One Liner: "Royals" and all downhill from there...
Poster Position: Headliner
Both Weekends.
Saturday at 8:15
T-Mobile Stage
Thoughts: Last here all the way back in 2014 in support of her mega-hit 2013 album Pure Heroine. The one with "Royals" and "Team" on it. And apparently "Ribs," which I do not recognize at all and yet has 1.1 BILLION streams, just less than "Team." Weird. I do not see that I did a review of her back then for the 2014 lineup. I was less insane back then, apparently. But, in case you have been living under a rock, this is "Royals" with 1.5 BILLION streams.
She was very pretty in that video (cringes because she was like 17). A friend reached out to me the other day, he and his daughter were discussing the most annoying songs of all time, and he wanted my top three. Without spending a lot of cogitation, I fired out Billy Idol's "Mony Mony," Aqua's "Barbie Girl," and George Strait's "Check Yes or No." I also mentioned the entire catalog of Imagine Dragons. he responded saying that for him, it was absolutely "Royals" in the lead with zero challengers and the song made him want to kick her in the balls.
Meanwhile, for me, I have a really nice memory of that song because of a friend who has since passed away. I liked the song just fine when it came out, but that fall, we had a big college Homecoming of some sort. Some of us put together a bigger event, rented out a brewery, and collected a bunch of friends. Well, Tate, my now-deceased buddy, kept taking over the music so that he could play this song over and over because he just thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever heard.
And to this day, I just think it is an excellent song. I know that it was overplayed to death, but the bass and finger snaps are very cool, and the lyrics are super interesting. I think it is a great critique of the materialistic culture of the pop/rap world, where she explains that she's not like that, but its what everyone seems to act like is normal. I find that to be smart. Unfortunately for me, that is just about where my pleasure ends here. Before I get to that, let's go background.
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born in 1996 in Auckland, New Zealand. Her mother was a Croatian poet and her dad an Irish engineer. She caught someone's eye at a school talent show performance as part of a duo, she and the friend then got to perform on a big NZ radio show, the friend's dad sent the recordings to a A&R executive, and Ella was signed to Universal when she was 13. Which is an insane sentence to write. The poor friend! He got the shaft! Her first EP was released in 2012, when she was 16, included "Royals," and it went insane. Nine weeks on top the US Hot 100, #1 in many regions, sold 10 million units to become one of the top selling singles of all time. it also won two Grammys.
Also on the first album, "Team" is good, and "Tennis Court" was okay. Then it was to her second album, which I reviewed back then:
Lorde - Melodrama. [2017] Like most other folks, I very much enjoyed her first album and the quirky, clever writing and her ability to take a trope to the shed and make something interesting out of it. I'm not so sure about her these days, after becoming part of Taylor Swift's squad and living the pop star life. She has squeezed a few of these tracks out over time before the full release of this album, and while some friends thought "Green Light" was good, it sounds super derivative of a load of other pop stars right now, very uninteresting to me. Really reminds me of that Jess Glynne song from a few years ago - disco-fied, brassy pop. Not a fan. [763.6 million streams in 2026]
Meanwhile, its got 182 million streams, so other people still like it. I don't know, its like she used to be the opposite of the Katy Perry-type pop star, but then she just jumped right onto the wagon and embraced that sound instead of keeping the moody, clever outsider thing going. Maybe it was working with the fun/Bleachers guy, but this seems much less appealing to me. Bits of the rest of the album sound better, especially when you hear her still writing great lyrics, but the tunes themselves leave me wanting something else. Like the other hit I've heard on the radio some, "Homemade Dynamite," which has some kind of cool couplets of lyrics: "Might get your friend to drive, but he can hardly see, We'll end up painted on the road, Red and chrome, All the broken glass sparkling, I guess we're partying," but the song itself is some generic pop pablum with her lame-sounding stuttered pronunciation of the song title. Seems like an album that would be good to read, even if it isn't so great to hear.
So, you're saying you loved, it, huh, Jack?! Not so much. But what did you think about 2021's Solar Power?
Lorde - Solar Power. I'm going to fully admit that I have stared for an unacceptably long time at the cover of this album, trying to discern if I find this acceptable, too much, shocking, titillating, or any other number of thoughts. I don't think Judge Breyer would call it porn, but he might. But I keep looking. As for the music itself, I hate this album with the power of the sun itself. I really liked "Royals," that is still a freaking brilliant song. But nothing on here is even good. I find it interesting that Jack Antonoff was so involved in it, because his super power is to popify everything to a grand sheen that doesn't even look shiny despite being near perfect. Instead, these sound both boring and thrown together. Entirely uninteresting. The title song tries to fire up a touch of dopamine, but its like she just copied someone else's happy music without actually putting her own back in to it. That is the top streamer, but I'm going to give you a different one that has the third most streams but more fully reflects the rest of this album with semi-nonexistent accompaniment. This is "Mood Ring." 27.7 million streams [now up to 88.3 million].
"Don't you think the early 2000's sound so far away? ayy ayyya yyayyyayayyyyyayy" Ugh. Sounds like a bad Brittney Spears song that never made it onto one of her albums. "Let's fly somewhere eastern, they'll have what I need" (while she looks knowingly at the camera) is just yucky. Nope. Hate it.
So, yeah. Wasn't feeling the vibe on that one either. And after that, I just quit trying. She has one more album, 2025's Virgin, and I never even tried it. Looks like most of the world generally agreed with that stance. It's got one big hit, another with good stream count, but then some songs didn't even break 20 million. Which, yeah, other artists would kill for, but the stream counts on Melodrama and Heroine crush that. "What Was That" has 170.4 million streams.
I have for sure seen that video though. Can't recall why or when, but I definitely didn't review this one. She looks like a crazy person and the song is very boring.
I am honestly surprised that she only has four albums in all of that time. I figured I would come here and realize she had a handful I had not tried. Recently, I remember seeing her in the news because she yelled about Palestine on stage and then pulled all of her music from Apple Music in Israel. I'm sure they were crushed.
Meanwhile, my 15 year old went to her show at the Moody Center somewhat recently, and came back saying it was incredible. Best show she had ever seen. So, who knows. It's not like the other headliners are worth a damn, so maybe I'll be over on the Lorde train with all of the teen scene after all.
