Heartsick Teens And Solar Power: Every Lorde Song, Ranked
From tales of desperation to triumphant songs of the self, we've ranked them all.
David Bowie once called Lorde “the sound of the future.” How prophetic that turned out to be.
Over the course of a mere two albums and a handful of EPs, the young New Zealand popstar has transformed the shape of the industry. Simply put, there is no-one who makes music with her verve and ambition; no-one who so adeptly subverts expectations while never sounding like anyone but herself. Hers is a complicated and genre-pushing musical universe, one forever in the process of expanding outwards.
That means that ranking her songs is a foolhardy exercise in a way, a little like trying to rank each item in the Louvre. But looking at her career on that macro level allows one to see the subtle changes and shifts — the way she keeps re-inventing herself, all while staying distinctively Lorde.
Here then is our ranking of her entire musical output, submitted with the proviso that, all things considered, there’s no such thing as a bad Lorde song.
#30. ‘Meltdown’
‘Meltdown’ isn’t strictly a Lorde song. Released to promote the Hunger Games film franchise, it’s a co-write between a swathe of artists, not all of whom are bringing equal levels of enthusiasm to the project. Of course, Lorde’s vocal duties are glittering, as to be expected, but there’s a slackness to the song as it sits around her, and taken in its entirety, the thing is just a little lacklustre. Oh well.
#29. ‘The Love Club’
There’s no such thing as a bad Lorde song, so don’t take the relatively low ranking of ‘The Love Club’ as an insult — it’s still more transcendent than most pop released in the last ten years. In retrospect, it’s just a little rote, climbing scales and twisting pop hooks in a slightly mechanistic way. Still, the way Lorde sings lines about “the wicked kids” and thrones reveals the uniqueness of her talents — there’s a glittering irony to the proceedings; a darkness that lies just below the surface.
#28. ‘Bravado’
Don’t let that title misdirect you: ‘Bravado’ is one of the least assuming songs in the Lorde catalogue, a crystal chandelier worth of vocal lines and gentle, pressing instrumentation. It’s gospel teleported into place from the future, an uncanny mix of the familiar and the deeply, deeply strange.
#27. ‘Sober II’
At just under three minutes in length, ‘Sober II’ is more of a summing-up than a song in its own right, one of the rare moments on which Melodrama stops and takes a look at itself in the mirror. “How fast the evening passes,” Lorde sings, breathily, accompanied by nothing but a quiet piano line. It’s Elliott Smith blown out and made titanic; the sound of something very gentle being spoken very loud.
#26. ‘Yellow Flicker Beat’
‘Yellow Flicker Beat’ isn’t a pop song; it’s a chant, a quietly terrifying thing that feels like it could be used to summon something evil from the shadow. Ignore that bright and sunny title; this is Lorde at her most stripped-back and eerie, using her voice like a staff to cut swathes through the underbrush.
#25. ‘The Louvre’
The piano is best known as Lorde’s primary instrument, but she’s just as closely attuned to emotional frequencies as when armed by guitar. ‘The Louvre’, which spreads like acid raindrops staining a white tablecloth, proves that she’s just as talented when pushing herself into new sonic terrain, surrounded by a host of studio tricks and the emotional maturity of an artist twice her age.
#24. ‘Team’
‘Team’ is a song about waiting your turn; about impatience and desire. It slackens and tightens like a series of wires hanging out in the breeze, frequently shape-shifting into new, original forms. There’s nothing quite like it.
#23. ‘Biting Down’
“It feels better biting down,” Lorde sings over and over on the song of the same name, repeating those words until they come to resemble a curse, or a promise that the speaker doesn’t entirely believe in. Lorde is rarely talked about as a gothic popstar, but how else to explain this haunted castle of a song; a massive, crumbling structure of brick and malice, glimpsed just as one is cresting a hill. There’s a threat of violence in there, somewhere, only every time you spot it, it seems to have changed position.
#22. ‘A World Alone’
‘A World Alone’ is a thousand things at once — a tender love song, a dance banger, a list of bad habits. It’s one of the most expansive songs that Lorde has ever released, forever pointing outwards, at the horizon. “The people are talking, people are talking,” Lorde warns, her voice as loaded as though she is offering up a prayer.
#21. ‘Ladder Song’
One of the stranger songs that Lorde contributed to the Hunger Games soundtrack that she curated, ‘Ladder Song’ is a puff of smoke, twisting in the air into the shape of a snake. It’s an understated thing, but there is real power to the places that it drifts through.
#20. ‘Ribs’
At four minutes in length, ‘Ribs’ is one of Lorde’s longer offerings, taking its time to establish a hook. That means it’s a subtle listen, one that requires your full attention; put it on in the background, and it’ll fade away into mere noise. But if you do let it wash over you — preferably listening through headphones, sometime late in the night — it’ll reveal itself to be one of the most heartfelt songs in her back catalogue; a pot of red wine, brought to a simmer over a low flame.
#19. ‘No Better’
Most artists would lack the bravery to create something as understated and minimal as ‘No Better’ — writing this quiet takes its own very particular skills. Blink and you’ll miss it.
#18. ‘400 Lux’
A sea of rusted tin cans, cresting like a wave.
#17. ‘Liability (Reprise)’
Trust Lorde to push new directions even when she’s doubling back on herself. ‘Liability (Reprise)’ is a compact version of Melodrama‘s most popular single, sure, but it also brings a swathe of new textures and themes to the table. It’s a thousand hands pointing up; the moment in which you pull yourself together after months of pain and heartbreak. Let it into your heart and it’ll stay there for years.
#16. ‘Sober’
A knotted mess of vocal lines, strange melodies, and innovative instrumentation, ‘Sober’ flirts with a climax that never quite comes. It’s a construction site of a song, forever building itself up while ducking anything like release. “But what will we do when we are sober?” Lorde breathily asks, a question that never receives an answer.
#15. ‘Solar Power’
The dust still hasn’t settled on ‘Solar Power’ — it will be months before its strange pleasures have fully made themselves known. After all, this is Lorde at her most subtle, ducking easy conclusions and leaving her song to settle like a spilled glass of wine. But even still, there are immediate hooks to be found here, from Lorde’s sunny vocal line, to the psych-folk instrumentation, frolicking just underneath the surface.
#14. ‘Perfect Places’
No artist has managed to capture those bleak, twinkling hours after you stumble out of a house party as well as Lorde does on ‘Perfect Places’ . A hangover waiting to happen, it careens back and forth between vicious epithets and stark promises, Lorde’s voice capturing an entire universe of contradictions.
#13. ‘Buzzcut Season’
You could drive a fleet of trucks through the silences spotted throughout ‘Buzzcut Season’, an impossibly bare work of understated art that lets a series of stark images — a burning lover; a grim laugh; a flickering television — stand on their own pale, whorled feet.
#12. ‘Swingin’ Party’
On the surface of it, Lorde and The Replacements feel as far from each other as it is possible to imagine — the former is pop royalty, the latter a set of cult heroes who only ever existed on the fringes of the mainstream. But peel away such surface-level concerns, and their unity of vision snaps into focus: both acts make music like their life depends on it, mashing pop stylings with something stranger; something darker. Lorde’s take on ‘Swingin’ Party’, a cover included in the Japanese release of Pure Heroine, draws these similarities into the foreground, cutting to the quick of Paul Westerberg’s masterpiece and breaking hearts in the process.
#11. ‘Royals’
Has any artist of the last 20 years been so forever shaped by a single song? ‘Royals’ turned Lorde from New Zealand teenager to cultural behemoth practically overnight, assembling fans at a feverish pace. And even now, years after its release, it still appears as fresh and an unusual as when it was first released. It’s the sound of a young artist finding their feet with astonishing grace and intelligence, using studio tools to reveal something real and essential. You don’t listen to ‘Royals’: it goes flying past you.
#10. ‘White Teeth Teens’
Pure Heroine is an adolescent album in the best sense of the word, a testimony to the strange mix of self-confidence and self-depreciation that battles in the heart of every teenager on the planet. ‘White Teeth Teens’ turns that theme into a quasi-horror movie, conjuring up images of lovesick adolescents stumbling from their doors like zombies in a black-and-white horror picture. Watch out: this thing has bite.
#9. ‘Homemade Dynamite’
Self-appraisal is one of Lorde’s greatest skills as a songwriter — few artists have spent so much time staring themselves in the mirror. ‘Homemade Dynamite’ is a pinnacle of that penchant for autobiography, as the singer unpicks her hopes and dreams and decides the names and titles she wants to drench herself in.
#8. ‘Glory and Gore’
Every single Lorde song could be titled ‘Glory and Gore’ — those three words capture her entire modus operandi, highlighting her skill at combining the glossy with the emotionally devastating. As to the song itself, it’s the angriest thing on Pure Heroine, bursting at the seams with its own vicious conviction. And then there’s that chorus, a glimmering knife jutting forward in the dark, over and over, forever.
#7. ‘Hard Feelings/Loveless’
A six-minute-long masterpiece that begins in relative silence and then eventually stretches itself out to be as wide as horizon, ‘Hard Feelings/Loveless’ feels more like a medley than a song, as Lorde mechanistically moves through each and every one of her talents. And then there’s the solar pop of the chorus, a dizzyingly bright thing that will scorch the hair of up and down your arms.
#6. ‘Writer In The Dark’
Honesty is the name of Lorde’s entire game — she’s never written a line that doesn’t feel like it’s been fired off straight from the heart. ‘Writer In The Dark’ takes that truth-telling to its natural endpoint, stripping out everything unnecessary and honing each line till they draw blood. “I love you till you call the cops on me,” Lorde promises, a simple piano line sticking to her words like a bandage to a wound.
#5. ‘Still Sane’
The most fear-addled version of ‘Happy Birthday’ ever written, ‘Still Sane’ feels like an anxiety attack in a ball pit; the tremble and the kitsch, pushed into the same place. When Lorde does begin to set her sights on her goal — nothing less than the crown itself — she can’t keep the concern out of her voice, promising things she seems unable to deliver on. It’s triumphant, of course, but it’s also deeply down to earth, a throne with its cushion cut to ribbons.
#4. ‘Supercut’
Lorde only dropped a song like ‘Supercut’ once. There’s nothing quite like it in the rest of her discography — no sense of sadness so furiously expressed; no forward momentum quite so dizzying. It’s the sound of an orchestra being kicked down the stairs; a singer taking their art one step at a time and spreading open their arms as they do so. Break-ups have never sounded quite this surreal, or this bold.
#3. ‘Tennis Court’
The song that started it all, ‘Tennis Court’ transformed Lorde from a young New Zealand wunderkind to a dominant voice in pop almost overnight. In the years since its release, it has been oversaturated in our culture, played to death by countless radio stations the world over. But listen past the acclaim and the memes and you’ll still be able to hear that young singer, desperate to take over the world, and preserved in melody like a mosquito trapped in amber. There’s true hunger here — a dizzying talent, writing their own destiny.
#2. ‘Green Light’
Sure, sure, ‘Green Light’ is something of a safe pick, given the swathes of acclaim it has garnered over the years. But sometimes the culture gets it right, and ‘Green Light’ is just as good as everyone tells you that it is. Cracked like an old glass, held together by sheer force of will, it’s a blood-stained missive that eventually transforms into something else; something stranger. There are entire universes contained within that chorus, spilling over into one multi-coloured mess.
#1. ‘Liability’
‘Liability’ is a nursery rhyme sung by someone trying to work their way through an anxiety attack. It’s a self-portrait assembled out of used bottles. It’s a song of the self, branded via stick-and-poke into the most tender stretch of skin on the body. It’s Lorde’s best track, and more than that, it’s one of the unabashed masterpieces that the pop machine has ever produced. “The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy until all of the tricks don’t work anymore,” Lorde trembles. “And then they are bored of me.” What other artist could speak with such clarity?
Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Music Junkee and Lorde fan.