2013 Albums of da year
#1: Lorde - Pure Heroine (Universal)
No musical artist in 2013 was as thrilling, confounding, or flat out interesting as Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O'Connor, aka Lorde. Haters gonna hate, but let there be no doubt - Lorde is a very big deal, and if she isn’t quite yet Generation Z’s Madonna, she may very well already be their Siouxsie Sioux. The reasons for her instant ubiquity are many, but the most important one is the music - from the Love Club EP to Pure Heroine, Lorde and producer Joe Little had the best 12 months in pop music since the real queen bee dropped 15 perfect ones on us in 2010. Who would have thought that a de facto concept album about a precocious teenager on the verge of becoming famous (for releasing an album about a precocious teenager on the verge of becoming famous) would yield such indelible and idiosyncratic pop music? No one, of course, but Pure Heroine does just that - “Ribs,” “Team,” “Tennis Court,” “400 Lux,” “Royals,” and album secret weapon “Buzzcut Season,” not only work as revolutionary top-40, but also delineate a vision of commercial pop as folk music for young people of the viral era, merging unapologetic self absorption (Lorde is nothing if not self absorbed) with an authentic desire to connect, inspire, and change the world. It’s very teenage, but so what? So are Minor Threat, Catcher in the Rye, and Please Please Me. Indeed, for a genre that has been defined for decades by sleazy middle aged men putting words in the mouths of teenage girls, it seems miraculous to learn that an actual autonomous teenage pop idol is less interested in providing dimwitted wish-fulfillment than she is in writing critiques on materialism and confessions about her fears of the future. Even more amazing was that her audience, notably teenage girls, responded in kind, rejecting the latest condescending offerings from Britney Spears and Lady Gaga in favor of Lorde's vision of authentic, humane pop stardom. It was only the predictably despicable online critics who couldn’t accept Lorde’s arrival, ho-hum’ing Pure Heroine in dismissive reviews and making “Royals” the poster-child for their tired click-baiting agendas that most people below the age of 20 find irrelevant (see also: Tyler the Creator and the contrived “fag” controversy). But Lorde shouldn’t worry. Those online blowhards are the fever sore of an unsustainably hypocritical culture; one that bullies with political correctness yet bends over backwards to excuse its own thirst for rampant misogyny, insipid materialism, and trench coat puerility masking as camp. It is a culture whose highest aspirations are articulated in the demeaning, self-congratulatory celebration of Justin Bieber, Lindsey Lohan, and the Kardashians. To have the watchmen of that culture tell you you’re wrong is truly to be doing something right. And Lorde is more than right: Lorde is the future.