Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: Lorde - 'Oceanic Feeling'

Lorde has always been a bit hit and miss for me. Mostly miss. Obviously, she’s hugely significant as a local artist simply because she hit it big internationally at a very young age and she’s now somehow managed to expand her fanbase well beyond its initial demographic. There’s no question that she’s talented and there’s something about her which suggests she’ll enjoy a relatively long career. Good for her. 

This year Lorde released her third full-length album, Solar Power, and although I couldn’t really have cared less about it, there was enough chatter around its release to arouse my curiosity, so I had a sneaky listen. My overall impression was that the album is very much her “summer of love” moment and a few tracks are quite derivative of the early 90s “baggy” period. 

Others will beg to differ, but I thought the vast majority of Solar Power was listenable but mostly unrelatable. Then I reached the album closer ‘Oceanic Feeling’ … what a relief. Relief partly because I’d reached the end of what was essentially an obligatory listen, but mostly relief because I’d finally found the unheralded album gem which made the previous hour’s effort all the more worthwhile. It was one of just a couple of tracks from Solar Power I downloaded and kept for playlist compilation purposes. 

‘Oceanic Feeling’ simply oozes “typical New Zealand summer family break” in ways I’ve never heard articulated in song before. The references to father, brother, fishing, food, and outdoor fun are clear and obvious, but more specifically, for me, the vibe of ‘Oceanic Feeling’ is all about my own sepia-tinged distant childhood memories of long hot carefree summer days at my Grandparents’ beach house or “bach” in Hawke’s Bay. Thank you for that, Lorde. 

(Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021 is a series of blogposts which seek to highlight the best tracks released by New Zealand artists over the course of the calendar year. Not necessarily the “best” in any commercial sense, but those which have proven to be the best additions to this blogger’s music collection)

The Festive Dozen 2015: Princess Chelsea - Too Many People

In an ideal world, it would be a case of ... ‘move over Lorde, Princess Chelsea is here to claim the throne as the new Global Queen of Kiwi Pop’.

But, as we know, it’s far from an ideal world, and Princess Chelsea (aka Chelsea Nikkel) remains, for the most part – in a global context, at least – a relatively unknown prospect.

Which is surely only a temporary state of affairs, with the Auckland-based artist’s 2015 album, The Great Cybernetic Depression, growing in stature with each passing week. It certainly deserves its place on the many local year-end "best of" lists it currently features on, being an almost perfect blend of irony-tinged social comment and dreamy space-pop. More of the latter than the former.

One of my own favourite *pop* tunes of 2015 was ‘Too Many People’, a great piece of iPod fodder/commuter fluff … check it out, I really like this clip, it's a bit sad and melancholic, yet at the same time our understated star looks as though she could be performing alone in her bedroom, singing in front of the mirror (hey, we’ve all done it. And what on earth is that cat doing @ 2.20?) ...

(By the way, everythingsgonegreen has no real issue with Lorde’s status as the flagbearer for Kiwi Pop ™ on the international stage. We're just prone to being a little facetious at times. Okay, a lot facetious. And anyway, we all know Kiwi Pop ™ isn’t really a proper “thing”. Beyond these shores. Yet.)

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...
 

Random 30 2013: The Kite String Tangle - Tennis Court (Lorde)

2013 was a huge breakthrough year for local artist Lorde, something further underlined (in bold) earlier this week when the teenage songstress received four Grammy nominations. I enjoyed her cover version of the Replacements’ ‘Swingin’ Party’, and thought Pure Heroine was a promising enough debut album … but to be honest, I think I can probably live happily enough without hearing ‘Royals’ ever again.

For me, her best track in terms of pure song-craft was ‘Tennis Court’, and I think this superb cover by Brisbane-based producer Danny Harley – aka The Kite String Tangle – hammers that point home. It’s one thing to offer up a cover when the original has already had its day, but quite something else to do so while it’s still so high profile and fresh. Of course it helps that Harley has a great voice and is a unique talent in his own right, and I look forward to hearing more from The Kite String Tangle.

 

 

The Kite String Tangle on Soundcloud

The Kite String Tangle on Facebook

Album Review: Lorde - Pure Heroine (2013)

“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”  - Oscar Wilde

Whatever your take on 16-year-old Kiwi “pop sensation” Lorde, there’s no denying she’s everywhere at the moment. She's on top of the Billboard charts, on the radio, on television, and featuring in just about every other form of the news media – whether that be in the print/hard copy form, or merely popping up at hourly intervals in the much-harder-to-ignore cyberspace. Social media in particular has gone into overdrive, with Lorde being subjected to bitter tirades from crestfallen Miley Cyrus fans, and later getting into hot water for her own remarks on Taylor Swift's role modelling ... etc etc. Suddenly everything she does is big news. There was even a bizarre spat (of sorts) between a couple of high profile local bloggers about the wider relevance of Lorde's music, something that ties in nicely with the above well worn quote.

I’m quite sure it’ll pass and the current levels of both hype and controversy will die down sooner rather than later. It will all come back to the music in the end, but the way things are panning out, 2013 is definitely shaping up as The Year of Our Lorde. I use the word “our” in the same way some others might summon the royal “we”, and I do so because she’s local, and here in New Zealand, Lorde is a pretty big deal right now.

And so with all of this going on, curiosity naturally got the better of me and I couldn’t resist picking up a copy of her album, Pure Heroine, as soon as it was released last week. I could say that I did so only on behalf of my 15-year-old daughter, but that would be a glaring fib. She’ll merely be an indirect – albeit happy – beneficiary of her old man’s rabid music consumerism.

 

For all that grizzled middle-aged blokes are not Lorde’s target market, my first impression of the album is that it’s much better than I anticipated. There’s some great tunes, some quality songwriting, and Joel Little’s production certainly allows the music to breathe in a way that showcases an unexpected level of maturity. Little also enjoys co-writing credits on the majority of material on the album. There’s no question Lorde does teenage pop way better than most – these songs are very catchy, even if their durability has yet to be put to any sort of longevity test.

If I have a moan, it’s that over the course of a whole album Lorde’s voice starts to grate. It’s fine in short bursts, it even has a certain gravitas about it for one so young, but across the near 40 minutes it takes to traverse Pure Heroine, the vocal did start to become a little tiresome in parts.

I’m also very wary about embracing the notion that going number one on iTunes and Billboard (with ‘Royals’), is somehow a barometer of what’s good and what isn’t. It’s certainly an achievement, no question, but all it really means is that she’s incredibly on-the-button right now and ‘Royals’ is a catchy little tune with a great hook. It doesn’t necessarily mark it as “quality”, and it doesn’t in any way whatsoever guarantee a long and successful career in the ultra fickle world of pop music.

But good luck to Lorde regardless. This is a pretty impressive start, and what a weary old cynic like me thinks is hardly important in the wider scheme of things. This is all about the moment, the now, and Lorde's living it.