If Rock's dead and there's no way left to shock the heart, to mark the moment, at least there's still the faint flicker of Pop out there to soothe our thoughts away, to stroke our hair when we collapse in resignation.
Shameful anti-Pitchfork post-snobbery kept me away from this one until now. In fact, it took the happy coincidence of New Zealand week and a Metro article mentioning Lorde's likewise origins to nudge me to give this a grudging chance.
There is a tinge of the twangy, mouthy, inflected ladyvocal that I'm so tired of here, and plenty of electronic flourishes, but this has less to do with Dirty Projectors and Grimes than you might think. Instead, Pure Heroine beats with the heart of the likes of mid-00's superstars Why?, The Unicorns, and Broken Social Scene*, that fine tradition of those who fiddled specks of beauty in the small while the big disappoint yawned apart, that fine tradition of young mortals leaning moments against eachother, bulwarking against the never.
Every song has its perfectly observed little line, its filigree production hearttapper. Lorde pulls off the who-needs-the-stars, you-and-me-and-we-against the-world schtick that she debuted on Royals 9 times out of 10 (Team's a bit on the nose), and the effect is a guide into darkness, a skin-prickling electricity of flickering hope.
If rock had to die, at least we shiver to its ghosts 4.5/5
* Ribs' sly nod to BBS meltdown Lover's Spit is about as perfect a meta-pop moment as I've ever heard, nestled into a tune that evokes both that song and sister song Anthems for a 17 Year Old Girl until you hear every great moment of You Forgot it in People as a secret, subconscious backing track. Incredible.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment