It has been nearly 3 years since two-time Grammy award winner Lorde’s last single “Yellow Flicker Beat”, but Friday she finally dropped her much anticipated new single and music video “Green Light.” The 20-year-old has added an up-tempo dance pop rhythm to her signature angsty darkness, picking up where she left off with the sound from her last album Pure Heroine before the music quickly breaks out in dance-oriented beat. Lorde’s image has also transformed since her last album: she teamed up with director Grant Singer (Taylor Swift, The Weeknd) and rocks a tight pink dress and Adidas, dances in a club, and sings while her body is hanging out of a moving car.
. @lorde that's a yus kween dance on that @lyft 🚦❗
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) March 2, 2017
Lorde tells Beats1 that “Green Light” teases her upcoming album Melodrama, scheduled for release this summer. The LP was produced by pop genius Jack Antonoff of fun. and Bleachers, who’s also had a hand in Taylor Swift/ZAYN’s “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” and Sarah Bareilles’ “Brave.” In the interview, Lorde spoke about her new sound:
The song is actually about a heartbreak. And it’s not something that I really am used to writing about. It took me a while to be able to figure out how to write about that. It was my first major heartbreak. And the song is really about those moments kind of immediately after your life changes and about all the silly little things that you gravitate towards. I say, ‘She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a liar.’ What the f**k, she thinks you like the beach?! You don’t like the beach! It’s those little stupid things. It sounds so happy and then the lyrics are so intense obviously. And I realized I was like, ‘How come this thing is coming out so joyous sounding?’ And I realized this is that drunk girl at the party dancing around crying about her ex-boyfriend who everyone thinks is a mess. That’s her tonight and tomorrow she starts to rebuild. And that’s the song for me.
In a album update on her 20th birthday last November, Lorde discussed what she called the “2 wild, fluorescent years of my life” from adolescence to adulthood:
I turned inwards to my friends, my family, towards this moment, so I could learn more about who I was, and so I could let this new project show itself to me.
My heart broke. I moved out of home and into the city and I made new friends and started to realize that no-one is just good or bad, that everyone is both. I started to discover in a profound, scary, blood-aching way who I was when I was alone, what I did when I did things only for myself. I was reckless and graceless and terrifying and tender. I threw sprawling parties and sat in restaurants until the early hours, learning what it’s like to be an adult, even talking like one sometimes, until I caught myself. All I wanted to do was dance. I whispered into ears and let my eyes blaze on high and for the first time I felt this intimate, empire-sized inner power.
This Saturday, March 11th Lorde will make her solo debut appearance on SNL. She’ll play Coachella and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in April. And already, Lorde has a green light for her next album to be hit. Her and her musician friends had this to say on Twitter about her newest track:
i am so proud of this song. it's very different, and kinda unexpected. it's complex and funny and sad and joyous and it'll make you DANCE
— Lorde (@lorde) March 1, 2017
A tweet isn't ever going to be enough to help me say how thankful I am for what @Lorde just did for pop music in 2017. You too @jackantonoff
— hayley from Paramore (@yelyahwilliams) March 2, 2017
Yes Lorde https://t.co/Wd02GvIMiA 🙌🏼
— BASTILLE (@bastilledan) March 2, 2017