So as a lot of my Facebook friends might know, I'm a huge fan of Lorde. I loved Pure Heroine, it released when I was in high school and it really expressed a lot of what I was feeling at the time (teen angst, friends, rivals, the future, etc, you know, teen stuff). Since then, 2013, specifically, I've eagerly been anticipating Lorde's next album. And it's here: Melodrama. It's like listening to everything a 20 year old feels, and Lorde proves again that she knows how to express these feelings through music.
So here we go, let's rank Melodrama's songs. Remember: this is my opinion, so feel free to disagree, friends.
11. Liability (Reprise)
The reprise of Liability is certainly far from a bad song, and ranking as the bottom one definitely does not mean I dislike it. I really do love it (I love every song) but if I had to pick one for the bottom of this list, this one would be it. It recaps what Lorde feels in Liability in a very beautiful reprise, and her voice echoes the pain. It's also fairly short, and feels less like a "song" than any other number on the album, but that's not bad, it's just not one I specifically go to play when I want to sing along (or dance to).
10. Supercut
A great song to sing along to, if you can keep up with Lorde, that is! I really like Supercut, and again, certainly not a bad song! However, I haven't listened to it much since Melodrama released, and maybe I will become obsessed with it in a few weeks (or days, probably) but right now, its one that I play if I've already jammed out to some of the others on this list. Despite all this, the song is a great post-break up tune, and I do think it captures what it feels like when you miss someone. It all just rushes through your head--it's a supercut.
9. Sober II (Melodrama)
The sort of "sequel" to the album's second song Sober. A very fit sequel! This one picks up where Sober left off, the morning after the party when you're cleaning up and you wonder why "it" happened. "It" here can be anything: a kiss, a one-night stand, an embrace maybe, or who knows! Lorde really captures that morning-after feeling, when you wake up and think about everything that transpired the night before. Sober II has some haunting vocals, and I love the chorus in this one.
8. Homemade Dynamite
Arguably, one of the catchiest songs on the album, and probably one we'll be hearing on the radio for a long time. Dynamite is a great song about meeting that one person you know is just like you, and the relationship itself is very explosive. It might not be healthy, or it might not last too long, but it sure feels good! One of the more "pop" central songs off the album, Dyanmite is sure to be a hit with its catchy chorus and strong beats!
7. Liability
This one might divide some readers. A lot of fans believe Liability to be one of the strongest, if not the strongest song off of Melodrama. I don't disagree, I think it's one of Lorde's best. A soft, beautiful piano ballad. It reached into a lot of people's hearts and just tore them apart. I listened to Liability a lot when Lorde released it back in March-April(?) and I don't want to say I'm exactly "sick of it" but it's not one I listen to daily when I play the album. It's a powerful song and I can only listen to it so many times before it loses it's magic, but hey, that's just me. Regardless, a fabulous song.
6. Perfect Places
Another one I'm sure we'll be hearing on the radio very soon, Places is one song that Lorde certainly received inspiration from Jack Antonoff of F.U.N. This could be one of their songs, but Lorde makes it her own. Places is a fitting closer to the album as it leaves us wondering what these "perfect places" are that we try to find? Why do we try to find these places? What happens when if we do?
5. Green Light
The first song Lorde made a comeback with, and it's one of my personal favorites from the album. Sure, everyone might be used to it by now as it's been out for a few months, but I always find myself coming back to it. It's a great dance song, and I just love the high vocals in this one. It's a little more "pop" than Lorde in her prime (as with the songs below) but it's a hell of a song. Definitely beats Royals as the definitive "Lorde song" that people might associate her with, at least in my mind.
4. The Louvre
A wonderful song, lyrically. Perhaps, some of Lorde's best. I love the idea of a relationship being so beautiful that it will be hung in the Louvre, in the back, because they're not that great, but still, the Louvre! I'm also a big fan of the "Broadcast the boom boom boom boom, and make 'em all dance to it" as it works on so many levels. We dance to Lorde's emotional pain (if you want to think of it that way) and she puts it out there for us. She's not afraid to reveal herself as we've discovered in Melodrama and Pure Heroine, and she's going to make us all dance no matter what.
3. Hard Feelings/Loveless
A very different song than we're used to. It's sort of two songs mashed together as some might think of it. However, I think it's one song. The end of Feelings merges well with Loveless, as the feelings between feeling sad and feeling angry (or vengeful) can be quick. Lorde does a wonderful job of merging those two feelings in a song, and I don't think the songs could stand on their own if they were separate. You can't experience a break-up without feeling sad, and then angry, and then sad, and then angry. It's all a blur.
2. Writer in the Dark
One of the most powerful songs of the album, Writer is a vocally haunting, and emotionally wrenching song, and Lorde sings the hell out of her emotions in this one. It's truly a beautiful song, and one that could rival Adele's own massively popular piano ballad Someone Like You. Will it reach the same level of popularity as Adele's song? Probably not, but I wouldn't have expected Adele's to be so popular on the radio so who knows. Writer is a masterful song that challenges Lorde's vocals in a way that we never heard before. Would we have heard this song on Pure Heroine? No. This song is grown-up Lorde, this song is a different level of pain.
1. Sober
My pick for the best song on Melodrama. Let me explain this one because I feel like some people might disagree. Royals was the Lorde song back in the day, it defined what Pure Heroine was as an album, and it introduced the world to who Lorde was as a singer. Royals showed us that Lorde was very different from the typical pop artists, and that more emphasis was placed on her voice and the production of the song than the roaring basses and voice mixes of typical pop artists. Now, 2017, and we have a new Royals. And it's Sober. I believe Sober to be the song that mixes all of the themes and ideas of Melodrama, it shows us that Lorde has grown up and is struggling with new problems (like all of us). Sober is so unusual in the way Lorde uses her voice as sort of an "instrument," she manipulates it so that it catches our attention but it also has a purpose thematically. Sober is a story, a short, three-minute story about a girl and a boy at a party, and Lorde tells this story expertly.
And those are my rankings! Let me know what you all think!
