that is lightyears ahead in every single way.

I do not understand how people like this album at all anymore. I gave it a spin last night and it is an artist being completely creatively bankrupt.

Congratulations on penning the most hysterical and condescending post of the month. Talent! That and the follow-ups must have taken quite a bit of the precious time that people apparently shouldn't have for Solar Power.

 

[Vasilios]

This album does not warrant this much energy from any side.

 

[neinzedd]

The campaign lost me at 30th second of Solar Power (exactly at at line with 'my features' etc.). It sounded exactly like in that Lorde song generator tweet.

 

[bestinase]

I wonder what is next for her? This era is effectively dead commercially speaking and there isn’t the critical acclaim to keep it going like there was for Melodrama.

She’s going to really struggle if she waits another four years to put out the next album. Her career is basically on life support at this stage.

This is a li'l dramatic. She'll be fine.

She's said herself she doesn't need to work again, and doesn't wish to replicate the last era either in scale or in sound, so she's likely to just fall down the league table a little and settle into a career where she can tour and do records for her fans and not really have to worry about being a big pop girl. Lana's model totally works when you have a passionate fanbase to connect with and are relatively self-sufficient. People need to really stop viewing her career now through the lens of Melodrama, because she's been very explicit in saying that was a one-off and was too stressful to try and replicate again.

I can see her doing some sort of Solar Power: Recharged: The Re-Up: Sunrise Edition repackage next spring, which should keep the era ticking over until the tour next summer.

 

[theincredibleflipper]

This album does not warrant this much energy from any side.

You’re actually right. All that happened was I had a listen last night, thought it was extremely shit and shared.

And for protocol I said Mood Ring is cute, not that I love it or that that’s what I want from her exclusively. I think she is the artist most at odds to do better than she recently did.

Oh and obviously if she is happy with it good for her. She isn’t my personal singer to serenade me what I want exclusively.

 

[Juango]

People need to really stop viewing her career now through the lens of Melodrama, because she's been very explicit in saying that was a one-off and was too stressful to try and replicate again.

I love Melodrama but I don’t want her replicating that. Pure Heroine is so different from Melodrama but they both have so much impact as albums.

I just want the new album to have the same quality and dynamism as the first two albums. And that shouldn’t be equated with copying previous sounds.

 

[Raichu]

This album is perhaps her plainest and most direct when it comes to giving you insight into 'who she is', though. (Not that such insight is indicative of quality)

You're just not interested. Which is fine.

I think the word 'vitriol' used in posts above is correct. We all get up in our feelings about some artists and releases, usually out of disappointment (read: Me and Star-Crossed) because we previously invested so much (of ourselves) in that artist's previous work. But the intensity of anti-Solar Power sentiment (ell oh ell typing that) is weird. As mentioned, it's such a non-event that it's obviously innocuous, completely harmless.

People keep citing Mood Ring as a saving grace, and I get it, but it reads like you were expecting a record full of what would essentially be radio singles. THAT is what you thought the album after Melodrama would be? Because everything to me pointed away from that. And here we are. It's pop, but not as you know it. She seems like a real artist's artist (bleurgh) in that she does exactly what she wants, for better or worse. And there's good helping of both of those feelings on the record, for sure. It's probably not an album of the year as many expected, and I guess..the vitriol is because you'd already started designing your instagram story Top 10 countdown layouts and she's been so rude as to not live up to the static image you had of her? Or...?

I do think of some of the extreme reaction does have to do with expectations for what a Lorde record would be, but I think that goes the other way as well. I think people would be giving some of these songs less of a chance if another artist had released them.

My least favorite thing on this record is Dominoes. The lyrics are awful, the sound is distressingly twee, and it just encapsulates the feeling of not enough effort going into this project overall.

 

[mmcg10]

Muffy sis, the melodrama. I think it's acceptable to vent frustration that the album didn't live up to your expectations, but I can't remember any other threads where it felt like people seemed annoyed that others are able to enjoy it for what it is dd.

Big Star, California, Stoned, Hold No Grudge and Oceanic Feeling are some of my favourite songs of the year. I find repeated listens benefit this album greatly, and I don't think having spent a bit more time with it based on it coming from an artist I'm a fan of discredits a genuine enjoyment of the album either. I think that could be applied in many other instances when an artist explores territory unfamiliar to their usual sound - Madame X being a good recent example.

I also think this album would've got a better initial reception if Dominoes and Leader of a New Regime had been replaced by the two bonus tracks but whatever.

 

[xOJakeXo]

"That's a whole lot of energy for safe" energy here

 

[Robert]

 

[mattw67]

Bonus tracks will be on streaming this Friday

 

[Babyface]

Great cinematography, beautiful cinematography.

 

[strangekin]

If she don't leave that damn beach already

 

[Vasilios]

If she don't leave that damn beach already

People checking my Insta feed

 

[Verandi]

If she don't leave that damn beach already

The lizards trying to scare @Trinu 3.0 away.

 

[Jersey]

“Big Star” and “Mood Ring” are cute girls.

That’s all I got.

 

[theincredibleflipper]

Muffy sis, the melodrama. I think it's acceptable to vent frustration that the album didn't live up to your expectations, but I can't remember any other threads where it felt like people seemed annoyed that others are able to enjoy it for what it is dd.

Big Star, California, Stoned, Hold No Grudge and Oceanic Feeling are some of my favourite songs of the year. I find repeated listens benefit this album greatly, and I don't think having spent a bit more time with it based on it coming from an artist I'm a fan of discredits a genuine enjoyment of the album either. I think that could be applied in many other instances when an artist explores territory unfamiliar to their usual sound - Madame X being a good recent example.

I also think this album would've got a better initial reception if Dominoes and Leader of a New Regime had been replaced by the two bonus tracks but whatever.

I think most people here do not criticize an album because others enjoy it. They criticize because themselves do not enjoy it. I really don’t care what others like and I am happy for everybody finding something their like.

Also it’s not like she did a complete stylistic U-turn or does something many on PJ wouldn’t like qua definition. She went for a sound that’s quite popular, worked with one of the most popular producers out there and cited 90s/2000s pop as an influence. It’s not like she went Utopia by Björk on us. The title track is her approach on doing a big song, she said so herself. To me personally that one felt hit chasing more than anything else. It just did not work at all.

You named Madame X. That was experimental, in some way pretty bold and different. None of this could be said about Solar Power.

And while good the two bonus tracks couldn’t have saved this.

 

[Juango]

Also it’s not like she did a complete stylistic U-turn or does something many on PJ wouldn’t like qua definition. She went for a sound that’s quite popular, worked with one of the most popular producers out there and cited 90s/2000s pop as an influence. It’s not like she went Utopia by Björk on us. The title track is her approach on doing a big song, she said so herself. To me personally that one felt hit chasing more than anything else. It just did not work at all.

I actually think Solar Power is the Lorde/New Zealand equivalent to Bjork/Iceland's Utopia. It's not that the album doesn't sound like her. It's just a collection of songs with no particular high points, except for the album cover.

She did cite all of these amazing references like Natalie Imbruglia but I think that only served to heighten the disappointment.