Lorde (from New Zealand)

this was buried in the Rolling Indie thread, seems to be right up ILM alley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFasFq4GJYM

Ella Yelich-O'Connor, known by her stage name Lorde, is a 16 year old New Zealand singer-songwriter. She released her first EP, The Love Club, in December 2012 which reached #1 on the NZ charts and #39 on the Australian charts. It's been released as a physical copy on May 17, 2013.

Some of The Love Club is pretty good, and I like this Tennis Courts song alright, but she still seems undercooked. Check back in six months to a year.

She's no Lordi, that's for sure.

The single is precocious.

so this is kind of blowing up here in Los Angeles. KROQ is now playing "Royals" on a normal bases.

Yeah, her profile is kind of ballooning all over the internets.

Tennis Court is an earworm.

like the EPs, very LDR only a bit less DRAMA.

this is the second time someone has mentioned that "Tennis Court" song, going to have to seek it out.

i think my fave might be "swinging party".

a few weeks ago she had four singles in the NZ Top 40 which is pretty crazy

top 20** i should say

this thing is on the radio every time I turn it on. I went from hating it to liking it and back again to hating it in a week.

this single is precocious in a way that i like

seems like it is on its way to being huge all over the world

first woman in seventeen years to hit the #1 spot on the US Alternative chart.

Well that's pitiful.

alt has been a female hostile format for a long while now. not sure why this chick is clicking; I don't find her music interesting at all.

curious also how many stations make up that panel now; I think the format is on the wane

album's out in september by the way, same day as the HAIM one. it's called Pure Heroine

What a clever name, hard to tell she's 17

Meow. It really is an awful title tho, not that awful titles're in any way a hindrance rly

I guess this isn't as bad as the Naked & the Famous escaping NZ? Still p.bleak, and any significant overseas success = we'll hear nothing else for the next few years.

I actually liked TNAF a lot until the album came out, at which point it was revealed they'd already exhausted all of their good ideas. The new single is just more of the same.

This and Tennis Court are two of my favourite singles of the year. Precociousness is fine by me and the class-consciousness is interesting.

katherine st asaph's jukebox review otm:

Katherine St Asaph: The problem with Lorde is she makes sonically compelling music that’s nevertheless gotten the sort of rapid, iffy premature buzz (headline: Lorde: Meet the 16-Year-Old Pop Prodigy Who’s Sick of Rappers…“) that’s probably a bad thing for music, diagnosis Jessie Del J. (OK, that’s problem #1. Problem #2 is she is a child and you feel bad criticizing her.) But Lana Del Rey has a surprising amount of actual, non-astroturfed teenage fans, and from the sound of “Tennis Court” Lorde’s one of them (check the cadences on “thrill of it, killing it” and such, and compare.) The production hangs listless like air off a blacktop, but the lyrics have something to rankle everyone: obvious images (thank Toddlers and Tiaras, I guess, that “beauty queen in tears” lasted unused so long), obvious bait (“don’t you think that it’s boring” in line one, really?), unearned namedrops (“Wicked Game” this is not) or sheer laziness (too many songwriters lean on fake onomatopoeia like “like yeah.”) But again, she’s 16 and promising, and in a healthier music biz she’d be given time to develop that promise instead of a toss into the hype cycle.
[6]

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=7636

Good write-up but people only criticise the hype cycle if they're not convinced by the song. I don't share her issues with the lyrics so I just feel like a good song is getting its due. But the reservations in the first line are OTM.

I feel like there are so many great early singles that you could subject to that fine-tooth comb approach if you felt like it. If "like yeah" is lazy, so is every rock'n'roll song that uses "baby" to fill in a line.

i quite like the lyrics to royals

i dont get why "dont you think that its boring" is "obvious bait" and i dont see why she has to "earn" the right to use "wicked game" as a lyric

anyway i really like royals and bravado; the rest of it i can kind of take or leave

The whole idea of "earning" namedrops is absurd. There go 95% of hip hop namedrops.

Royals is a brilliant lyric imo. The way the first verse locates her in a crappy part of town without much money roots the chorus so it's not just sanctimonious bling-bashing.

i think its sort of ambiguous about the bling bashing. not hard to read it as a defense of fantasy materialism

the way she talks about it in the youtube description makes it sound like she intends it more as a criticism along generational lines rather than along genre lines in any event

(that being said i wouldnt be surprised if a big portion of the hype/popularity of the song is founded on simply reading it as "anti-rap")

I didn't take it as anti-rap specifically because it's common to so much pop now in that big rap/R&B/EDM/whatever middleground. I hear it as more of a personal expression of alienation - and it would be weird if a smart lower-middle-class teenager in smalltown New Zealand didn't feel alienated by VIP-room pop - than "ugh, those crass rappers" finger-wagging. Clearly some listeners are using it as vehicle for that kind of finger-wagging but it's not in the song.

In fact, a lot of the lines - "I'm not proud of my address, "We count our dollars on the train to the party", "We didn't come from money", "We're driving Cadillacs in our dreams - are reminiscent of hip hop origin myths. My favourite celebrations of wealth are songs like Juicy, where it's still a novelty and the present shines brighter because it's contrasted with a hard-knock past.

She's upper-class from the biggest city in the country & had a development deal since she was 12 or so, FWIW; Darcy Clay she ain't.

it's totally about rappers and I have no idea how you can see it any other way. since one jukebox blurb's already been copied/and/pasted: "She’s not dreaming of Windsor Castle in St. John, is she? Things have connotations."

fwiw I criticize hype cycles even for stuff I really like.

oh, i dont know! i like to hear it as a kind of defense/apologia for the materialist fantasy content of "every" song." i mean, you know, "let me live that fantasy"! she and her friends are "driving Cadillacs in our dreams," unless in NZ cadillacs are symbols of poverty or something

"let me live that fantasy" is in response to the lovey-dovey stuff of the chorus. about the bling stuff (and seriously what else would "gold teeth, Grey Goose" code as?) her response is "that kind of lux is not for us, we crave a different type of buzz."

and again I don't really blame Lorde so much because she's 16, but the people who speed-launched what's in part a songwriting career at this age, and the grown-ass adults who are buying into it?

right, the fantasy stuff about "ruling," being "queen bee," etc. i dont personally see much of a distinction between those fantasies and fantasies of blood stains, ball gowns, etc. well never *actually* be royals! that kind of lux is not *really* for us! but we will still live that fantasy b/c every song is about jet planes, islands, etc.

the fact that it's commonly being interpreted as anti-rap kind of surprises me but maybe i am just rly obtuse

This profile and interview sheds some light on Royals:

http://www.listener.co.nz/culture/music/lorde-moves-in-mysterious-ways/

She certainly is well read for her age.

i dont think she's anti-rap

so "Royals" is like number seven in the US pop charts this week. wow, didn't think this song would blow up to be this big.

it struck me as a potential "somebody that i used to know"... it has been selling a lot compared to its airplay since early summer.

zzzzzzzz

maura otm

In rare and intense disagreement with maura in this case.

I'm just surprised this thing hasn't been a hit in the UK. Isn't this the type of music that people over there go crazy for?

It hasn't been released in the UK yet - coming out in October.

h8 this song

i like it

i am pro-Lorde

She's anti-bling-bling

I like this song. How's the album, if anyone's heard it?

No. Title Writer(s) Producer(s) Length

1. "Tennis Court" Ella Yelich O'Connor, Joel Little Joel Little 3:18
2. "400 Lux" Yelich O'Connor, Little Little 3:54
3. "Royals" Yelich O'Connor, Little Little 3:09
4. "Ribs" Yelich O'Connor, Little Little 4:18
5. "Buzzcut Season" Yelich O'Connor, Little Little 4:06
6. "Team" Yelich O'Connor 3:13
7. "Glory and Gore" Yelich O'Connor, Little Little 3:30
8. "Still Sane" Yelich O'Connor 3:08
9. "White Teeth Teens" Yelich O'Connor 3:36
10. "A World Alone" Yelich O'Connor 4:54

i have mad respect that a 16 year old wrote all the songs on her new album. it doesn't seem so manufactured as a lot of these type of things are.

Ugh, had forgotten Lorde is enabling Joel Little's career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjF5bVQLXbI

now it's number 3 with a bullet on the Hop 100 chart. the two songs ahead of it don't have a bullet, so it's very possible this might become a number 1 hit.

h8 this song

― The Reverend, Wednesday, September 11, 2013 5:01 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^

the crushing inevitability of this going #1 somewhere hit me on first listen. that is not a compliment

a year ago america thought it had dodged the lana del rey bullet, now we have ldr AND a younger artist openly influenced by her in the top 10 at the same time

Lorde would maybe take issue with the Lana comparison:

As a young woman, have you felt it necessary to call attention to the control you’ve taken over things? Or to remind people that you’re both a writer and singer?

Absolutely. I think a lot of women in this industry maybe aren’t doing so well for the girls. I’ve read interviews where certain big female stars are like, “I’m not a feminist.” I’m like, That’s not what it’s about. She’s great, but I listened to that Lana Del Rey record and the whole time I was just thinking it’s so unhealthy for young girls to be listening to, you know: “I’m nothing without you.” This sort of shirt-tugging, desperate, don’t leave me stuff. That’s not a good thing for young girls, even young people, to hear. I don’t really have any girls songs (for the new record). I should have. But I think the way in which I assert myself as not being about that stuff is by writing about it in a way that’s a bit less obvious and less cloying. There are a couple songs on the record about relationship-y stuff, but I make sure to write about it in a way that you don’t know if it’s a friend or a relationship, because that’s something that’s personal to me.

Yeah Katherine, I felt the same foreboding sense of inevitability when I first heard it. And apparently this migrated over from rock radio? Not sure what it has to do with rock other than being EMPHATICALLY NOT RAP. Greer pointed out on twitter that the two surprise breakout artists of this year both came out explicitly shitting on hiphop.

Speaking of which, is Macklemore getting played on rock radio? Seems just as inevitable.

I think Lorde crossed over from alt radio, not rock.

Speaking of which, is Macklemore getting played on rock radio? Seems just as inevitable.
I don't know, but I know Classified's Inner Ninja was getting played on Rock stations this year here in Canada.

I think some of you have got the wrong impressions about this girl.

1. How is she 'explicitly shitting on hip hop' - read the interview upthread. She likes hip hop. I think she might be attacking the culture surrounding it but not the music itself. See her do Kanyes Hold My Liquor verse from a concert last week here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6IerJU-gPE

2. Comparing her to LDR also does her a disservice. For a start she does not trade in the sexed up pouty 'I am mans plaything look of LDR. She is no airhead.She seems much more self aware and in control. For a sixteen year old girl - in fact probably compared to most adult pop artists right now - she seems smart and intelligent. Again see interview upthread.

I am not totally in love with this tune or her biggest apologist by any means but think that some of the comments on here are either thougthless, ignorant or just wrong.

i still think that people who think she's "shitting on hip hop" are giving the song as shallow as reading as the people who were up in arms about "blurred lines"

[i also think it depends on a decade-old reading of cultural politics w/r/t "rap vs. rock," etc]

[not to say that like, 30 yr olds listening to it couldnt read that into it! but]

Well speaking as someone terminally bored by Lana, even I recognize the inaccuracy of calling Lorde "much more self aware and in control" when Lana's entire aesthetic is clearly both self aware and something she developed by choice. Not to mention that defenses of female artists that seem to heavily rely on the the media spin of "she's not like those other women, she's <insert qualities other female popstars are stereotypically presumed to be lacking here>" always rubs me wrong.

New track btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g03b4U_aPk

Yellich says herself that she is tired of this comparison too - but what can she do - its an inevitable question. One which I think is erroneous and unnecessary but this is how our media works, sadly.

As for your criticism of 'much more self aware and in control' perhaps my choice of words was poor there. When I read the interviews and lyrics for Lorde it has struck me that she is remarkably self aware, perceptive and yes - in control - at least of her own lyrics and world view. Maybe that is just a media front. In LDR's case -I guess I can't remember the last time I was interested enough to read anything by her or listen to one of her songs so maybe I am coming from a point of ignorance there. The last time I saw her she was on the arm of Axl Rose.

But yes Lorde - its a kind of fairytale for sure.

I think Lorde crossed over from alt radio, not rock.

― Greer, Saturday, September 14, 2013 3:54 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wasn't drawing a distinction between the two. (Not sure what distinction that would entail either. Modern rock = alt, right?)

idg the Lana comparison at all. Seems really tossed out there.

. She likes hip hop.

So does Macklemore!

Nittlepicker, I was actually going off of the interview you posted way upthread where she says she wrote "Royals" when she was "listening to a lot of Lana Del Rey"

Hey some doodle. Yes she did and then listed her issues with her shortly after But I take your point that she is indeed 'openly influenced' by ldr even if she does not really seem to respect her all that much. Still don,t see any evidence of her hatred of hip hop. Perhaps there is a quote in the same interview 'I hate hip hop and plan to shut all over that art form for the rest of my career. I will have to go back and reread.

Shit that is

the way she talks about it in the youtube description makes it sound like she intends it more as a criticism along generational lines rather than along genre lines in any event

this is what i always felt. granted, the first time i encountered the song was via the youtube video with that description, which i read nearly immediately - and it certainly informed the way i listened to it. maybe i wouldn't have heard it the same way otherwise. i see it as very much in line with lyrical themes in pop that have been going quite strong in the top 40 since 2010 or earlier -- modest ambition, lack of money -- though stripped away from the typical "omg we're partying and having a good time!!" themes that they've commonly been seen alongside.

idk i guess what i am saying is that it never struck me as potentially anti-hip hop until i heard that other people were seeing it that way. even now, i think w/o the mention of gold teeth (and maybe cristal i guess) it would likely not set off many (if any) alarms. but maybe if it requires so much bending over backwards to defend, it actually is problematic?

Huh, if this is #3 on the US Hot 100, does that mean it's surpassed "How Bizarre" and poised to beat "Don't Dream It's Over"?

I'll bite: I find (what I think is) max's reading to be tenable but even assuming that the song is 'anti-bling', is that a terrible thing? When blingy hip-hop and pop are everywhere, why is it a problem for someone to write a song about growing up poor and not being able to relate to those themes? (I assumed "tripping in the bathroom" was a Miley/pop reference?)

Like, it's not like the song is saying e.g. "talking in rhythm isn't music" or "they don't even play their own instruments".

"Every song's like gold teeth, Grey Goose, tripping in the bathroom." I literally do not know what else this could be shitting on besides hip-hop, especially when you throw Maybach in as well. It makes the song very disingenuous when she sings "we didn't come from money."

Yeah, I agree that "gold teeth, Grey Goose" is probably about hip-hop lyrical themes. I'm more interested in this question (regardless of whether or not the rappers themselves came from money):

When blingy hip-hop and pop are everywhere, why is it a problem for someone to write a song about growing up poor and not being able to relate to those themes?

I don't listen to a lot of hip-hop by ILM standards so assume that you need to explain this to me.

It makes the song very disingenuous when she sings "we didn't come from money."

Why?

I don't know if it's so much "shitting on hiphop" as the mere presentation of a juxtaposition. Like, there isn't necessarily pejorative in there.

It's more like "I am a teenager from New Zealand, I hang out with my friends for fun, and from my perspective hiphop and bling culture is a surreal thing"

Maybe that's naive, IDK. But i'm very hesitant to tar her with the same brush as macklemore given that she's a kid from NZ as opposed to an American dude who's been kicking around the hiphop scene for the better part of a decade.

I mean, nobody on top 40 is going to come out and say "I will make it my goal to KEEP HIP HOP DOWN!" -- actually, no, I take that back because I would not be stunned if someone ever decides to -- but songs don't exist in a vacuum. It is not an accident which artists cross over to Top 40 (I don't know whether this is there or not) and which don't. (Literally, it's not an accident thanks to the Billboard changes.) And when one of the songs that has crossed over, possibly in lieu of hip-hop, explicitly draws lines like "our friends and I, we've cracked the code" and "that kind of lux is not for us, we crave a different kind of buzz," I don't think it's a mistake to question how exactly that will be received.

(And, like, everyone in hip-hop was also a teenager??? And their experience of growing up poor would probably be a lot different than Lorde's musical frowny face about counting her dollars on the train.)

Also, an acoustic Kanye cover is evidence of something, but maybe not of what you say it is? (

And it's disingenuous when she sings "we didn't come from money" because she is setting up an analogy in which rappers are landed old-money nobles and she and her friends are the downtrodden, poor, scrappy underdogs, but underdogs who are secretly knowledgeable about THE TRUE MEANING OF LIFE -- and if you don't instantly see how that is a fucking stupid analogy then I have no idea what to say.

But every song's like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin' the hotel room...
But everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.

man those blood stains and ball gowns!! such an obvious and biting criticism of hip hop!

well you're right, it's definitely not wrong to question how this will be received -- even based on its positive coverage i'd say there's a questionable relationship between the song's reception and hip hop. and yes, systematically songs like this will be favored candidates for crossover over even the biggest rap hits at the moment for regrettable reasons (that i am glad ilm discusses at length). but i'm still unsure of whether this is actually inherent to the song's lyrical content.

but again, if it requires this much defense, maybe there is a problem? it's like how so many people were doing those critical interpretations of "blurred lines" as promoting rape culture that involved actually misreading and selectively quoting the lyrics -- and yet there was probably still something to be said about that angle, given the way the song was promoted.

the reason "blood stains, ball gowns" is a non-sequitur out of context is because it is a non-sequitur in context, because "Royals" is poorly written and isn't entirely clear what it's about, because it was written by a 16-year-old. it isn't like blurred lines at all because at least blurred lines had an, uh, consistent throughline, whereas Lorde is just throwing images around, the largest category of which are clear "Price Tag"-like digs at hip-hop.

And it's disingenuous when she sings "we didn't come from money" because she is setting up an analogy in which rappers are landed old-money nobles and she and her friends are the downtrodden, poor, scrappy underdogs, but underdogs who are secretly knowledgeable about THE TRUE MEANING OF LIFE -- and if you don't instantly see how that is a fucking stupid analogy then I have no idea what to say.

OK, I see what you're saying there. Fair point.

It's likely naive rather than disingenuous, from Lorde's end of it, but yeah.

Hey some doodle. Yes she did and then listed her issues with her shortly after But I take your point that she is indeed 'openly influenced' by ldr even if she does not really seem to respect her all that much.

― Hinklepicker, Saturday, September 14, 2013 11:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn, chill. all i'm saying is, my post was about there being a LDR song and a song that is literally 'post-Lana Del Rey'/LDR-infleunced song in the top 10, which i don't think can really be argued against if Lorde said she was listening to a lot of LDR when she wrote her hit. whether or not she thinks Lana is a genius or was offering a rebuttal/critique.

idk though, i guess you see what i meant, n/m. but whether or not the song is necessarily bashing hip hop/materialism, i find its sentiment kind of corny.

"idg the Lana comparison at all. Seems really tossed out there."

her voice and phrasing are very similar at times, also

"But every song's like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin' the hotel room...
But everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash."

vs

"Swimming pool glimmering darling
White bikini off with my red nail polish
Watch me in the swimming pool bright blue ripples you
Sitting sipping on your black Cristal
Oh yeah
And I'm off to the races, cases of Bacardi chasers
Chasing me all over town"

etc and hundreds of other lyrics on the LDR album that celebrate decadence

I agree that they have utterly and totally different takes on this though (Lourdes being a critique and LDR seemingly a celebration, although I don't actually think it's a celebration)

well yeah LDR also has a... fraught relationship to hip-hop images

yes definitely

I like "Royals" and I think it's more a reaction to the pop-hedonist fantasy than anything else -- like, that's your fantasy, not mine, your fantasy's boring and we've heard it a million times. I agree that it's more a generational thing than a genre thing. For a kid, I'm guessing all that Cristal-Maybach stuff registers not as hip-hop culture but as pop culture, albeit the somewhat embarrassing pop culture of, if not your parents, at least your older siblings.

But of course I was sold on her when I heard the Replacements' cover, so my own biases are in play here too.

I feel like somewhere around the early-to-mid 2000s, hip-hop culture and general pop culture were the same thing or at least pop borrowed pretty liberally from it, so the "it's just pop culture, not hip-hop" response doesn't really work for me, because where do you think the pop cultural interest in Maybachs, grey goose, gold teeth, Cristal, etc. came from? C'mon.

extend that to mid-to-late 90s too.

Right, but that sort of makes the point -- for someone born in 1996, the distinction between "hip-hop culture" and "pop culture" may be meaningless.

If she gives some interview talking about how the Mumfords play real music, then I'll bite. But on the basis of this one song, all I hear is a kid taking some jabs at her elders.

It isn't an all or nothing thing. She's taking jabs at rap's more hedonistic elements and at the establishment's culture of excess at the same time, and uses this to set up a really disingenuous paradigm.

I do have to give it to her for the "counting dollars on the train" line tho. That's real as fuck.

as grating as the royals/rappers conflation is, the "driving cadillacs in our dreams" bit annoys me even more

what i do like about the song i already got from The Blow's "True Affection"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyWoZD5xfM8

i think i read somewhere that the song was at least partly inspired by hearing "watch the throne"

dunno if she deserves 100% of the blame for setting up the rappers-as-old-money paradigm you know

i like the song

i honestly don't care if she's a racist or just a clueless millenial or what - whether or not i'm offended, it's a stupid association delivered in a slow preen

For a kid, I'm guessing all that Cristal-Maybach stuff registers not as hip-hop culture but as pop culture, albeit the somewhat embarrassing pop culture of, if not your parents, at least your older siblings.

otm

And if it was partly inspired by hearing Watching the Throne, why is her critique less valid than all the reviews (eg Hua Hsu's great Grantland one) questioning that album's wealth porn? It's pretty clear that she likes some hip hop but not certain tropes - big deal.

yeah but what's good about it

It's a clever catchy song with an interesting POV. If you don't like it fine but gtfo if you're even implying racist undertones.

what's clever or interesting about it? the defense is that she's a kid who doesn't know the difference between new and old money and thinks rap culture is upper class culture. sounds like an idiot.

though actually i think the song is fairly ambiguous (or just sloppy) when it comes to making clear what she's dismissing and what's the "fantasy" she wants to live. but if it's a "let me have my rap iconography cuz i'm lower class" explication, that's corny. and if it's "fuck rich rapping royals, i'm better than prince harry and kanye" gibberish, it's even worse.

And if it was partly inspired by hearing Watching the Throne, why is her critique less valid than all the reviews (eg Hua Hsu's great Grantland one) questioning that album's wealth porn?

I thought the bulk of those reviews were myopic shit, so she's still not in great company then.

Obv there's a complicated context to Watch the Throne that makes it different from some theoretical album about the awesomeness of being rich by white bond traders' kids. But it is still an album by two multi- millionaires that (among other things) celebrates the awesomeness of being rich. I can understand a kid being turned off by it, and a non-American kid in particular neither knowing nor caring about the complicated context.

I mean, one price hip-hop pays for global saturation -- like rock n roll before it -- is a loss of control over its own narrative. People are going to hear it on their own terms.

i'm not even a WTT fan but not because it's wealth porn. it's not even context, it's right there in the most prominent line of the album's biggest single: "if you escaped what i escaped, you'd be in paris getting fucked up too"

Eh. What I hear in "Royals" is just someone bored with the stuff she's hearing on the radio (or YouTube or whatever).

I think Lorde crossed over from alt radio, not rock.

It has a stranglehold on every rock songs chart fwiw:
http://www.billboard.com/charts#id-chart-category-rock

"someone bored with the stuff she's hearing on the radio"

and the kicker is Lorde gets on the radio and the stuff she's shitting on does not.

(and yes, I know, she's 16, but still)

(apart from that I just find the production on the album so... listless. which can work, but it doesn't here.)

I haven't heard the album, I like the EP pretty well. I don't really think it's listless, though obviously she's going for a certain anomic vibe. I mean, unlike the above-referenced Blow (who I also like, at least some tracks) she has some actual grooves.

(Tbh, a lot of what's on the rock/alternative charts doesn't seem particularly rocking to me.)

and the kicker is Lorde gets on the radio and the stuff she's shitting on does not.

What radio stations are you listening to?

American ones? I'm not there to listen to them, but she's #3 on the Hot 100 and short of a viral video that takes a lot of radio support.

I'm sure the UK will catch up in a few months.

No, I know Lorde is on the radio - I just don't know how anyone can say mainstream hip hop/R&B/pop about club VIP rooms is not also being played on the radio.

Where I live, and in many places in America without large black populations mainstream rap and r&b barely get played on the radio at all anymore, and if they do, it's only the same few superstars who have been around forever. This definitely was not the case ten years ago when rap and r&b ruled the airwaves. The same station here that ten years ago played the Youngbloodz and Ashanti every hour and wouldn't touch Justin Timberlake for being too pop-leaning now plays Maroon 5 and err..."Royals" and will barely play any rap song without a white person on it, while a top 40 station that happily incorporated Beyonce and Nelly into their playlist in that timeframe has more or less purged itself of black artists altogether.

See Itunes, Billboard, and the marginalization of black music and black audiences in America

Interesting, and depressing vis a vis black music. It changes the context of the song if you hear someone complaining about a dominant sound (which it certainly is in the UK, and presumably New Zealand) that doesn't actually appear to be dominant to the listener, although singing about wealth isn't exclusive to black artists (and certainly doesn't just appeal to black audiences) and I don't think Lorde thinks it is either - Lana Del Rey being one of the people she's criticising. Although actually I'd say "criticising" because she isn't really saying that people shouldn't sing about these things, only that those topics are alienating to her. I hear a more personal expression than some people itt - not so much finger-wagging, just an honest observation that those songs don't speak to her.

Also when lords wrote this she would have had no idea that the song itself would be one those tunes 'dominating radio'the tune was very personal like poster above said

She's been signed to a major label for like 25% of her life, I'm sure she was gee golly amazed that her little soundcloud EP yielded a radio hit

the thing about apologetic/sympathetic explanations that deflect the possibility that lorde sucks for making the song, it doesn't actually contradict the possibility that the song sucks

esp in a wave of hits where white people write yelp reviews of hip-hop

right, and this is why my stance is generally "maybe this is why a few more years of songwriting (and life) experience would be prudent here"

she signed to a development deal with universal at age 12 iirc

Yep she did sign a deal but that does not change the fact that when she wrote this there is no way sitting in a room on the North Shore in AKL she would have predicted this kind of success so fast. For a NZ artist to break America with her first song is kind of remarkable. there has been Crowded House, maybe Kimbra OMC and ...Flight of the Conchords. So saying she wrote this thinking she was going to be duking it out on the level with the likes of Katy Perry and Jay Z is hard to believe. I think this is just a straight up teen alienation song - written by an actual teen not some person in her early twenties trying to appeal to a market demographic. I think it is quite honest and uncontroversial topic to write about - how she enjoys listening to hip hop with her friends but can't relate to all the bling and ridiculous fantasy money bump and grind that is associated with it. Who does? How is that hard to understand? She is not Bob Dylan or Chuck D but I do think that it is to the songs credit that it does bear some scrutiny - unlike most of the completely vapid lyrical content in the pop charts.You guys are overthinkin it.

"unlike most of the completely vapid lyrical content in the pop charts

and here we go

isn't it great how this song gives you something to think about? but don't think about it too much.

the thing about apologetic/sympathetic explanations that deflect the possibility that lorde sucks for making the song, it doesn't actually contradict the possibility that the song sucks

― da croupier, Monday, September 16, 2013 7:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

True, but a different argument. People who want to indict her for cultural crimes can retreat to aesthetic grounds if they want, but at least acknowledge the retreat.

exactly da croupier. thanks for summarising.so yes there is an embryo of a voice forming and i do think that is more interesting and worthy of note than analysing say a katy perry song - and yes i do think that putting contexts and implications into this songs that arent actually relavant or there is wrong so to sum up: an interesting song with an interesting story but. not worthy of copious handwringing over imaginary shadows that don't exist.

You're doing this weird thing where you're trying to exempt her from the same criticism we'd heap on any other pop song getting tons of attention by saying she didn't anticipate it and is too young, while trying to also elevate her above those pop songs by saying her lyrics are more considered than theirs .And the writing can't be all that more considered than the average pop song given that much of the disagreement happening here seems to be a result of the poor writing making her intentions hard to decipher).

Also she got scouted by an A&R guy at 12 who then helped her develop an artistic persona, then she was signed by a major label at like 14 or something, so I call bullshit on the "she didn't know she'd be toughing it out with big time pop stars" narrative. she's not some indie artist randomly thrust into the spotlight due to the unexpected success of her song. she was being groomed for stardom for 4 years.

many are and many fail - as alread noted from NZ only three or four hits ever in america - and none with the apparent ease of Lorde who hit on her first try. and is sixteen. Finns tried for years before success. OMC was almost a novelty as was FOC. there is absolutely no reason to suggest that lorde had any reason to think she would be this huge this quickly with essentially her first release - its ridiculous.

on her lyrics.i think her lyrics are not all that hard to decipher so theres that. i don't see much ambiguity there. but thats obvioulsy just me.

anyhow enjoy your further paranoid dissections. we might just have to agree to disagree.i have a peanut butter sandwich to eat.

funny that the dissectors are being called paranoid by one person and being accused of "wanting to indict her for cultural crimes" by another.

There should be a term for when someone describes the meal pulling them away from an online debate - goodburger's law?

But how will we know which songs do and do not merit critical discussion if you're too busy eating peanut butter to tell us?

Yes good point. I will provide list - but I warn you my sandwich is made from one of those tough germanic breads - it really takes some eating so i might be a while.

funny that the dissectors are being called paranoid by one person and being accused of "wanting to indict her for cultural crimes" by another.

Those are basically the same thing, right?

Anyway, it's a silly argument over a fun song. Which this year seems especially good at producing.

were it that this song was any fun

Its no Tutti Frutti thats for sure.

esp in a wave of hits where white people write yelp reviews of hip-hop

― da croupier, Monday, 16 September 2013 19:56 (Yesterday) Permalink

ether post

it's eerily familiar: whites condescend to hip hop while biting it at the same time, presuming to supercede the very thing they also require, and strapping some kind of "aw shucks we're poor, not like all these rich hippity hoppers" jive on top is like the final insult- so the white listener can bounce their head and *relate*, while reimagining poor whiteness as a reservoir of moral purity free from the greedy grabby taint of thugged out bling culture

the video is awesome twink porn, tho (and if its fetishization of uber-white looking boys only illustrates the overall problem, at least its refreshingly brazen about it- sick abs bro)

wait what

Let me try to understand. I initially think your analysis is not fair because it does not take into account the age and experience of the writer of the song - hanging this kind of intellectualizing onto a teenager who is only reflecting her own worldview on a topic - as if she actaully considered and meant all of the things you imply she does. Is authorial intent relavant in this case - I presume you will argue not. I guess if i think of an extreme example say a young girl - lets say the daughter of a white supremisist wrote a racist song without undertsanding the connotations or being aware of the nastiness of the message - it seems obvious she should still be condemened. So maybe I can see your point there, presuming you analysis of the lyrics holds up.

ALso the faint whiff of some kind of conspiracy here - that because she has written this essentially 'racist song' (your implication - not mine) is the reason she has been allowed into the charts to support some kind of mass organised movement to attack hip hop or 'black' music in general - is that what people are implying?

It all seems a bit 'silly' to me as stated up thread.

Maybe I just got this all wrong - the reaction to this tune seems so vehement and surprising.

bear in mind, I don't know jack shit about NZ and I'm discussing the climate in which this song would be embraced and consumed in the us by white listeners

I don't know this girl, I'm not saying she's evil or "a racist" (such a designation would only beg the question of what criteria would be sufficient to establish that, and for what community), or even that she set out to be condescending- I frankly don't care about her personality or her intentions- I'm talking about the circulation of her work, the reasons why people like it, not the reasons that she wrote it

to state the obvious, there's a big canyon that separates artistic intentions from the effects of art as it gets disseminated and consumed- artists think they're motivated by reason X or Y while listeners consume for other reasons entirely- artists aren't responsible for their listenership, but part of assessing art-as-a-socially-symbolic/revealing-phenomenon is that the climate of approval is fair game for analysis

and in the us, the legacy of slavery persists in all sorts of ugly ways as the public sphere gets calibrated largely along contours that keep it de facto "white"- even and particularly when white performers try to appropriate, borrow, or re-use things that code (for them) as somehow essentially "black". Obviously, there's a long history of white re-use of black musical forms (see the long history of "race records", histories of minstrelsy by Lott and others), and that means that this song's popularity in the us is taking place against a certain backdrop. If my language strikes you as overheated or unduly virulent, all I can say is that I'm coming to this song in the wake of thicke biting marvin gaye and miley twerking and macklemore taking lite-frat-rap to the bank, and for me there's a certain, shall we say, fatigue with these kinds of moves right now.

Thanks for that considered response. I understand your point of view now. In NZ we have our own race issues - a treaty which was - typical for its time - mainly farcical, institutionalised racism and land grabs against Maori which we have been trying to eradicate and 'put right' but as with all historical grievances is nearly impossible to do so completely. From my point of view I guess the reaction here has been largely one of shock and wonder - and for those of us who like to pedal in the rhetoric of patriotism - pride. The tune is not really my cup of tea but stepping back from any kind of analysis of the song - and again you might want to be the sort of person who buys into the fairytale of the music - I have got a kick out of seeing a local girl suddenly ascending to the heights of the mainstream pop charts. I would like to think it might represent something positive about our countries character - it makes a change from sporting icons - and I guess I might have been touchy about accusations of racism because of this.

I'd be happier if e.g. Nesian Mystik was hitting the heights of the charts, but YMMV.

Also, sorry to harp on about Joel Little being the producer/co-writer on this, but can I just
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe4vWqtT9rI

Theres better examples of NZ music than those two I would say.

Kids Of 88 are an abomination.

I probably have more time for music from South Auckland than the North Shore, but, as people are saying, there are extramusical reasons artists like Lorde are currently finding success and not, say, the contemporary equiv of early 90s Sisters Underground/OMC/&c.

Oh whew - I hoped that was the point you were trying to make -KO88 are awful. In The Neighbourhood rulz - I always wondered what happened to Sisters Underground.

I don't know for sure but I'd say it was a result of this interview she was discovered.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2033420/ella-yelich-o'connor

Pretty obvious she was talented; not really a reason to dislike her imo.

Kids of 88 are shockingly bad but I don't see why him doing that means you can't like stuff he produces that is actually good. Biting Down is excellent.

local pride is such a bizarre phenomenon

Did a kiwi title the thread?

And the writing can't be all that more considered than the average pop song given that much of the disagreement happening here seems to be a result of the poor writing making her intentions hard to decipher).

Assuming the worst always makes intentions hard to decipher. That's how we ended up with lots of people claiming that Robin Thicke had written a song advocating date rape. But it's a bizarre generalisation anyway. It's hard to decipher the intentions of, say, Hallelujah or pretty much any Dylan song after 64 - is that down to poor writing? (Lex: "Yes")

Yes

bear in mind, I don't know jack shit about NZ and I'm discussing the climate in which this song would be embraced and consumed in the us by white listeners

This is key. I'm not really mad at Lorde, she just seems like an ignorant kid more than anything (as opposed to Macklemore who is 30 and seems to have put a lot more misguided thought into what he's doing), but the way this has been taken up by the US public is totally predictable and emblematic of everything I hate about 2013.

"Royals" held on to the number three slot this week, so it doesn't look like a number one song after all.

i wouldn't rule it out yet. miley and katy have had videos doing big youtube numbers but lorde is making huge gains in airplay every week.

This is key. I'm not really mad at Lorde, she just seems like an ignorant kid more than anything (as opposed to Macklemore who is 30 and seems to have put a lot more misguided thought into what he's doing), but the way this has been taken up by the US public is totally predictable and emblematic of everything I hate about 2013.

From what i've seen around me, 16 years old kids seem to be the bulk of her fandom, I'm not going to blame them for not fully understanding something as culturally complex as hip hop irt race and class yet.

the Weeknd remix of "Royals" has been getting played on a local R&B station, it's like 2 things i hate thrown together just to troll me

Surprised nobody mentioned how boring Royals is.

uh that's been mentioned several times itt

She's at #1 on US iTunes now.

This is probably my wife's favorite single of 2013, fwiw.

It's literally crazy to me some ppl don't think she's talking about black hip hop. Pro tip: no white person ever had referred to gold teeth without meaning young black men. Ever.

I also love how easy it is not to hear songs now, this sounds like a shit sandwich based on this thread hope I never hear it.

you know who reeeeally loves this song is my 60 year old mother in law. she's visiting this weekend, I saw her for the first time at 12:30 last night and she immediately made me listen to this song on her iphone.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Tajikistan_gold_teeth.jpg

streaming http://www.mtv.com/artists/lorde/

http://s9.postimg.org/67afm3mi7/lorde_jackson.jpg

ha!

brillant.

i really dislike this royals song

idk its not far from jj stuff which im def into but yea this is for really precocious tweens

has anyone been brave/interested enough to listen to the album stream

Yes.

Don't be afraid, none of the other songs are "shitting on rappers". It's actually all quite delicate and placid, like a more refined version of born to die

yea ive dipped in and out of the album and it's not as revolting

Glad to hear that, I enjoyed Team and Tennis Court before Royals abruptly ended my expectations.

love buzzcut season.

Been hearing Royals on the pop stations over here. It's a dull song for the top of the charts... it just sort of meanders.

I like the bell harmonies, but that's about it.

regardless of my opinion of "Royals," i feel like it's kind of an accomplishment to have a hit song that's just a simple skeletal beat and lots and lots of vocal tracks, trying to think if there's a precedent for that.

"O Superman"?

lol

i feel like it's kind of an accomplishment to have a hit song that's just a simple skeletal beat and lots and lots of vocal tracks, trying to think if there's a precedent for that

hi dere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkADj0TPrJA

that song has tons of keyboards and non-vocals/percussion textures, "Royals" does not

don't make me bust out "hey mickey"

smh let's pretend i never introduced this line of discussion

Drop It Like It's Hot?

I think tennis court and love club are better but yes, in a way I'm happy that a song like this has stepped over the more formulaic songs on the chart (eg. Gaga). I would be actually excited if a song like say last year's Grimes - Genesis was in that privileged place instead.

It's the kind of artist that I wouldn't find odd to see on the European charts but seeing it on the American charts makes me optimistic. Not the kind of music I love but I'll take it over the mentally disabled club hits of the Black Eyed Peas and its sinister influence on pop any day of the week.

The Black Eyed Peas? Was the last time you paid attention to the US charts 2011?

If you think the legacy of the BEP isn't all over the charts still in 2013, you probably have trouble with straight lines.

broadcast - (90% of what made broadcast interesting) + (OMG16!!!!!!!!!!) = lorde

The prediction in the first post looks increasingly ironic.

If you think the legacy of the BEP isn't all over the charts still in 2013, you probably have trouble with straight lines.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Thursday, September 26, 2013 2:55 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This year has been dominated by mid-tempos, 70s funk and disco rips, Drake, Calvin Harris wannabes, Ryan Lewis' productions and something called Imagine Dragons. I have no doubt the BEP legacy persists but its not as if we've been flooded with silly lolpop club tracks this year the way we were in 2009-2011 such that it makes sense to position Lorde as some kind of salve from their rampage.

Both Greer and Jf are right. The BEP (also, Guetta) legacy still goes on and I would argue that Calvin Harris comes from the same place as them (2011 wasn't that far ago). The point I was trying to make wasn't that Lorde is saving music, is that 2013 overall has felt refreshing (or at least more varied) than previous years and Lorde contributes to the variety. Greer is right in this point, this year hasn't been flooded with silly lolpop club tracks. I'm not arguing if it's a good song or a bad song, and it's no 'O Superman' for sure but I'm just happy it exists somewhere in the charts and that it has fared better than artists which make music strictly engineered to hit the charts like Avicii, Jay Z and Gaga. I want to think that this window between 2009-2011 had to happen and we were just readjusting for the next decade.

it's no 'O Superman' for sure

(Just want to note that I def agree with this; wasn't trying to equate the two)

How on earth is "Applause" generic at all? Either you're just painting with a broad brush because you disdain Gaga or you're missing ears.

By that logic you could say that "Royals" is generic, since it reminds me of way too much music that I got for free in the late '90s.

"Applause" sounds distinctly like Lady Gaga, but it totally sounds like a generic Lady Gaga song

I love Gaga, but I agree with Rev here. "Applause" is plug'n'play Gaga.

Based on the tracks filmed at the iTunes festival, there are some more interesting things coming on the album.

How is Applause not Gaga cashing in on past glories!? It's a generic Gaga song by all standards. She's not even trying to push forward. Comparing Lorde to Gaga is ridiculous, but that music that you got for free in the 90s didnt made it to the charts did it? In a way that's new. If it's a good or a bad thing it remains to be seen.

The pop charts have never been about being avant garde. You wont find anything new or mindblowing hitting the mainstream before it gets to the undercurrent. I'm defending the variety not the creativity behind it.

Why do I think it's important and gives me hope to have artists like say Gotye or Lorde or even fucking thicke on the charts? Because it pushes more artists to try and dig fucking harder. They're not the best but they're proof that going against what everyone else and breaking the rules works. Fortune favors the bold. I don't know if I should thank the audience and the artists for doing but I have seen good and bad years in pop music and the bad years have all been characterised by homogenity.

What music sounded like Lorde in the late 90s?

Agree with Moka here. Variety is vital. Formula just breeds formula and that post-BEP/Guetta period that has finally faded this year is the most oppressively monotonous that I can remember. I don't have to like every hit song - I sure as hell didn't even during the Top 40's golden age - to enjoy the fact that they don't sound like one another.

guys lorde and lana del rey are both in the top 10, the "gangsta moll" thing is a trend

treating post-winehouse post-adele balladry like it's the spice of life...enjoy it while you can

if winehouse lived i'm pretty sure she would have hopped on the '80s synth bandwagon

I just feel like the significance is being overstated. Fair play to you if you think this is a breath of fresh air, but it's not particularly bold or boundary-pushing musically and I don't see a reason to hail it as if it were. I wasn't a huge fan of that run of years where we seemed to get silly by-the-numbers club hits but then it got replaced by this Of Mumfords & Lumineers clap and stomp banjo music and fucking Macklemore, so variety is appreciated in theory but not always in practice. 12 kinds of shit is still shit.

reasons to like lorde (acc to this thread)

1. go new zealand!
2. david guetta sucks!

if anything i'm already bored with young ladies with old timey voices playing with hip-hop signifiers over twin peaks shit

Why do I think it's important and gives me hope to have artists like say Gotye or Lorde or even fucking thicke on the charts?

GOTYE and THICKE (let alone lorde) as examples of something NEW AND DIFFERENT??? god give me strength

will.i.am has made entire albums' worth of more innovative music than any of those artists, and some of it has even got into the charts

"Different" in context of pop at one moment in time =/ "innovative" or "boundary-pushing". Context innit?

Though I don't get how such an electronic album could suggest Amy/Adele old timey vibes.

3. She is 16
4. Her lyrics are ok at least not rank formula

I get how i lose my pass to objectivity cos I am from NZ but can you explain how and why Lorde is a 'Gangsta Moll' - what does this mean etc.

My current state: My kids like her - personally I am heartily sick of every song i have heard sung endlessly over the breakfast table. But I also can remember when I got obsessed with pop muisc in the 80's and that opened up a whole world of goodness til now. SO I like the excitement of the phenom. without really personally being moved much at all by the music.

Hearing a song sung over the breakfast table by my daughters actually makes me like it more!

I mean she sounds a lot like a way less interesting version of Laika/Pram/Broadcast/tons of other acts on Too Pure and other labels to me. Never mind the Lana Del Rey Jr. thing that's going on, which is made even more explicit on the "Born To Die"-biting "Team."

Also "Generic Gaga" != "Generic Pop." You can't say that "Applause" sounds like any of the Guetta-by-numbers stuff that's been clogging up the airwaves over the last 24 months.

Lorde: Meet the 16-Year-Old Pop Prodigy Who's Sick of Rappers Talking About Money

heh

smh

So how old do you think she actually is? 19? 20? Is she Lil Mamaing it????

if you escaped what she escaped you'd be in new zealand with your nose up too

did someone speculate on her age being fake? i missed that

Oh, ever since I was burned by Trixter I am distrustful of any major-label-pushed prodigy. And given that this case seems to be so designed to appeal to a particular type of adult...

yeah i dunno. i feel like occasional lies about age in pop music are usually pretty transparent and easy to disprove (sometime in the month since her album came out K. Michelle's official age has gone from 31 to 27 lol). the more involved conspiracy theories about Beyonce or Lil Wayne lying about their age seem kinda goofy and far fetched. didn't Lil Mama just not look super youthful and people speculated, no evidence ever came to light?

What was the story about Trixter?

xp I don't buy this "derivative" line. It always feels like a way of cementing initial dislike rather than a reason for that dislike. It's like how people who don't like Haim say they're ripping off Tango in the Night/Shania Twain/Wilson Phillips/whoever without noting all the ways in which they don't. Or Gaga-haters who say she's just Madonna redux. There's something of LDR in the phrasing of a handful of lines on Team and Tennis Court but not the tone, subject matter, production or persona.

I thought I made myself clear, lex. I meant new and different when compared to the other chart hits around them at some given time.

She's new & different when compared to the chart hits of two years ago, but again "Summertime Sadness" is in the charts with "Royals." And both basically conflate the Winehouse thing with the Drive soundtrack thing.

Still love that her most vociferous defenders don't claim to actually really enjoy her music, they just support her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9S-88WxPdE

also dig the new katy perry single

well the 'summertime sadness' that's in the charts is an edm rework that shaves off a lot of what makes ldr's music compelling (if not quite good, at least interesting)

lol i had no idea there was a remix - though i've definitely heard the original on sirius

point remains that if your response to a trouble girl over snap beats and synths is "wow, what a breath of fresh air" enjoy that cuz it will soon fade

I think what bugs me most about "Royals" is that it's like a weird hybrid of "Gucci Gucci" and "Thrift Shop" in that it uses all the brand names in its pre-chorus to instigate a singalong (of brands regularly cited by hip-hop culture) that's then denigrated by the person leading it. That songs like this are doing so well while hip-hop gets pushed out of the big board should be worth noting, no?

yes but disco sucks

xp I enjoy her music plenty. If I didn't I wouldn't care about supporting her. Kind of obvious imo.

sorry DL between the initial Kiwi patriots and Moka's "just glad for a break from the boom boom boom" i forgot you were neither

Still love that her most vociferous defenders don't claim to actually really enjoy her music, they just support her.

I won't be vociferous about it, but I enjoy the music a lot. At least, the 7 songs I have from the EP and single. Reasons being something like: good hooks, decent singing (sometimes her affectations get the better of her, but usually not), I like the sparse production and the layered vocal backing, and while she sounds sort of like other people and other things, she also doesn't entirely sound like anyone else.

Also, when I heard Royals on the local r&b station, it fit in way better than I expected and actually helped the song (or at least its success) make more sense to me.

Which is to say, I think the song is probably being happily embraced by fans of the music she's allegedly trashing, because I don't think she's actually really trashing that music at all. She's reacting to it from a fan's perspective -- it's more a poke in the ribs than a slap in the face.

to be clear i don't think it's badly made or anything - striking arrangement, hooks, it's totally right for this song to be one of the most successful of the "love the beats, hate the message" yelps about rap culture. i just find that sentiment grating and have to compunction about ribbing those who can't get why it would be.

have no compunction, i mean

and also when someone sets it in bold opposition to the monotony nu-disco (even referencing a figure who hasn't had a US Top 40 in over a yaer), c'mon that's too easy

xp Phew I thought I was ILX's one lonely Lorde fan. I was getting cold.

I think there's a significant gap between what Lorde thinks Royals is about (a suburban New Zealander feeling estranged from mainstream pop and saying "this is how I feel" not "they should stop doing this") and what a lot of its fans, and journalists, think it's about (Boo! Rappers!) but I know that the bigger it gets the more the latter overshadows the former. Massive hit singles aren't allowed to have subtle or ambivalent messages - they get turned into bumper stickers.

I just think the intent is a little different than that. Not so much that she "hates" the message as that she thinks it's boring. Like I said before, it sounds to me more like a generational reaction than a cultural one.

Plus also I think it's a kind of hilarious to get all stern-faced tut-tutting about the cultural sanctity of Cristal and Maybachs.

if anything this is just old hat - new wave took the beats from disco and left the rest for baseball stadium riots

Uh, "stern-faced tut-tutting about the cultural sanctity of Cristal and Maybachs" is not at all what I am doing. What I am saying is that the politics behind that affected "oh, rap, you so silly" attitude (by white artists) presents an interesting wrinkle here in the States, where rap and hip-hop made by African-Americans has been pretty much relegated out of the upper reaches of both the Hot 100 and (thanks to recent chart policy changes) the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart.

And add that to the "That Lorde, she's so AUTHENTIC" head-patting done by people like the woman who wrote the "Lana Del Ray" piece linked above, and, well, you get a fairly clear picture of where pop-cultural politics are these days.

*drives off in delorean with ROCKISM license plate*

not to say she's an evil monster for being one of the arty kids major labels run to when an increasingly samey, commercial genre crests (that the guetta akon ne-yo number that samples "better off alone" can't get past #64 sure says something). I don't want her indicted for cultural crimes, just don't feel the need to cheer the belated pop crossover of chillwave and "old soul" vocalizing

esp when it's "disco sucks" sentiment is so overt. give me a valentine like "safe & sound"

I guess, I don't know. The song seems more funny than anything else to me, so I'm not sure where I stand on its politics. But I feel mostly the same about Miley's twerking, so there you go.

it's like when that guy had the i hate pink floyd t shirt but later didn't he say he didn't really hate them, it was more complicated.

"old soul" vocalizing

Yeah, I don't hear that in here either. Maybe it helps to hear more of her stuff, but her vocal style is not very Winehousey at all.

I am bemused by the fairly universal snarky reaction to my posts so I guess I will take the hint and leave it with this last attempt. I find it odd how I can't admit to liking the story more than the music. I like the 'pop narrative' around this whole thing - the fairytale quality of a sixteen year old girl from an obscure country crossing over - yep I guess cos she is from the country I live in the story becomes slightly more interesting. I accept that. I guess it is faintly embarrassing to admit to this. Knee jerk patriotism is a dumb concept I would completely agree but nevertheless I cannot deny that this is one of the reasons I am more interested in Lorde. As I said earlier I am getting a kick out of seeing young kids having a more realistic, less air brushed, down to earth role model than Taylor Swift or Rihanna or Gaga. I also think if you live in the mighty USA - which has dominated western culture for a significant amount of time you may not quite get the same feeling as a person from a tiny country in the Pacific does when this kind of thing happens. Even if I was not from here though I still think I would find this story interesting and Lorde refreshing.

I mainly just came on here to say I think she is being misrepresented if you think she is 'attacking rap' and that her having an image as that of a 'gangstas moll' does not seem to to hold up...especially the 'gangstas moll' thing. I can accept that she does sound somewhat like LDR at times but in terms of her image and marketing I don't see the whole 'I am a sultry male plaything' that is going on with LDR. I have yet to see any evidence of her using sexuality as crassly or overtly as is implied in this phrase. It is obviously just me though.

I like Lorde and her album, I am rooting for her. That being in said, in almost all of her songs she positions herself as some sort of alternative to what is the general consensus. Lyrically and stylistically. All the teenagers I know love her for being 'different' and it's such a strong leitmotiv it can only be a carefully crafted image since day one. Heck, she announces herself on Still Sane. Lorde is as airbrushed and prepared as Swift or Gaga, which doesn't make her any better or lesser an artist, I don't think the discussion should be around that point.

Actually, I know very little of Swift so I'll retract that. As prepared and airbrushed as any pop artist is what I mean.

Some of the ILM reaction to this song reminds me of the criticism of "Thrift Shop," in that cultural/racial politics -- some of it inherent to the song, some of it external (i.e. "This gets played on top 40 stations, but actual rap does not") -- becomes the only prism through which the song can be heard. Perhaps I am inclined to defend both songs because my wife likes them so much (I was ambivalent about both on first listen), but if you were to ask her what she likes about them, it would probably be the strong hooks, memorable language, dynamic personalities, etc. Lyrically, she might find the perspectives interesting or novel (in the context of chart pop) but doesn't experience them (or derive value from them) as political statements.

I do think there's an astonishing amount of baggage being piled onto Lorde, for good and ill. If it was, say, 2011, Thrift Shop had never happened and there wasn't currently this issue with black artists and airplay would the song be provoking such intense responses?

Maybe not, but both those songs are obnoxious as fuck regardless of whether I find their politics distasteful.

"If it was, say, 2011, Thrift Shop had never happened and there wasn't currently this issue with black artists and airplay would the song be provoking such intense responses?"

Well would the songs have gotten on the air in the first place?

I mean, it's not like "Gucci Gucci" (from 2011, and laden with similar baggage) crossed over.

Yeah, by intense responses I mean pro as well as anti.

The album was kinda deeply boring on the first two listens.

i don't think the lyrics to "Royals" are deeply offensive per se, just a little "cool story, sis"

my kids got album...played it a few times...agreed it is fairly ordinary. Including a lyric sheet has been good for them to sing along to and they seem to love it.although my youngest is concerned about the swear words.so we had to talk about that.

Perhaps I am inclined to defend both songs because my wife likes them so much (I was ambivalent about both on first listen), but if you were to ask her what she likes about them, it would probably be the strong hooks, memorable language, dynamic personalities, etc. Lyrically, she might find the perspectives interesting or novel (in the context of chart pop) but doesn't experience them (or derive value from them) as political statements.

my wife likes "royals" too, but defending something because it's possible to ignore the political statements feels misguided to me. Lots of Washington http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG fans don't care about the word "http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG," but that's no reason to defend there being a team called the http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG.

ok i'm going to assume there was some football thread drama i was unaware of

haha wtf

i mean shit "take back the night" is the only recent JT song I have any time for, but I'm not going to claim the co-option of an anti-rape slogan to sell MGD isn't bullshit just because I find the track peppy. Ignoring the sensitivities of others is one thing, defending your right to ignore them is another.

Right, but what if I think the people taking issue with their perception of the song's politics are basically just misreading the entire thing and forcing an ill-fitting shoe on the wrong foot? Because that's more where I am.

Of course, I also think there are serious problems with the glib way appropriation accusations get thrown around. For the record I also don't think Elvis was a straight-up racist simple and plain. And I think music is more interesting as an ongoing, fluid conversation than as a series of gated communities or Balkan factions

Elvis doesn't need to be a racist to make what he did objectionable and this gated community argument is kind of bullshit optimism that blatantly ignores how these "conversations" actually tend to go down: with black-originating music being degraded by wider culture and usually only finding acceptance when a white person co-opts it. It's not a balanced exchange at all.

Well, if you think what Elvis did was objectionable, then I guess that at least clarifies the terms of the discussion.

And hip-hop doesn't even fit the model you're talking about (not that any music ever has as neatly as polemicists like to pretend). The whole reason people are apparently offended is that hip-hop became enough of a lingua franca for a kid in New Zealand to absorb it as part of mainstream culture.

Mother f him and john wayne

haha just saw a producer tweet his "New @Lorde x @LanaDelRey Type Beat"

ok i'm going to assume there was some football thread drama i was unaware of

― da croupier, Saturday, September 28, 2013 5:08 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we just decided to replace the offending term with something we liked

haha surprise hatcat is the best hatcat

Decide for yourself how capable she is of writing Royals after reading this
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/9208190/Our-Lady-Lorde-The-Kiwi-schoolgirl-turned-pop-Royalty

my wife likes "royals" too, but defending something because it's possible to ignore the political statements feels misguided to me.

The extent to which I am "defending" "Royals" is that I want there to be some room to enjoy it as an aesthetic work, aside from its broader cultural implications. I dislike that "problematic" songs are dismissed so thoroughly, with anything potentially interesting about them cast aside in the service of a rhetorical point. Like, I think there are some sharp and useful critical readings of "Royals," and there's probably a great essay somewhere about the relationship of Macklemore, Lorde, Miley Cyrus, etc., to hip-hop and their ascendance in popularity as black artists disappear from top 40 radio. I don't want to outright ignore any of that stuff, because I find it fascinating. But I'd like to be able to recognize and appreciate those critical perspectives while also loudly singing along to "Royals" on the highway because it sounds great and it makes my life more pleasurable.

To be fair, I get that some (most?) people find more value in a song's "meaning" (or their perception of it) than I do. I typically don't pay a whole lot of attention to what a song is "about" until I read about it elsewhere or ask my wife to explain it to me. So if that kind of thing is always at the forefront of your listening experience, then it makes sense that it would cast a larger shadow. I also totally understand Rev's comment that "Royals" sounds "obnoxious"; I don't agree, but it makes sense as a rationale for disliking the song.

Ultimately, though, I don't want to take sides. The first time I heard "Thrift Shop," something about an anti-bling sentiment coming from a goofy white guy made me uneasy. But I also liked the hooks (both Wanz's chorus vocals and the "Calabria 2007"-like sax that recurs throughout) -- and I quickly found myself caught between various people in my life who loved the song and ILMers who groaned "Macklemore is the worst." If I've "defended" "Thrift Shop" on this board (crut's outstanding denunciation of Macklemore was in response to a post of mine asking, essentially, "Why is he so bad and hated?"), it's from this middle ground, where both the full embrace and the strenuous indictment are difficult for me to accept.

(Btw, my wife and I both like "Gucci Gucci," which is super-fun to sing along to, although she wouldn't let me play it at our wedding.)

bear in mind, I don't know jack shit about NZ and I'm discussing the climate in which this song would be embraced and consumed in the us by white listeners

This is key. I'm not really mad at Lorde, she just seems like an ignorant kid more than anything (as opposed to Macklemore who is 30 and seems to have put a lot more misguided thought into what he's doing), but the way this has been taken up by the US public is totally predictable and emblematic of everything I hate about 2013.

― The Reverend, Tuesday, September 17, 2013 3:07 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ this is how i feel too

i don't expect everybody to see things with the same kind of narrative that i do, & i'm all for people ~speaking their minds~ about american cultural imperialism or whatever you want to call it, but the trajectory of a song like this in the broader context of what's happening to our culture, whose voices are being heard and whose are being increasingly drowned out, is p troubling/infuriating to me. also it is just a cringeworthy dull song imo.

the broader context of what's happening to our culture, whose voices are being heard and whose are being increasingly drowned out

I think this context is being a little myopically defined, for a couple of reasons. One, there are plenty of prominent black American pop artists in heavy circulation, whatever the charts might say in a given week. My 9-year-old son's favorite band is Black Eyed Peas -- which I promise you is not because of my influence -- and he can spot Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Drake and Lil Wayne on the radio as easily as he can name Maroon 5, Justin Bieber, Pink or Katy Perry. Two, to frame "what is happening in our culture" as some kind of sneak attack by white supremacists or something is to miss what's really happening, which is globalization of pop culture. And yes that has some serious implications for minority voices, not just here but pretty much everywhere. (See also discussion of the decline in black leading roles in Hollywood action films.) But it also very much represents a deterioration of "American cultural imperialism" -- wherein American pop culture was the only one that mattered -- and so at the very least is a complex evolutionary step that resists being boiled down to Classic or Dud. In retrospect, the near-total domination of American pop culture by hip-hop in the late '90s/early '00s was not only a harbinger of a minority-majority future, but also a product of a whole set of demographic and technological shifts that ended up eroding it almost as quickly as they created it. That's not to diminish the high-water mark of Oct. 11, 2003, which any cultural historian will have an easy time reading as the Dawn of Obama. But I think reading what's happening now (with or without Lorde) as some kind of retrenchment is pretty wide of the mark.

And back to Lorde, the most interesting thing about that pretty-good essay she wrote is her self-conscious identification as a "kid" vs. the "adults" -- which, again, reinforces my hearing of "Royals" as a generational statement and not a racial/cultural one. I think one reason the song is a big hit is that the chorus probably resonates with a lot of 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds, regardless of their race or place.

i want to thank kurt cobain for not flat out saying "We don't care about commercialism" in "Smells Like Teen Spirit" cuz that is some corny bs

i'm not just talking about white voices vs. nonwhite voices, also i am otm

i mean, even if you're young enough to not realize the connotations of a phrase like "disco sucks," saying "disco sucks" in your new wave song is trite

Right, except I don't think the song says that, so idk.

so you don't think it says commercialism sucks, you don't think it says rap sucks, what the heck DO you think it says that appeals so much to 14-16 year olds and you

pretty sure "cultural imperialism sucks" isn't what 14-16 year olds stateside are getting out of it

I think it says old ppl's music is boring.

i could almost see that in the pre-chorus if the actual chorus wasn't

And we'll never be royals (royals).
It don't run in our blood,
That kind of luxe just ain't for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz.

to pretend she's not making connotations about blood and class beyond "generation" is pretty blinkered

the very first words are

I've never seen a diamond in the flesh
I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies

and I don't think she's saying "because i'm 14"

i will admit that age is part of why i can't get excited about an atypically overt totem of a cyclical moment in culture just for BEING one. Neither as cute or danceable as "Kids In America."

I liked "Royals" better than a lot of people on this thread but I'm totally unclear on what 'old people's music' would mean in this context, when a 9-year-old listens to the Black Eyed Peas, Drake, Lil Wayne, etc.

Why can't the kiddies come up with a nose-thumbing rap co-option as good as "Loser," I ask you.

"Royals" is far from a 'rap co-option', whatever else it may be!

hip-hop co-option, jesus

Hell I don't even think the song's very coherent, which fortunately for me isn't one of my primary criteria for art, pop or otherwise. One minute she's shrugging off the bling, the next she's fantasizing about being a ruler. But I think it's basically a rejection of (what she perceives as) the prevailing mode of will-to-power fantasy, for which she substitutes her own, more earthy one. Which is very much bound up in a generational sense that what came before is played out, and wanting to replace it with something on her own terms.

As for cyclical moments in culture, I guess you can find them interesting or not. I've only been alive 44 years, so I still think it's interesting when a wheel turns like that. If I live to be 500, I might start to find them a little familiar.

I'm totally unclear on what 'old people's music' would mean in this context, when a 9-year-old listens to the Black Eyed Peas, Drake, Lil Wayne, etc.

Well Lorde obviously listens to them too, right? That's kind of the point. A lot of the people my son listens to have been making music for longer than he's been alive, so to him these are very much part of the established order of things.

i didn't say i find the moment uninteresting, i said i don't find individual examples inherently interesting.

let alone good.

Oh yeah, I get what you're saying there.

2xpost

"We Can't Stop" : Vine videos :: "Royals" : Upworthy

Stop What You're Doing And Listen To This Auckland Teenager Explain What's Wrong With Materialism In An Incredibly Catchy 4 Minute Pop Song

lol otm

it is a really catchy song

you don't think it says rap sucks

Nope, I absolutely 100% do not. Because singing about wealth is broader than hip hop ("bloodstains, ballgowns" isn't hip hop imagery) and hip hop is broader than singing about wealth.

Just throwing this first impression out there: naively or not, fwiw, when I first knew the lyrics, I did interpret "gold teeth, Grey Goose" to be about hip-hop but interpreted "trippin in the bathroom" to be a Miley Cyrus reference (chronology?) and "ball gowns" to be a Taylor Swift reference.

I thought ball gowns was Lana Del Rey but yeah, the point is she's not fixating solely on hip hop imagery.

funny thing about the BEP reference earlier is this song could totally be Fergie

not that it sounds identical per se, but if and when she ever makes another hit, I doubt she'll be against snap beats, striking arrangements and lyrics about how she craves a different kind of buzz

"London Bridge" prominently references Grey Goose, too.

I thought ball gowns was Lana Del Rey

Yeah, that makes sense, considering her citing of LDR as an influence.

I think what bugs me most about "Royals" is that it's like a weird hybrid of "Gucci Gucci" and "Thrift Shop" in that it uses all the brand names in its pre-chorus to instigate a singalong (of brands regularly cited by hip-hop culture) that's then denigrated by the person leading it. That songs like this are doing so well while hip-hop gets pushed out of the big board should be worth noting, no?

― maura, Friday, September 27, 2013 1:37 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

booming post

sorry DL between the initial Kiwi patriots and Moka's "just glad for a break from the boom boom boom" i forgot you were neither

― da croupier, Friday, September 27, 2013 1:41 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it`s a testament to the power and endurance of BEP's legacy that reading this ilx post got boom boom pow stuck in my head

It's really amazing to see some of the "sleep that's where I'm a precocious Kiwi viking" level shit the defenders are pulling out itt

maura otm - that's the cog dissonance, if she's really anti-materialistic and didn't care about bling, she wouldn't make the incantation of said lifestyle the fucking chorus of her song

ITT: Americans revelling in their cultural defaultness.

it is a really catchy song

I think all this discussion and analysis has made me grow to really love the song.

ITT: Americans revelling in their cultural defaultness.

i'm also guilty of this when i suggest neil finn isn't exceptional

I’m kinda older than I was when I reveled in my cultural defaultness without a care..so there.

ah, but i was so much older then - i'm younger than that now

regardless of my opinion of "Royals," i feel like it's kind of an accomplishment to have a hit song that's just a simple skeletal beat and lots and lots of vocal tracks, trying to think if there's a precedent for that.

― Jean-Claude Brand Ambassador (some dude), Wednesday, September 25, 2013 7:28 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

man 'hide and seek' felt like a much bigger hit than it actually was due to the OC

Two, to frame "what is happening in our culture" as some kind of sneak attack by white supremacists or something is to miss what's really happening, which is globalization of pop culture. And yes that has some serious implications for minority voices, not just here but pretty much everywhere. (See also discussion of the decline in black leading roles in Hollywood action films.) But it also very much represents a deterioration of "American cultural imperialism" -- wherein American pop culture was the only one that mattered -- and so at the very least is a complex evolutionary step that resists being boiled down to Classic or Dud.

i think this is an interesting point - but is it really accurate to label this phenomenon 'globalization of pop culture'? put differently, is the deterioration of 'american cultural imperialism' really so significant when some of the air that rushes to fill the vacuum is also sourced from the queen's colonies?

i mean i think it does say something that guys like Pitbull and PSY make the songs that occupy the kind of international rap hit role once occupied by, i dunno, old 50 Cent songs

oh for sure, the dominance of gangnam style* is definitely worth talking about w/r/t the 'decline of american cultural imperialism.' i just don't think that conversation is very interesting to have, though, when the mantle is being given to artists from other western, english-speaking countries.

*and of course, if you squint at it, it's really just the macarena updated for the youtube era.

"rock me amadeus"

my first instinct was to reference 99 luftballoons and/or rock me amadeus but i wasn't around for either of those occurrences and looking at the time both spent at #1, neither seemed to be as dominant as the macarena or gangnam style (talking purely in time spent at #1)

"time spent at #1" today incorporates youtube in a way that MTV wasn't incorporated back in the day, but really the takeaway for all of this is the America has historically been willing to say yes to a super-catchy foreign language song, esp if it has an eye-catching video, esp if it has a dance to go with it.

and i honestly don't know how one can get "globalization of pop culture" from lorde, it's a catchy song that struck a nerve from down under. Not remotely without precedent.

and pretending that people chafing at the amount of overtly critical hip-hop appropriation on the chart is the same as claiming there's "some kind of sneak attack by white supremacists" is mad disingenuous.

"time spent at #1" today incorporates youtube in a way that MTV wasn't incorporated back in the day

yeah i mean i think this is an interesting conversation that can be had about the 'globalization of pop' - does billboard differentiate between views originating from within the US vs without? and yeah, my point was that lorde is surely not gonna be the starting point for any discussion about the globalization of pop.

Billboard only counts U.S.-based YouTube views.

is that data that people playing along at home can get access to?

"ugh, silverchair. I'm so sick of grunge bellyaching on the charts. Fuck grunge."

"LEAVE DANIEL JOHNS ALONE! He's 16 and Australian, how can you assume he's part of some 'get grunge on the radio' conspiracy. This is madness, accusing him of being a grunge propagandist. The real thing that's happening is the globalization of pop."

xp Hm, I'm not sure.

i honestly don't know how one can get "globalization of pop culture" from lorde

WRT globalization, I was talking about the issue of fewer black artists on the US charts -- a statistical fact vs. 10 years ago, but one that I think has more complicated causes than whatever vague conspiracy it's been attributed to (a conspiracy that Lorde was drafted into by association further up in the thread). Where I think "Royals" actually comes into that discussion is that it is both part of and responding to a pop culture global enough that Kiwi teens make jokes about Maybachs and Cristal, and American teens get the joke.

new zealanders referencing maybachs feels more like the barenaked ladies watching the x files with no lights on than it does a harbinger of some new level of global pop culture attained, tbh

Because non-American English speakers are inherently goofy and provincial? Or what?

I liked Flight of the Conchords, but I didn't think it was a documentary.

i just don't get what you mean by a 'global pop culture' when all the referencing that is going on is done by people in english speaking western countries

and fwiw nobody is claiming there's a 'vague conspiracy' behind the declining number of black artists on the charts, it's directly attributable to the changes billboard made

i'm not going to debate whether institutional racism is the fault of a "vague conspiracy" or "something more complicated" because wtf

i just don't get what you mean by a 'global pop culture'

Well it's not exactly new -- there's been a growing global pop culture ever since recorded media started circulating. But the Internet has obviously accelerated it greatly. I think the EDM-ization of American pop music is part of that. (And yes, there are countercurrents against that, the Mumford axis etc, there's always more than one thing going on.)

i'm not going to debate whether institutional racism is the fault of a "vague conspiracy" or "something more complicated" because wtf

So institutional racism is the reason there are fewer black artists on the charts now than in 2003?

you skipped a line, re: billboard

Right, but the changes Billboard made reflect the same changes I'm talking about re technology and the music industry more broadly. So how does all of that add up to institutional racism, and what is Lorde's role in it?

(Not trolling, just curious. I think these are all things worth talking about, I just think Lorde is the wrong target and people are mishearing the song. If I was trolling, I'd post that concert video of her covering Kanye.)

people are upset because sloppy changes in billboard (yes, in reaction to changes in tech, but sloppy nonetheless) are not just ghettoizing certain artists, but basically booting them out of their side-chart ghettos. meanwhile, there's been a wave of white artists storming the charts sloppily appropriating aspects of hip-hop and criticizing others. in this environment, Lorde conflating hip-hop-era new money identifiers and old money identifiers in a statement of lower class pride is not looked at as exciting proof of a "global pop culture," but something to ugh about.

you keep painting this as people complaining about a "conspiracy" or that people want to "indict her for cultural crimes." If this isn't trolling, it's needlessly defensive goalpost-moving.

personally, take away the billboard nonsense and it's still a lyrically muddled, corny "i'm different" anthem. good arrangement, though.

Yeah the constant use of "conspiracy" is off-putting. As if the removal of black artists from the upper wrung of the charts while songs decrying tropes in such artists' music have had runaway success isn't an observable statistical fact and is instead some theory some people here have conjured up. And I'm pretty sure no one is accusing Lorde of intentionality w/r/t this trend, just of being put off by yet another contribution to it, however unintended.

Every decade gets the "I'd Rather Jack" it needs.

And I'm pretty sure no one is accusing Lorde of intentionality w/r/t this trend, just of being put off by yet another contribution to it, however unintended.

I think lumping together "Gucci Gucci," Macklemore and Lorde as a trend is tendentious to start with because I don't think they have much in common (except I guess that they're all youngish people playing with established pop tropes). Tying them even indirectly to changes in Billboard chart-keeping as if to suggest that there's some ongoing effort to "remove" anyone from anywhere does get close to conspiracy thinking, or at least requires an aggressively grim reading of the pop landscape that (imo) bulldozes right over a lot of other, more potentially interesting things to make an aggrieved point.

Also, of course, I just think it's a basic misunderstanding of this one particular song.

Again, no one is suggesting they're all in cahoots, just that they and their popularity represent trends quite a few of us don't like. It's like you need people to be arguing a conspiracy to more easily invalidate what's actually being said.

wouldn't the "it's a generational thing not a racial/cultural thing" interpretation rest on the assumption that hip-hop is old ppl's music? which uhhhh

tbh all this song really makes me think is "come back lana del rey all is forgiven"

Lex, I don't think it's about hip-hop -- or "hip-hop" as a genre/category distinct from pop culture as a whole. And yeah the music she's talking about is old people's music, if you're 16. "Big Pimpin" e.g. came out when she was 2 or 3. Plus like I said above she's obviously a fan anyway -- hearing this song as some of anti-hip-hop screed rather than as pop playfully eating itself requires some kind of determined didacticism. (As for the chorus sneering at cake but eating it too, well yeah -- that's why the song's fun. If it was actually an I-hate-cake song, I don't think it would be a giant hit.)

hearing this song as some of anti-hip-hop screed rather than as pop playfully eating itself requires some kind of determined didacticism.

See I'd say the opposite

This sing is so much less complex than you are making it

Also go check the Billboard thread it's not PC conspiracy theory to observe the changes that were made by Billboard and to easily see which demographics lost and which ones won.

And to say the changes were made in response to technology as a defense ignores the fact that not all groups have the same access to t technology...cf I'm sure a lot of the radio videos I see the kids watching and the library would have more hits if the kids didn't had access to the Internet in their homes

that's rap videos not radio videos

Anyway Katherine was being Nabisco level otm otm ITT

greer also completely otm

This sing is so much less complex than you are making it

Haha, that's what I feel like I've been trying to say! I don't think it's particularly complex, and I don't think it has much to do with the things it's being accused of or freighted with itt.

it's not PC conspiracy theory to observe the changes that were made by Billboard and to easily see which demographics lost and which ones won

No, but using phrases like "the removal of black artists" from the charts ascribes intentions that start to sound like conspiracy pretty quickly.

I don't really think it does ascribe intent, and I've stated a couple times that intentions of the artist/Billboard are irrelevant here and not central to the point being made. So if you want to continue to argue a point I've explicitly said I'm not making because you're being a pedant about phrasing and word choice, then that's on you.

And to say the changes were made in response to technology as a defense ignores the fact that not all groups have the same access to t technology...cf I'm sure a lot of the radio videos I see the kids watching and the library would have more hits if the kids didn't had access to the Internet in their homes

Doesn't any kind of chart favour economically privileged groups, by definition? LP or 7" sales figures surely reflected that some groups had more money to spend on records and record players. I can definitely believe that the reckoning is being done in a ham-handed way in the current situation, though.

what billboard charts are based on LP or 7" sales figures? or is that just hypothetically speaking

Ones that were published when those were the main formats for buying recordings?

Radio airplay is the most economically accessible form of music access

Also go read the thread sund4r

But if you don't look at the specific changes made to the Billboard charts, then look at whose benefited and you don't see that there appears to be a very big promotion of artists that appeal to certain demographics over others I don't know what to say

OK, I'll read the thread ("iTunes, Billboard, and marginalization..."?) more closely. I guess I was responding knee-jerk to that paragraph in your post.

sund4r's "i have no idea what you're talking about but here let me apply LOGIC to it" routine itt is nagl

This is key. I'm not really mad at Lorde, she just seems like an ignorant kid more than anything (as opposed to Macklemore who is 30 and seems to have put a lot more misguided thought into what he's doing), but the way this has been taken up by the US public is totally predictable and emblematic of everything I hate about 2013.

― The Reverend, Tuesday, September 17, 2013 3:07 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still think this is the most otm post itt

Routine? I probably did that right now and recognised it right away. Otherwise, all I did when responding to katherine was ask for her to explain things she'd thought through more than I had. And when responding to tipsy mothra about 'old people's music', I basically just raised the same point you did.

xpost to lex

i hear her family home is worth like two milli, i wonder if she'd have the same success railing against her parents as she has railing against black ppl

ooof truth bomb

oof unsourced hearsay bomb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUGQBc8FsP4

.Chiraqi Freedom 2 hours ago

THE REALNESS IS THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS BOUT 2 SHUT DOWN. FUCK DIS LIL WHITE BITCH. song is fire tho
Reply ·

hip-hop is old people's music btw

wait a sec are australians getting defensive abt lorde now

First they came for the ball gowns, and I didn't speak up because I didn't have any ball gowns. Then they came for the Grey Goose, and I didn't speak up because I already drank it all. Then they came for the Maybachs, and there was nobody left to speak up for me.

(OK, now I'm trolling. I'm sorry. I'll just say I like the song and I'm curious about the album, and leave it at that.)

cut yrself some slack -- in a thread where "royals" can be seriously described as "railing against black ppl" it's p hard to tell where the the trolling bar is set.

or for that matter a thread where hip-hop can be seriously described as "old people's music"

hip hop is about as old now as rock was in 1985 (when i was born)(milennial), and for pretty much my whole life rock has m/l felt like "old ppl's music".

A.) I didn't say "hip-hop," part of my point is that to hear this song as being about hip-hop -- as opposed to a reaction/answer to pop culture more broadly -- is to pretty much mis-hear it entirely

But also B.) Of course hip-hop is "old people's music" from the perspective of a 16-year-old. I was being flippant with that phrase, but it's demographically true. Biggie died when she was 6 months old. That's the equivalent of Jimi Hendrix to someone born in 1969. It's music that you grow up with as part of the landscape. You might like it or love it, but it's still music of an earlier generation.

xpost exactly.

But also B.) Of course hip-hop is "old people's music" from the perspective of a 16-year-old. I was being flippant with that phrase, but it's demographically true. Biggie died when she was 6 months old. That's the equivalent of Jimi Hendrix to someone born in 1969. It's music that you grow up with as part of the landscape. You might like it or love it, but it's still music of an earlier generation.

except our 16 year old strawperson doesn't view "hip hop" as some monolithic "music" that is equally represented in their mind by the Cold Crush Brothers and Fu-Schnickens and Biggie and Missy Elliott and Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj

just as the born in 69 strawperson felt Jimi Hendrix was "old ppl's music" our new fictional strawteen probably feels that way abt his pop's Tupac tapes but doesn't feel that Nicki or Drake or Chief Keef or whoever is the same thing, just the same way that the born in 69 person probably felt about like REM or Metallica or whatever

hip hop is about as old now as rock was in 1985 (when i was born)(milennial), and for pretty much my whole life rock has m/l felt like "old ppl's music".

― sleepingbag, Monday, September 30, 2013 3:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't really get this, it's as if you had the same feeling about Static X and the Doobie Brothers

i have the same feeling about static x and the doobie brothers. TURN IT UP.

except our 16 year old strawperson doesn't view "hip hop" as some monolithic "music"

They might not even view hip-hop as something apart and distinct from pop music in general. It could just be what's on the radio.

But monolithic or not, our 16-year-old non-strawperson evidently views a certain strata of the pop universe as kinda boring and played out. (And da croupier finds her boring in return, which in a perfect world would mean we're all even and can go back to listening to Paramore.)

I thought ball gowns was Lana Del Rey

I see she actually stated this explicitly:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/30/lorde-interview-royals-one-watch

i am just going to pop in to say that none of my 16-year old students view hip hop as old people music fwiw. not even biggie and tupac, with whom they are obsessed, but esp. not the rappers lorde's referring to in this song.

lol anecdata

not even the kids who make a big point of not liking hip-hop for lorde-esque reasons, the minority at my school, think of it as old people music. they think of hip-hop as the music their "ratchet" peers like. i hate to use that word, but it's the one they use. all these kids are black, btw.

i think a lot of my students would meet the argument that the particularity of hip hop has dissolved into a globalized pop culture with an eyebrow raise.

no horseshoe i'm afraid you're wrong, tipsy has good contacts in the fictional teen community

Ok but how many of those kids like "Royals," and/or how many of them think it's an assault on all they hold dear?

how many times are you going to overstate critiques to the point of absurdity?

Until the critiques stop seeming absurd, I suppose.

does it stem from a defensiveness about liking the song or a more general "sick of oversensitive liberals" thing?

She's started feuding with Azealia Banks now. Internet rite of passage.

that is too perfect

Link?

twitter dot com

Hey tipsy it's possible for people that are generally intelligent and not crazy kkk members to say or think things that are racially problematic. Things like gold teeth etc are dog whistles and you fucking know it.

Banks vs Lorde twitter beef?

hoping for heavy casualties on both sides

Nothing on either feeds

Azealia has since deleted it, but she put up a screenshot of tweets Lorde made back in January insulting her music and making fun of her constant feuds.

The horror

The old Lorde tweet is here: https://twitter.com/lordemusic/statuses/288122662763520001

Seems people found the tweet and were tagging Azealia specifically to bring attention to the tweet and have her start drama(which kinda worked).

I guess people bringing that to her attention is why Azelia deleted the tweet about liking her too?

Why am I so late to the Lorde Party??? I love this girlllll !
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) September 29, 2013

http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/news/37105/Azealia-Banks-cuts-another-festival-set-short-at-Listen-Out-Sydney

I see she actually stated this explicitly:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/30/lorde-interview-royals-one-watch

I knew she was precocious, but I was not expecting that Gordon Lish reference!

Popular music is not, er, segregated into separate audiences and charts, in New Zealand the way it is in the U.S. They only have one major chart - there's no Hot Rap/R&B Songs or whatever alongside the equivalent of the Hot 100 that drives airplay choices. Not all kids there are not going to go "Oh I love white pop stars, but black people's culture is really stupid" - to a very large number of them, and certainly someone like Lorde (who talks about both gold teeth and ball gowns), the perception is that it's all American music; the song is a somewhat juveline and unsophisticated comment on American music as a pan-racial cultural monolith with themes that are disconnected from the suburbs. "Gold teeth" being a dog whistle that marks the song out as railing against black people is a straw man.

With all that said, the album is not good.

OTM

This is just a collection of images denoting wealth gleaned from the TV/Internet from the perspective of a provincial teen New Zealander. Reading anything more into it is ridiculous.

And if you think that's ridiculous, just consider whether an American talking about the history of NZ singles that have been hits in other countries would make a big deal over the fact that Lorde and, say, Pauly Fuemana from OMC (the last NZ artist to have a worldwide hit) aren't the same racially. They wouldn't. To much of the outside world, a New Zealander is a New Zealander. And to non-Americans, the trappings of luxury (Cristal, diamond jewellery) can genuinely be interpreted in a way that is deracinated.

x-post.

does brodie like lorde?

does it stem from a defensiveness about liking the song or a more general "sick of oversensitive liberals" thing?

― da croupier, Tuesday, October 1, 2013 12:24 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Some defensiveness, some curiosity -- like, why are you guys all ... Oh, right, we're still mad at Elvis. And I am an oversensitive liberal sometimes, just not on this particular count because I think music's fluidity is a strength not a weakness and its lack of respect for borders and established protocols is on balance a good thing. Plus also, as a certified old person myself, I guess I have less invested in Cristal than people 10 years younger. In my day it was Adidas.

antipodeansplainin

So does New Zealand not have hip-hop and R&B radio stations? Cuz I'm really not buying the "outside of the US, people don't even draw connections between certain wealth markers and the race of the people generally seen wearing them" argument being floated here. I distinctly remember traveling outside the US to several countries and a) seeing hip-hop music sections in European stores just outright labeled "black" and b) being subjected to certain presumptions about my background, class status and expression of that class status by locals that my white companions were not, so uh, "deracinated" my ass.

New Zealand does have hip-hop stations, indeed, they'll have some dedicated to New Zealand hip-hop and R&B in the larger towns - but remember, that there are only three NZ cities with even 300,000 people in them. The point I'm trying to make is that amongst kids who listen to pop radio, or follow the pop charts, there isn't the same culture of separation into niches. It is unreasonable to assume that the "this is white music. this is black music" view exists in every country. New Zealand != Europe.

Essentially: look in New Zealand for a radio station that plays contemporary pop music and find me one that doesn't play music made by black artists. I'll bet you a significant sum of money you won't find one.

I made that point w/r/t Europe because this point you made:

And to non-Americans, the trappings of luxury (Cristal, diamond jewellery) can genuinely be interpreted in a way that is deracinated.

is decided not limited to New Zealand.

thing is, she doesn't just conflate american musics, she throws in british royals. even if i sympathize with the idea that children in new zealand colorblindly associate american musics, fuck is she doing throwing in how royal "luxe" aint in her blood?

(head nod to the possibility floated by max upthread that she's actually defending the nouveau riche hip-hop aspirations of lower-class hip-hop fans, in which case the song is just too corny for my tastes)

Note the use of (WEASEL WORD ALERT) "can" in my statement. And the "can" I am talking about is the possibility of the interpretation in New Zealand. NZers are, of course, non-Americans. Pardon my lack of clarity.

I don't think she is defending those aspirations, because she does not care, she isn't caught in their love affair (which automatically reminded me of MDBTF and Drake).

Gold teeth are not a "trapping of luxury" they have a very specific connotation & association in people's minds I don't care of they are kiwi, Aussie, purple.... and given that we've established she's a lyrical genius capable of writing such rich and complex lyrics she certainly put gold teeth in their for a reason

oh for god's sake my top 40 station just played "Team.

Gold is expensive. Some people are certainly not getting them as a replacement for non-functioning or missing teeth. I'd say it's pretty likely that the only people "Lorde" "knows" who have gold teeth are people she's seen on TV who are wealthy, much the same as she's only ever seen a diamond in movies or in photographs or advertisements.

New Zealanders have their own intra-national racial relationships and tensions between white Europeans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and their substantial Asian population. Is it hard to believe that the race distinctions that have primacy in discussion with regard to race in the United States are just not that important to a country with its own race issues?

What about ball gowns? For chrissakes it's just a jumble of wealth signifiers she's picked up from youtube.

xpost

she's clever -- she might cover "Your Gold Teeth" with thudding drum machines and Casio presets.

I'm pretty sure NZ had disriminatory policies in terms of excluding rap from wide radio play much the same way it was in the US for a time. I'm also pretty sure the beginnings of the rap genre in NZ can be attributed to its local indigineous populations and people of color. Its history there is not so far away from the US history with rap as hip-hop as racialized genres that someone like Lorde would not be able to see similarities and overlap, especially as a self-professed Kanye fan.

i've had the experience of traveling in china and not seeing any black people for days, weeks, but some local will scroll my ipod and see jay-z and all they'll want to talk about is what are black people like in america. so, you know, that's my anecdote that i'm throwing out there.

Citation needed. In any case, during Lorde's life, Maori hip-hop artists AND African American artists have both been played on pop radio and had lots of hit singles. No doubt she could be aware of that history but we're talking about four lines out of 20 or whatever in a pop song about a 16-year-old responding to images of wealth signifiers in 2013.

Also there are places in China you can go where you won't see a white person for days and people will come up to you and want to talk about Twilight and what life is like where you're from and ask to have their photo taken with you. Chinese people are equal-opportunity otherers.

lol

and lil white new zealand girls are not

My anecdote had nothing to do with Lorde or race, just a fun memory that I should have not shared.

the movie will star Tony Leung (in his Academy Award-nominated breakthrough) as the crusty but benign local bootlegger who introduces the mysteries of Western music to his children.

x-post

And yes, Lorde is also othering rich (presumably) British white people in the song too (if you say "Royals" in New Zealand, you are referring to the crown they're under. The song is more than just its pre-chorus. The wealth and status signifiers run through the entirety of the song.

i am just going to pop in to say that none of my 16-year old students view hip hop as old people music fwiw. not even biggie and tupac, with whom they are obsessed, but esp. not the rappers lorde's referring to in this song.

lol anecdata

― horseshoe, Monday, September 30, 2013 3:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not even the kids who make a big point of not liking hip-hop for lorde-esque reasons, the minority at my school, think of it as old people music. they think of hip-hop as the music their "ratchet" peers like. i hate to use that word, but it's the one they use. all these kids are black, btw.

― horseshoe, Monday, September 30, 2013 3:20 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think a lot of my students would meet the argument that the particularity of hip hop has dissolved into a globalized pop culture with an eyebrow raise.

― horseshoe, Monday, September 30, 2013 3:23 PM Bookmark

Yeah, but Tipsy's straw-16 year old is white by default, just like everything else in the world. *jumps off cliff into the sea*

edwardo i guess the point is that you can have a song that rails against all signifiers of wealth but it can also rail against specific race-associated signifiers of wealth and they're not contradictory positions to hold. it's no excuse to say "well, i don't just hate rich black people, i hate all people!"

regardless of all that, i am sympathetic to your point that race relations in new zealand are undoubtedly very different than they are here in the us. the discussion hadn't been focused on lorde's intentionality at all until you showed up, people were just pointing out that it fits into a general whitewashing of the us billboard charts.

Bring back Pauly Fuemana tho.

Not sure about 'discriminatory policies' against rap on radio but I definitely remember local rock radio in the eighties and maybe 90's would have 'Rap is Crap' campaigns to try and attract listeners. The government did have a NZ music quota - I think 10 percent - for radio in , I'm guessing, maybe late 90's...but did not demarcate ethnicities. We got a Te Reo Maori language TV station a few years ago now.The first prominent rap group I can remember was probably Upper Hutt Posse - they were kind of radical and definitely Maori - started in 1985 influenced by Public Enemy etc. I am not sure how this all relates to Royals but there you go.

also the unfortunate thing about american cultural imperialism is that it exports all the bad stuff too. you don't know how much it depresses me to have lived overseas and to hear people who have literally never been outside the city they live in regurgitate the same racist garbage that you hear on fox news over here. forgive me if i'm a little skeptical of the claim that white new zealanders only see maoris and asians but not all those other races.

truth bomb

lol yeah there's no race anxiety in NZ that this song could tap into

riiiiiiiiiiiiiight

For Royals, she just went for something that sounded charismatic to her ears, it's clumsy as fuck but a us vs them line of thinking actually work with high schoolers, dissing maybachs sounds cool not because Lorde is anti-hip hop (she is a hip-hop fan), just because dissing things sounds cool. It doesn't really get more complicated than that. Real anti hip-hop kids wouldn't know a maybach is a clear cut signifier, because they tend to completely ignore the whole genre and everything around it.

I was in high school when (gasp) Avril Lavigne broke out in 2002 and for so many teenagers, the allure of something that wasn't so 50 Cent or Britney Spears was very welcomed and I think Lorde (amoung many others) is filling a similar void for teenagers right now, and that was planned as such (I don't think Lorde exist without Lana Del Rey). Now, as many posters here I have a problem with the larger context and what it means wrt radio but I don't think getting mad at Royals itself, and the younger fans who have to deal with being immature and ignorant is useful if we want to have an open discussion about different genres and their socio-politics. Sometimes I feel we are one little age group away from the critics berating one direction fans for being rabid. What I am trying to say is: Is Lorde really the problem right now?

Yah Internets make reactionary thinking go global

re: how it relates to Roayls: It doesn't necessarily, I was just pointing out that NZers have their own racial issues and histories and the US's concerns and demarcations aren't going to factor into every discussion about race.

In any case, as much as the arguments were exaggerated, I still think it's unfair to tar a popular song which has struck a chord with people for a variety of reasons as being a definite contributor to a trend of whitewashing. The Billboard Hot 100 fascinates me from a methodological standpoint, and charts of all kinds around the world have had their methodological quirks which have resulted in various forms of music not being represented as much, and I agree that excluding or diminishing black hip-hop and R&B then it sucks. But it's always been an uneasy mix of stuff that exists in separate demographics and radio stations. I hope they can find a way of getting the mix right in the Youtube years.

xxxxxxxpost Passed away in 2010, sadly.

(hey Rev you might like PNC's Bazooka Kid)

god damn I should have read VHS's post before making mine because it's just 100% clearer and better.

I hear the us vs them too, a trope common in all kinds of music beloved by adolescents (the Smiths for me in HS); but Lorde's singles trilogy, with their weak beats and strained singing, reenforce her averageness.

guys, you realize that people have been criticizing the song and its reception in the US and not lorde herself /or/ her intentions for like, the past 100 posts. but if you insist on bringing her and her intentions back into the discussion, by all means.

its reception in the us is not so diff from in nz either that's all flim flam

i mean lorde herself is t minus 12 months froma big sean feature

Finne (from New Jersey)

I don't think I was trying to say there was 'no race anxiety' in NZ - that is definitely not the case. I think I said many moons ago on this thread we have our own problems for sure.

In Quebec you have large amounts of caucasian hip-hop bands who will wear gold teeth, drink crystal in their video, stuff I'd never see in the US (or nearly as much, or maybe I'm missing something). I was wondering if NZ had the same phenomenon.

i mean lorde herself is t minus 12 months froma big sean feature

oh gawwwd

xxxxxxxpost Passed away in 2010, sadly.

(hey Rev you might like PNC's Bazooka Kid)

― etc, Monday, September 30, 2013 8:00 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll check it out. And yeah, I knew about Fuemana's passing, so sad. I love "How Bizarre".

i heard "how bizarre" at bed bath and beyond yesterday and thought about the globalization of pop music and globalization and wondered wherefore and why.

Surprised at all the hate this is getting. After not liking "Tennis Court" and being very mild on "Royals" and the rest of the EP tracks, I actually thought the album was a pleasant surprise. "Ribs" and "In A World Alone" are my favorites after a few listens.

What I think irks me about her writing is the tendency to overwrite and use these clunky, awkward turns of phrase in her lyrics that bog down the songs. I'm not sure if that's a NZ thing or a 16-year-old AP English thing or what. Some of the songs are totally ruined by it - "Gore and Glory" is definitely the worst offender; it sounds like some kind of awful attempt at a song from a musical. But then there are these great moments that her writing really works - like "Lover's Spit left on repeat," which is such a hyper-specific, lovely image. I wish there more stuff like that on here.

hi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-jC3H_8Dk4

― markers, Thursday, September 26, 2013 1:11 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol. I love that song but totally get why it would tick people off that their lower-class pride song uses Marion Barry and OJ Simpson as examples of evil rich people. the irony of the jokes being stolen from Chris Rock, plus the "Lust For Life" drums and weird dub-echo break get me past it, but I'm not going to snivel about how it's mean to accuse 16 year old suburban dc doofuses of being part of a racist conspiracy if someone says "fuck those guys" over the matter.

actually, they were in their early 20s. they only acted like teeangers.

For Royals, she just went for something that sounded charismatic to her ears, it's clumsy as fuck but a us vs them line of thinking actually work with high schoolers, dissing maybachs sounds cool not because Lorde is anti-hip hop (she is a hip-hop fan), just because dissing things sounds cool. It doesn't really get more complicated than that. Real anti hip-hop kids wouldn't know a maybach is a clear cut signifier, because they tend to completely ignore the whole genre and everything around it.

Yes I said more or less the same thing about 10 times earlier itt. But well put.

As for straw 16-year-olds, I've not invoked them nor intended to. I just made the obvious point that music that you grow up immersed in becomes part of your sense of the established order of things, and is therefore an obvious thing to react against if you want to define yourself in that youthful that youthful people do.

Also I don't think the song's success has anything to do with people hating (or hating on) hip-hop, and it's funny to me to see so many people accepting without question the sanctity of Cristal and Maybachs as signifiers. Where's Walter Benjamin when you need him?

It's funny to me how you seem to totally gloss over all the posts that don't conveniently fit your thesis

Aaaaaashjfvbsv

FUCK THIS SONG AND THIS WHOLE CORNY FUCKING ERA OF TEPID WACK BULLSHIT SO MUCH ROYALS DIE DIE DIE DIE 1000 TIMES

Cya everyone have a nice day I'm out

P.s. new Zealand stick to weirdos from 1982 that can barely play guitar

It's funny to me how you seem to totally gloss over all the posts that don't conveniently fit your thesis

In every Internet debate ever...

Anyway, I'm not glossing over, I just disagree. I understand that for some people this song represents or is an iteration of certain things. I think those are misinterpretations -- not badly intended ones, just ones filtered through a prism that I think is being misapplied in this instance. (Even though it's a prism that I have a lot of personal and political sympathy for in general.)

Upper Hutt Posse were certainly the first NZ/Maori hip-hop group to cross the ditch.

I mean, nuff respect to MC OJ & Rhythm Slave obviously

"Royals" precursor from 80s NZ for Alfred:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a6hu6Z7Pkg

"Royals" is No. 1 on the forthcoming Hot 100.

wau @ this thread

I just listened to this album on Spotify and thought it sounded pleasant, so I bought it; I've basically spent zero amount of time paying attention to the lyrics (and have heard "Royals" twice)

btw I also agree that "Ribs" is great

Tell me about it. I had pork ones on Sunday.

"Royals" is No. 1 on the forthcoming Hot 100.

― maura, Wednesday, October 2, 2013 2:22 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

so, uh, is 2013 shaping up to be a year where no black artist has had a #1 hit on the hot 100? (not counting features)

If so, it would be the first!

never thought i'd be yearning for flo rida

never thought i'd be rooting for drake

let's keep things in perspective here

Take Rihanna out of the equation and the last two years come close: just Wiz Khalifa and Flo Rida. Unrecognisable from 2008.

fwiw Drake has the most top tens of any artist this year with 4 songs when including features and probably the most Hot 100 entries with like 18-19 songs.

Don't worry, Rihanna will probably announce her annual November album within a couple weeks.

I wouldn't be mad at a "Hold On, We're Coming Home" #1 tho.

yeah that's the highlight of that album so far for me

I'm more troubled by the fact that "The Fox" is number 10.

That and "Wu-Tang Forever"

xpost

"hold on, we're going home" is the first #1 hit on r&b/hip-hop songs by a black artist since "diamonds"

good luck USA

PARTY IN THE USA

http://feministing.com/2013/10/03/wow-that-lorde-song-royals-is-racist/

is that a parody?

i mean, the song's use of hip-hop signifiers is definitely, at best, naive - but i think the implication that lorde is actively trying to be racist with "royals" is pretty nuts.

the only way you can say that is a parody is if you literally just read the URL and nothing in the piece

relevant interview: http://www.elle.com/pop-culture/best/lorde-profile?src=soc_twtr

lol @ how a song needs to be actively trying to be racist in order to be racist

i mean, the song's use of hip-hop signifiers is definitely, at best, naive - but i think the implication that lorde is actively trying to be racist with "royals" is pretty nuts.

― chael, Thursday, October 3, 2013 8:04 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the implication that anyone who is accused of racism must be purposefully *trying* to be racist in order for it to count is pretty nuts

lol xpost

it's a neat rhetorical trick - only people who are *purposefully/actively* racist can be racist, so that excuses pretty much everybody except the KKK and st0r/\/\fr0nt.

While I love a good critique of wealth accumulation and inequity, this song is not one; in fact, it is deeply racist. Because we all know who she’s thinking when we’re talking gold teeth, Cristal and Maybachs. So why shit on black folks? Why shit on rappers? - i don't know that using rappers as metonymy for black folks is such a rock solid idea.

mordy, i don't think you're using the word 'metonymy' correctly. you know, it behooves you to not just read the wikipedia article on a concept before trying to make a meaningful comment using it.

; )

i think i'm using it correctly ;)

all white ppl just shut up, seriously just stop. you're just making it worse. god damn.

ok! go ahead, 乒乓, you're free to proceed.

omg that elle article

thank you! *clears throat* so, the way i see it, is as follows. number one: a spectre haunts europe. the spectre of communism. all the powers of old europe have entered an unholy alliance...

i love that her talent show breakthrough was a duffy song

i have no idea what her background really is, but there's a hint of disconnect between "her working-class existence" and "her mom is a poet."

also why are first albums about the surreality of success nowadays, isn't that your second album if you're lucky

pitchfork reviews reviews

xp really? My dad never went to college and has spent the past 35 years of his life building airplanes (albeit at a solidly middleclass wage -- go unions!) and he writes poetry.

Second point otm tho.

Key point though, he has a day job. If your main source of income is working as a no-name poet, you probably have something or someone to cushion you from the crippling poverty.

yeah i'm sure that applies to lorde's mom

Yeah I meant being a poet for a living, not that working people can't engage in the arts.

definitely don't want to pull some MIA-style "she's not that class, she's this class" bullshit since how do I know, but "working class" at least feels like a simplification if her mom's a national book award winner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonja_Yelich

def don't mean that as a slam on her, just lazy journalists playing telephone with her press releases

but "working class" at least feels like a simplification if her mom's a national book award winner

....why?

She's said she's not working class so it's a moot point.

Here's the Jukebox reviewing "Team".

To each their own, but ppl who don't think Team has a groove are missing why she's a hit. I like the loucheness too, but it wouldn't work without the thump and bump.

If it matters, which is doubtful, I think this is her dad: http://www.tonkin.co.nz/keycontact_Vic_OConnor.htm

Is there more to that "relevant interview" or is that really the whole thing? Because that is basically content-free enough to be evidence of her crippling racism AND evidence that people are grossly overreacting when they talk about her crippling racism.

it does kind of torpedo the "She mentioned Cristal but how do we know she means rappers? She could just mean Cristal! You're reading rappers into it!" argument

She obviously means rappers when she says Cristal. The question is what that means.

No, the argument was always that she means some rappers, just not all rappers and not only rappers.

it does kind of torpedo the "She mentioned Cristal but how do we know she means rappers? She could just mean Cristal! You're reading rappers into it!" argument

I agree, but she's also interacting with it from the standpoint of "this is a viewpoint I am being presented with in a ton of music and I don't feel like I have any reference points to relate it to anything in my life, so I'm going to contrast it with what I know about" which, by very nature of the viewpoints being contrasted, has a strong racial component to it but is not de facto malicious or unpardonable.

I think there are a lot of subliminal problems tied into how the song is being received and lauded that absolutely need to be talked about but the song itself doesn't register as strongly to me as it does to many of the people decrying its innate racism (which may actually be another problem worth discussing). I feel like this is a symptom of an overwhelming fact of global Western culture rather than an instigating event, where something is expressed in a manner that kicks open the release valve on a lot of gross racial discomfort that people don't want to express in polite company because they know they shouldn't, and then the song itself gets attacked for these people's reactions to it rather than the people having the reactions.

I probably would feel much more anti- about this song if I felt it was actually as catchy as everyone else thinks it is.

When a 16-year-old writes a song about how she can't relate to upper class signifiers, conflating hip-hop materialism with royal bloodlines, it's stupid to debate whether she's the worst thing in the world, because c'mon. but it's also stupid to debate whether everyone should be impressed, because what's really that impressive about it.

saw a lorde single at the shop the other day. remarked to the clerk that "the tennis court person looks like kate bush," which earned nothing but a flash of disinterested confusion. move along now.

I agree, but she's also interacting with it from the standpoint of "this is a viewpoint I am being presented with in a ton of music and I don't feel like I have any reference points to relate it to anything in my life, so I'm going to contrast it with what I know about" which, by very nature of the viewpoints being contrasted, has a strong racial component to it but is not de facto malicious or unpardonable.

I think there are a lot of subliminal problems tied into how the song is being received and lauded that absolutely need to be talked about but the song itself doesn't register as strongly to me as it does to many of the people decrying its innate racism (which may actually be another problem worth discussing). I feel like this is a symptom of an overwhelming fact of global Western culture rather than an instigating event, where something is expressed in a manner that kicks open the release valve on a lot of gross racial discomfort that people don't want to express in polite company because they know they shouldn't, and then the song itself gets attacked for these people's reactions to it rather than the people having the reactions.

I probably would feel much more anti- about this song if I felt it was actually as catchy as everyone else thinks it is.

― smang culture (DJP), Friday, October 4, 2013 12:00 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

killer post

my reaction to every other Lorde song besides "Royals" (which I honestly have problems remembering) is "this is what I thought Grimes was going to sound like"

xp otm, esp the close of paragraph 2

if I felt it was actually as catchy as everyone else thinks it is.

― smang culture (DJP), Friday, October 4, 2013 12:00 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

probably the most befuddling part of the whole exercise to me - why is this a hot 100 #1 hit? where is chart music going? am i being left behind? *furiously clicks on some imagine dragon youtubes*

it seemed super boring and amateurish to me

"tennis court" is a little better, that's the only other one i've heard. but it really should have been an ldr song with that title

I particularly like "Ribs", "Buzzcut Season" and "Team" ; that was the sequence of songs that made me buy the album

No, the argument was always that she means some rappers, just not all rappers and not only rappers.

...and also that hip-hop has long since passed the point where it makes sense to consider it as some separate beast from pop culture, any more than you can with rock'n'roll or teen-pop -- especially if you happen to have only been alive since 1996. i.e., all of the defensiveness in this thread about hip-hop assumes that someone is critiquing HIP-HOP -- as (ahem, older) fans and (especially) critics think of it -- rather than responding to the pop culture around them.

Like probably a lot of hip-hop fans, I devoted many hours over several decades to arguing with peers and elders about the merits of hip-hop, and often and I think fairly called out the belligerent "it's not music" blah blah blah types on counts of either overt or covert racism. But I think those arguments are much different than somebody making a song responding to the music she hears on her radio or at friends' parties -- music that she clearly like and responds to. The song is the product not of a mentality that is resistant or hostile toward hip-hop, but instead one so familiar and comfortable with its tropes that she feels free to poke fun at them. What I think some (ahem, older) people have trouble with is that whole notion of hip-hop as a lingua franca rather than as some underground language that has to be constantly protected against misinterpretation or distortion.

But anyway. She has other songs, too, and pretty good ones. It's sort of too bad this thread turned into a mandatory annual conference on the boundaries of acceptable appropriation, instead of consideration of a possibly interesting artist.

man, you were doing so well until that last paragraph

i think "royals" is catchy, but pretty commonplace - it might be the best song by a duffy fan about her critical distance from impending success over a snap beat, but for some reason no part of this feels particularly fresh in 2013

xpost

Sorry. I indict myself on that count too, fwiw.

Lorde as "Lana Del Rey, only tolerable" would be good second album positioning

hahaha otm

I probably would feel much more anti- about this song if I felt it was actually as catchy as everyone else thinks it is.

^^ this. The song defines "5 out of 10"

I don't even like the song and it gets stuck in my head constantly. How is it not catchy?

And idg this "she likes rap therefor she can't be shitting on it!" argument. I mean, everyone agrees 2 out of 3 of Macklemore's biggest hits are shitting on rap, right? And he likes rap so much he became a rapper. It's not really any way mutually exclusive.

I don't even like the song and it gets stuck in my head constantly. How is it not catchy?

It literally leaves my brain the instant I stop listening to it. I'm listening to it again right now and it sounds entirely unfamiliar, even though I've played it several times this week while listening to the album.

Well okay, the "we'll never be royals" line does sound familiar now, but until just hearing it now I couldn't have sung it back to you.

(Some of this may be because I'm power-cramming showtunes into my brain for a fundraiser tonight.)

i tend to assume massive pop hits are catchy even if I haven't personally found them inescapable

esp if it's someone's first big hit, there are definitely some relatively uncatchy elton john and mariah smashes, but it's hard to make your way to the top on nothing

friend of mine posted on facebook her son singing this song with something like "This is an anthem in our house"

they are super rich, her husband owns a big boat rental/boat club company they live right off the lakes in mpls in like a million-plus house

smdh

It's no "Friends In Low Places"

I mean, everyone agrees 2 out of 3 of Macklemore's biggest hits are shitting on rap, right?

I'm not a fan, but I think "shitting on rap" is a pretty reductive way to describe "Same Love."

i don't think you have to be "trying" to be racist to be racist - but i do think that that particular article is insinuating that that's what lorde is doing with royals. maybe the song is unintentionally racist - though i don't really think it is because she's also dissing people like miley and lana - but i think it's ridiculous that lorde of all people is where we're drawing the line in terms of race in pop music.

I guarantee you Lorde is not the first or even the most intense example of discussions of race in pop music. Other artists in 2013 have been the focal point of such conversations. See: macklemore's thread, the thread about billboard and the marginalization of black music, etc. No one's drawing a line here so much as just pointing out something that they dislike.

Anyway, the only thing on this that sticks with me is Tennis Court.

haha I mean, did you read any of the gigantic Miley thread

what's the other one of macklemore's songs that shits on rap? (sorry if this is something super obvious, i just haven't parsed the lyrics to any of his other hits)

Thrift Shop can and has been read as a response to rappers whose songs are about buying luxury items. Regardless of whether you think that's the intent, it's definitely been a popular reading of the song among fans and dissenters alike and has been repeatedly used as an example of the ways Macklemore is better than other rappers.

as for lorde's casual racism, i'm personally more disposed to a reading of the song as an expression of disconnect rather than forthright malice, but i can see how others would preference the latter. tbh i don't think racism would have crossed her mind in the slightest when writing it, which is not so much a jab at her but moreso a reflection of the way rap and hip hop is perceived generally in the antipodes

xp ah ok. i remember thinkpieces about how the song was condescending to those that had a legitimate need for op shops but i missed the ones about racism. "repeatedly used as an example of the ways Macklemore is better than other rappers" ughhh.

what's the other one of macklemore's songs that shits on rap? (sorry if this is something super obvious, i just haven't parsed the lyrics to any of his other hits)

― monotony, Friday, October 4, 2013 3:47 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Shittin' On Rap (feat. Sage Francis & Grieves)"

And it's the already wild popularity of a song this year that is liked by many for it's explicit rejection of certain hip-hop tropes that makes me think it's not coincidental that Royals, a song which explicitly references those signifiers and tropes while also rejecting them, has also become a hit.

Well, perhaps. The first time I heard it the appeal for me was the backing vocals, but maybe iTunes buyers had other motivations.

as for lorde's casual racism, i'm personally more disposed to a reading of the song as an expression of disconnect rather than forthright malice, but i can see how others would preference the latter. tbh i don't think racism would have crossed her mind in the slightest when writing it, which is not so much a jab at her but moreso a reflection of the way rap and hip hop is perceived generally in the antipodes

― monotony, Friday, October 4, 2013 1:54 PM Bookmark

I don't think anyone's saying it's an expression of forthright malice. The point is that's not a necessary element for the kind of casual racism found in "Royals" or "Thrift Shop" or "Same Love".

What Rev said, yeah.

My FB feed is pretty bleak with Kiwis who Don't Get It and are getting huffy and "YOU'RE THE RACIST FOR THINKING IT'S RACIST"/"PC gone mad"/"this has to be a parody of social justice stuff"/"it's just pop music don't overthink it"; I guess they assume because nobody's really paid attention to questionable attitudes/actions they've had, they can't exist. Bit of a failure of imagination to be unable to make an equivalence between the Lorde situation and, to take two recent examples, protesting an exhibition of Dutch culture w/Zwarte Piet photos, or taking a UK record label to task for appropriating Maori art on their sleeves.

But, re: Rev's post, I think equating Lorde and Macklemore's racism is unfair because Lorde has spent her life in Auckland, and though I don't necessarily want to characterise New Zealand as some sort of hobbit fairyland, the way hip hop / rap from the US is filtered into Australian and NZ culture is verrrrrrrry different to the way Americans perceive rappers, and that as a result whatever Lorde wrote would never have conceived remarks rejecting Maybachs and Cristal as constituting racism.

I would say that Lorde is a product of an unconsciously racist culture and that + her age makes her less of a worse offender than Macklemore who has a far greater proximity to all of this stuff.

Lorde has other less controversial and clumsy songs that are pretty good, also. I can imagine Lorde hating Royals as much as we do in a few years from now, as it stands it's her worst song in almost every way.

sorry, that post is completely garbled. let me clarify the end of first sentence: "as a result, Lorde would never have conceived remarks rejecting Maybachs and Cristal as constituting racism"

I don't know why we keep coming back to her intentions as if this isn't being heard globally in places with their own histories and contexts for understanding the song, which is what people have been discussing.

it's funny how you can dislike so many aspects of a song and people will just shrug it off if they like the song anyway, but if you say you don't like the associations it makes within pop culture, esp race, suddenly "fairness" is an issue. Like, if I just said I hate the phrase "we're driving cadillacs in our dreams" because it's corny, no one would care, but if I say I hate the way she conflates new money and old, that I don't like the connections that suggests and find them problematic, the validity of that reaction can be contested because I don't appreciate how she's too young to know better. The implication is that it's ok to dislike things as long as you're not thinking too hard about them.

unsympathetic readings of songs are supposed to be kneejerk and superficial, not considered and developed

xp because her intention was to write a song about the disconnect one feels with US pop / hip hop culture when living in an isolated place like NZ? shouldn't that fact be the primary instrument with which one understands this song?

would you say the same thing about those people that hear "blurred lines" and call it a rape anthem instead of considering what thicke might've believed the song to be about (cheating)?

i mean, i don't even know. i like her voice and think she shows promise. it's like 1.50 AM here and i should probably go to bed.

the difference is that I've actually read the lyrics of "Royals" where anyone calling "Blurred Lines" a "rape anthem" probably haven't read his lyrics. That said, if you're grossed out by a dude's macho pick-up fantasy that climaxes with him offering drugs after TI offers tearing that ass in two, I don't blame you in the slightest. I think Lorde's intent could easily be overstated, but I mostly see that being projected defensively by fans who don't want to accept that it's fine to find the song gross.

There's no reason she can't be a potentialful ingenue and turning off people who've thought a little more about the differences between hip-hop stars and british royalty than she has. But I don't see people claiming it's wrong to think she's got promise, where people are getting mad butthurt if you say you "Royals" offends you.

Re: Blurred Lines, even if I disagree that it's what the song is about, I'm completely sympathetic to the idea that how it's being received in the larger culture makes it's intended reading moot in that conversation.

Same here for me, what she intended when writing it is interesting but not an essential bit of info I need before I'm allowed to have opinions about how this song operates within the context of US radio. That explanation is only really even being floated because it's a way to provide her defenders with what they think is an out because they've mistaken criticism of the song for an accusation of malicious racism on her part and are trying to argue against that.

Lorde told the newspaper the song came from listening to the likes of Lana Del Rey and the Kanye West and Jay-Z project.

"What really got me is this ridiculous, unrelatable, unattainable opulence that runs throughout. Lana Del Rey is always singing about being in the Hamptons or driving her Bugatti Veyron or whatever, and at the time, me and my friends were at some house party worrying how to get home because we couldn't afford a cab. This is our reality."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10893990

pretty sure Del Rey would've offered Lorde and friend a ride, then amazed that Lorde shoves her aside, hijacks her car, and takes them to the guillotine.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/pure-heroine-mw0002574004

Am I the only one who always hears the "I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll ruuuuule" part of "Royals" as "Hyrule, Hyrule, Hyruuuuule" and thinks maybe I used to play way too much video games? lol LDR callback

this song is okay but i think it's well written

i'm much less suspicious of her headspace than i am why this song has caught on so majorly

WE'RE GONNA FUNK IT UP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtcR4BBet3k

What a VEVO unexpected cover that is

finally found a version of "Royals" that I find memorable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9XQ2MdNgKY

Also, lol at whoever said Lorde needs to think harder about whether analogies between rappers and aristocracy are appropriate when the hip hop album she was reacting to is called Watch the Throne.

an album whose point has presumably gone over her head (to be fair it went over a lot of adults' too)

Just shup up you're only sixteen.

<3

lol http://www.audiomack.com/song/xclusiveszone/royals-remix

oh, him.

her tumblr is great

IM GONNA BUST A CAP IM SO EXCITED TO PICK UP THR ALBUM TODAY
▼
rnoonrises

what does busting a cap consist of

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=82861

this is the female version of old man hat voice for me. who do i blame? cat power? feist? that precious voice. kinda raspy. twee and cat-like. she will help to sell so much stuff and make a lot of money hopefully.

could blame nina gordon for that nwa cover i guess.

at least nina gordon was in a band that i secretly love. shhhh, don't tell anyone.

lmao rev i had the EXACT same thought

scott, I have the same problem with the way she sings

haha a couple of the DJs on the Baltimore rap station (including Pork Chop) were doing their new music hour and played "Royals" and had a quick discussion about it ("what do you think?" "I like the beat, but I like my hip hop a little darker than that" "she sounds like Kat Dahlia to me")

otm

wow teen tumblrs are a trip

hahaha Kat Dahlia

Saw this thread get bumped a lot lately and thought "Lorde" sounded like it could be some excellent NZ metal band or something. Instead, it's just more teenage rap racism. I dunno. Keep your hands wringing, ding dongs.

this is the female version of old man hat voice for me. who do i blame? cat power? feist? that precious voice. kinda raspy. twee and cat-like. she will help to sell so much stuff and make a lot of money hopefully.
― scott seward, Monday, October 7, 2013 8:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Karen Dalton

what does it take for a critique of opulence and conspicuous consumption w/in pop music to not come across as casually racist?

ok that's kind of disingenous - but i'm trying to think of examples and coming up short

actually fuck that i can think of plenty of "conscious" stuff that does that; guess i'm thinking more about pop-oriented stuff

The opulence and conspicuous consumption pop is mostly not coming from white artists (or 'white genres/musical styles') so to start a critique probably wouldn't come from a white artist in order to sidestep that vibe

yeah

just an unfrozen caveman being an idiot about race itt

Well apparently we're also calling complaints about gay-bashing in rap "casually racist," if "Same Love" is getting lumped in here too. Presumably complaints about misogyny would fall under the same heading?

I know these are all old arguments with a lot of context and backstory, but I think that becomes a trap past a point -- if you're insisting on filtering everything through ca. 1991 cultural discourse (which is what this all feels like to me, and I was there, man), then you're maybe going to miss actual changes in the landscape.

"Same Love" was called casually racist because the song is a straight white dude admonishing a bunch of black people for their homophobia to the delight of a bunch of other non-black people. You can agree that homophobia is wrong yet still recognize when someone is using intersectional axes to boost their profile.

I can't help but sing Beck's "Loser" over the top of "Royals"

was "Same Love" casually racist bc the homophobia charge was illegitimate or bc it was legitimate but that kind of censure should only come from within the community?

Well apparently we're also calling complaints about gay-bashing in rap "casually racist," if "Same Love" is getting lumped in here too. Presumably complaints about misogyny would fall under the same heading?

I know these are all old arguments with a lot of context and backstory, but I think that becomes a trap past a point -- if you're insisting on filtering everything through ca. 1991 cultural discourse (which is what this all feels like to me, and I was there, man), then you're maybe going to miss actual changes in the landscape.

Maybe just read the thread where we talked about it instead of disingenuously representing the point people made while being haughty and dismissive?

Macklemore, "Same Love"

And what's with this constant reference to these criticisms being by olds from a past age of cultural crit? I was a barely a toddler in 1991, fuck outta here with "the youths have moved past this sorta concern"-style arguments.

And what's with this constant reference to these criticisms being by olds from a past age of cultural crit? I was a barely a toddler in 1991, fuck outta here with "the youths have moved past this sorta concern"-style arguments.

OTM

as i said before tipsy's has done significant polling of theoretical teens and they don't get what you guys are on about :/

seriously dude you've like had this faux-curious thing where you fake asking people to explain their points,then they explain them in detail, and then you either don't understand or just deliberately don't pay attention to them. and then come back posting as if they had never explains, all the while holding on to this weird viewpoint that Lorde represents some new with-it, wow post racial viewpoint of today's New Zealand teens that only you are clued into

T-40

I'm offended by this song alright, but more because it's such a transparent and cynical single. She knows damn well she's going to be a royal. Anyone remotely stimulated by her "anti-bling" message needs to get a grip.