Lorde - Green Light

“I am about to show you the new world,” Lorde said in an album update given on her 20th birthday last year. ‘Green Light’, the first glimpse of this world, shows it to be a dramatically different universe than that which she presented with ‘Royals’ half a decade ago - the dark, introverted pop of debut album ‘Pure Heroine’ is given a neon-coloured facelift and sent into the night with heart-thumping urgency. A song about “my first heartbreak,” ‘Green Light’ sees Lorde fighting back bitterness and instead spilling out bucketloads of defiance. “I’ll come get my things, but I can’t let go,” she sings in the track’s huge, gang vocal-backed chorus, and as soon as producer Jack Antonoff’s stadium-ready piano kicks in with all the spring of a trampoline, the track becomes a pop monster. All manner of deep-rooted memories spring up across the track - it’s anyone’s guess where “she thinks you love the beach, you’re such a damn liar“‘s origins lie - but despite being unrelatable anecdotes on their own, they’re delivered with such force that it’d be impossible to not believe in them too. Lorde’s out in the big wide world she stood on the brink of with wide eyes on ‘Pure Heroine’, and with ’Green Light’, she’s making it her own, and grabbing the unwavering attention and envy of the pop world in the process.