Lorde Describes Melodrama As the Story of a House Party

Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna

Lorde recently did an interview with the New York Times in which she explained her forthcoming album Melodrama and the process she went through in order to write it. She describes the entire album as a person’s journey throughout attending a party.

“With a party, there’s that moment where a great song comes on and you’re ecstatic,” she explained, “and then there’s that moment later on where you’re alone in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, you don’t think you look good, and you start feeling horrible.”

The album was co-written with Jack Antonoff of Bleachers and fun. Lorde also stated that she devised a color-coding method in order to ensure all the songs on the album sounded cohesive.

“A song about partying would get a certain color,” she explained, “but it might be a sad song, and that got its own color, too.”

Lorde, whose real name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor, also went through a breakup in the process of writing Melodrama, although she doesn’t call the album a breakup album. Rather, she told the New York Times, “it’s a record about being alone. The good parts and the bad parts.”

The first single off the album, “Green Light,” was released last month in March, and offers a breakup song both full of rage and acceptance over the complicated feelings that emerge after a relationship ends.

According to Pitchfork, Lorde also divulged that Max Martin, prominent Swedish songwriter, told her the song was “incorrect songwriting” because of its melodic math. She did call the single a “strange piece of music” herself, and clarified that it wasn’t an insult from him.

Melodrama will be released June 16 through Republic Records, and so far seems like it will reflect the undeniable growth Lorde has experienced in the four years since the release of her debut album, Pure Heroine. The latter was released when Lorde was only 16, and offered her opinion of adolescent parties and the desire to fit in. Now, at 20 years old, Lorde reflected to the New York Times that she strove “to make sense of every weird thing that happens at a party with 15-year-olds” and forswore alcohol in the making of Pure Heroine. With Melodrama, on the other hand, “I went to the party and got drunk.”

Catch Lorde this summer as part of several festival lineups, including Coachella, Outside Lands and Glastonbury. View our recent stories on her singles from Melodrama, “Green Light” and “Liability.”