Three and a half years after the release of her debut album Pure Heroine, Lorde trades in her dark lipstick and haunting vocals for a hot pink dress and strobe lights on “Green Light,” the lead single off her highly anticipated second album Melodrama due this summer.
The track starts off reminiscent of a slow piano ballad as Lorde adopts a biting, accusatory tone to address a former flame, singing, “She thinks you love the beach/You’re such a damn liar.” Leading up to the chorus, however, the piano begins to pick up as Lorde swaps her bitterness for the admission that she still has feelings for the man in question, reaching a crescendo as she declares, “Honey I’ll come get my things/But I can’t let go.” For a song about heartbreak and unrequited attachment, “Green Light” is unusually but infectiously upbeat.
Perhaps even more surprising is Lorde’s drastic change of writing style from the poetic and brooding tracks that won her two Grammys in 2014, but given the fact that she was only 16 years old upon Pure Heroine’s release, we should expect her new endeavors to reflect her growth as an artist and as a person over the past four years. Lorde will be taking on the festival circuit this summer, performing at Bonnaroo, Osheaga, and Governor’s Ball, among others. Keep an eye out for Melodrama this summer and download “Green Light” here.
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