Album Anniversaries: The 5-Year Anniversary of ‘Melodrama,’ and How Lorde Avoided the Sophomore Slump

The critically acclaimed album Melodrama is now five. It is time to recollect on the album that started Lorde’s famous “album every four years” tradition.

Written by Adam Cherian

Image courtesy of Republic Records

Lorde is one of the most prolific artists of this generation. She blasted onto the scene as a 16-year-old girl with her record-breaking debut song “Royals,” and with the subsequent release of her debut album Pure Heroine, she had already cemented herself as an icon of the decade.

Lorde was extremely young when she was put in the spotlight, and Pure Heroine reflects that. The album feels straight out of a teen girl’s diary, with Lorde’s deepest thoughts, critiques of the world, and angst all on display. It is an intimate look into the mind of a 16-year-old that other teenagers could relate to. With the success of songs like “Royals,” or “Ribs,” this album was commercially successful, while also being acclaimed. High expectations to live up to, and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that her next album would not fulfill them. But four years later, she showed the world how versatile she can be, delivering what is considered to be one of the best pop records of the 2010s. At 19, Lorde had more life experiences to draw from — experiences that culminated into her 2017 album, Melodrama.

Melodrama, simplified, is a concept album about a girl trying to get over a breakup by going to a house party. Throughout the album, the listener is greeted with intense emotions, and the highs and lows that one may experience while in such a social setting during a moment of heartbreak. And in this process, Melodrama further proves to fans what Lorde does best: Take the most complex emotions one can feel, and put them into words. Furthermore, the album gave Lorde fans a glimpse into a never before seen side of her — one where she strayed away from her original image of an innocent teen girl.

Released as the album’s lead single, “Green Light” was the perfect introduction into what this album would put the listener through. The song is Lorde's attempt to move on from a relationship that just ended, glimpsing into how imprisoned she felt by the love she had for this person. “Cause honey I'll come get my things, but I can't let go / (I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it) / Oh, I wish I could get my things and just let go / (I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it).”

Immediately following “Green Light” is the steady pop banger “Sober.” Reminiscent of Lorde’s previous works, the track is a part of a narrative that also acts as a social commentary on drinking. The song details the dread Lorde expects to feel in the morning when she’s no longer inebriated. She’s trying to get over her ex by drinking, but knows that liquid happiness will not be permanent: “King and Queen of the weekend / Ain't a pill that could touch our rush / But what will we do when we're sober?”

Where Pure Heroine is a commentary on society through the perspective of a teen girl, Melodrama acts as a commentary on the dangers of normative party culture in young adulthood. No other song portrays this as well as the next track, “Homemade Dynamite,” in which Lorde details a car accident where the person driving was drunk. Descriptive lyrics like “We'll end up painted on the road, red and chrome / All the broken glass sparkling,” narrate the dangers of just partying away her feelings.

To transition from “Homemade Dynamite,” Lorde strays from drinking and chases a new high: love. This comes in the form of “The Louvre,” where the singer details the highs she feels from being in love. This song marks a distinct shift for Lorde, with its lyrics carrying a newfound sense of maturity. But the intense erotic fixation that the New Zealand singer has on this person has brought out a whole new side to her that fans have not seen before. The lyrics are so raunchy, yet tongue-in-cheek enough as expected from Lorde: ”Our thing progresses, I call and you come through / Blow all my friendships to sit in hell with you / But we're the greatest, they'll hang us in the Louvre / Down the back, but who cares — still the Louvre.

The high of “The Louvre” doesn’t last, and the album immediately hits its listeners with the devastating piano ballad “Liability.” The way that Lorde writes about loneliness, however, is so gut-wrenchingly sorrowful that only a poet as talented as she is could write this. Throughout the song, she talks about feeling abandoned by her friends, family, and her lovers. This ultimately ties back to breaking up with her ex, as she falls into a spiral of despair. The ending of her relationship makes Lorde call into question her other relationships, and where she falls into them.

Throughout the rest of the album, the listener gets pop perfection after pop perfection. “Supercut” is a standout, a moment of acceptance that the relationship is over. Lorde reminisces on her relationship by imagining a collage of images that brings her joy. It is one of the most intimate moments on the album, as it brings in some closure to a bittersweet moment.

Melodrama’s party reaches its last hurrah with closing track, “Perfect Places.” The song’s title refers to the ways in which drugs and alcohol seem to teleport one into a happy alternative reality, where one is not worried about the struggles of the present. It feels like the happy ending to an ultimately sad album, but the undertone of the track is one that is deeply unsettling: “All of the things we're taking / 'Cause we are young and we're ashamed / Send us to perfect places.” Using substances to achieve this state is not the happy ending one would expect. But it is the best way to sum up this album: Drink your pain away.

Melodrama made Lorde an artist to watch. While her first album put her on the map as an interesting and successful artist, her second album cemented her status as a pop icon, and is still regarded as Lorde’s best piece of work yet. Not even the recent release of her third album, Solar Power, seems to have changed how fans feel about its predecessor, as there are mixed reactions to Solar Power. Though an album about how nature makes one feel is interesting on paper, Solar Power lacked the concept, cohesion, and execution of Melodrama. All things considered, it took Lorde till her third album to finally feel the “sophomore slump,” which is expected with such a perfect project like Melodrama.

The legacy of Melodrama lives on. Though it was not her most commercially successful album, it has a cult following of music nerds and Lorde fans everywhere, considering it her best project to date. It was a wonderful farewell to the teenage girl from before, and a precursor to who she will become four years later.