TRACK REVIEW: Green Light by Lorde

BY FARHIRA FARUDIN

I personally am a fan of Ella Yelich-O’Connor aka Lorde. She reached her worldwide success at the age of 17, and it doesn’t get any more inspiring than that. Her song writing skills matures beyond her age, and because she shows maturity in a world where teenagers care more about Instagram filters instead of involving one’s self in the strange world of teenage conflicts, many people thought she was born decades ago. Many in fact strongly believed in this theory, that’s just how progressive Lorde is as a teenager. But no, she is Lorde who’s now merely 20 years old.

After her astonishing debut ‘Pure Heroine’ was released in 2013, it was only a matter of time for her fans and critics to anticipate the release of her sophomore album. Everyone wanted more of her. And after what it felt like a long decade (it has only been four years but in our world, but we're talking about Lorde here) she finally released the title of her sophomore album, called ‘Melodrama’, alongside the first single ‘Green Light’.

Green Light, to put this in the simplest way, is safe. It’s a coming-of-age pop with repeatable beats you’ve heard many times before in other Top 40 songs. It doesn’t even come close to sounding like her debut single ‘Royals’. But it’s fascinating. It’s mesmerizing. It’s addicting, but Green Light takes time for you to be addicted to it. It takes time because the process it required for listeners to understand that Lorde perhaps will never go back to her Pure Heroine days. Green Light is still Lorde, just more upbeat and catchier. And like good ol’ Ella, she tries to make people dance along to the jumpy beats, and in the midst of the crowd jumping joyfully, they start to realize the way she sings in this stunning and obviously-shaped-to-rule-the-charts song is rather poignant. But how could she not? Green Light is about her first major heartbreak, and suddenly the crowd is no longer dancing. If this is what she aimed for, then she did a good job. An impressive one, to be exact.

Watch the music video below: