Lorde’s second album, released June 16, 2017, is widely considered the best of her four records — and I wholeheartedly agree with that ranking.
The singer is known for encapsulating teenage emotions perfectly, wrapping heartbreak, lust, and revenge into one alternative pop album with songs you could scream at a party or cry in your room to.
The album takes listeners through the emotions felt in one night by a girl in her late teens, starting with the desperation for someone to want her back and ending with letting go and calling it “just another graceless night.”
A special talent that Lorde possesses is using simple lyrics to explain complicated emotions. “Hard Feelings/Loveless” is a great example of this, where Lorde sings, “Three years, loved you every single day, made me weak, it was real for me…Now I’ll fake it every single day till I don’t need fantasy, till I feel you leave.”
This is one of my favorite lyrics from any artist. The juxtaposition of using “every single day” as the time that she loved the person and the time that she’ll now pretend not to love the person shows how much your life changes based on how someone else feels about you, and how long it takes to truly get over someone that you never expected to lose.
The song is the sixth in the album, marking the halfway point. Lorde uses this to change the mood of the rest of the record, switching from reflecting on the relationship and what she may have done wrong to anger and thinking of the good things that came out of the experience.
The second half of “Hard Feelings/Loveless” is distinctly different from the depressive tone in the first half. “Bet you want to rip my heart out, bet you want to skip my calls now. Well, guess what? I like that,” Lorde sings.
For the rest of the record, Lorde focuses on what she has to offer rather than what she lost. She even goes back and reprises “Liability,” arguably the most emotional song on the album. “I understand, I’m a liability… I’m a little much for everyone,” Lorde sings in the original song.
In “Liability (Reprise),” however, echoes of the original lyrics can be heard while Lorde sings, “But you’re not what you thought you were,” making it obvious to listeners that she is done basing her self worth on someone who doesn’t love her anymore.
Lorde’s biggest hit from the record, “Supercut,” is fourth on her most streamed list on Spotify, with over 455 million streams. A supercut is defined as a “video montage compiled from a large number of very short clips and posted on the internet, typically comprising many examples taken from films or broadcasts of a repeated or clichéd action or phrase.”
Lorde uses a supercut to represent the memories she has of her relationship, describing how she could be perfect and everything could work out, but always realizing that it’s just a supercut. “In my head, I do everything right. When you call, I forgive and not fight, because ours are the moments I play in the dark,” Lorde sings.
The song describes the regret she has that she couldn’t have been better, along with the knowledge that it would never have worked anyway because she only remembers the good parts of their relationship.
Lorde ends the album with “Perfect Places.” The song takes place at a party, presumably the one she was on the way to in the first track when she “did her makeup in somebody else’s car.”
The final track illustrates teenage partying as a coping mechanism. “I’m nineteen and I’m on fire, but when we’re dancing I’m alright,” Lorde sings.
The song represents closure and escape, after Lorde has gone through all of the emotions of a teenage girl on any given night. Lorde’s upbeat melodies and clever lyricism make “Melodrama” a masterpiece that people of every demographic can appreciate.
