Album Review: Lorde // Pure Heroine

Lorde // Pure Heroine

It’s been said in other reviews of Lorde’s “Pure Heroine” that she mentions being bored twice in the first twenty seconds of the first track. This is true, but I don’t think she’s disaffected or jaded. She’s 17 and her lyrics make you want to pick up your friends and just driiiiive. 

Lorde’s voice is somewhere between Lana Del Rey’s sultry alto and Florence Welch’s theatric wail-vibrations. 

The vibe of this record includes a barrage of emotion constrained into a monotone voice and for some reason, I’m totally into that. For example, I heard this awesome band Clawhammer this weekend at the Blackthorn and they had this statuesque chick, not unlike Katharine Whalen from “Squirrel Nut Zippers”, standing almost on the outside of the rest of the band playing washboard. She was good at it, but she barely moved as she played, and her face was deadpan, even when she sang. I imagine this is Lorde’s visage live, having only heard the record and not seen her videos, though I’m told she stares at you through the screen without blinking. Sounds about right.

I can’t even describe the effect Lorde has on me. “Pure Heroine” has the ability to transport me back to 11th grade within those first “bored” twenty seconds. It captures that summer after junior year (I know, it’s like REALLY specific) when you’ve just begun to feel the prickling of adult depression and you’re trying to pretend you didn’t see it creeping up on you. You’re young enough that turning your head and sticking your fingers in your ears is enough to block out that Grey Beast, at least for a few more years. You’re starting to feel old, even though you’re not…at ALL. To be completely honest with you, I don’t feel that differently now. 

I have a feeling you could play this album at some awkward hangout with old friends from high school that you haven’t seen since high school (like maybe a reunion?) and suddenly everyone would clink their Pabst cans in solidarity. Then someone would suggest going out to vandalize something. Perhaps Lorde is a bad influence, but if loving “Pure Heroine” is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Best Lyric: “Nothing’s wrong if nothing’s true…I live in a hologram with you.”

Best Track: Glory and Gore

Overall Rating: 3/5

Justin Timberlake // The 20/20 Experience

"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." -a quote from maybe Mark Twain, maybe a French mathematician named Blaise Pascal, or perhaps it just appeared in consciousness.

In many ways Timberlake, like countless artists throughout time, suffers from a lack of brevity. "The 20/20 Experience" is 21 tracks long, both parts told, and the tracks average at 7 minutes long. Timbaland/Timberlake tend to crescendo into a groovy dance or R&B track and just when you've decided you like it, the mood shifts into a totally different animal that you might not like at all. Just because this approach worked with "Lovestoned/I Think She Knows" doesn't mean it works with everything, boys. At least with the aforementioned masterpiece, they had the courtesy to name the track with a slash. One knows a song is going to change with a slash in the title.

I have a repeating rant in my head about brevity. Editing is a religion to me. Artists NEED to have people around them telling them to cut songs. An album you can play in its entirety is going to be 8-10 tracks long. Edit, people! There's just never a good reason for 15 tracks and three bonus remixes, in my opinion.

Verbosity aside, I am very partial to JT, to his entire person. I like his attitude, his acting, his style, his dancing, and his lovable freaking face. I'm always going to give Justin's endeavors a fair shot, because I find him to be a spectacular human being. His lyrics are sexy in a way that at first seems a bit submissive towards his women protagonists, but on closer inspection the submissiveness is revealed as respect and consent. Consent is hardly ever implicit within pop songs about sex, but JT's overall song demeanor is body-positive, respectful, AND consensual. Timberlake's lyrics have just a touch of bravado, instead of the usual r&b man's downright assault of it. This makes the man actually sexy in all the ways that other male r&b artists THINK they are.

Justin seems to have a lot of respect for women in general. Even onstage, his women backup dancers aren't objectified. They're typically wearing suits as snazzy as their frontman's duds. In JT's world, women are appreciated and the implications that their pleasure "comes first" are obvious (in "Cabaret") and welcome. It's easy to feel like this man is a good man AND an excellent lover. I can't say that about any other male artist off the top of my head, except maybe Josh Homme.

Though I am obviously very enamored with JT's personae, I find his music aurally to be hit or miss, like a lot of pop/r&b artists. I skip the r&b tracks, gravitating toward the more pop/dance flavors of JT. I typically keep about half the tracks on each of his albums, but I usually fiercely love those tracks. "Cry Me a River" is still a masterpiece 11 years later.

With "The 20/20 Experience" it's a different animal entirely. I wasn't compelled to buy ANY of the tracks from part 1 and I'm just sorting through part 2. So far, I really dig the first two tracks of part 2, but overall, the "...Experience" is a disappointment. I read that he's fulfilling a (record) contractual obligation by putting out these two records this year, and it shows. His heart doesn't seem to be entirely in it, though part of that could be explained in that his vocals seem to be processed a little back in the mix. In listening to this album, I feel JT is distanced from me. For an r&b man, one is supposed to feel like it's just you and JT in a bedroom. This album gets there in lyrics about half the time ("True Blood" and "Gimme What I Don't Know [I Want]" are the songs I'd like to be alone with.). But again, that voice that's usually so invitingly confidential seems partially hidden on this album, or perhaps Justin is putting on that fake smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes.

This lack of warmth makes me afraid this is Justin Timberlake's last musical effort. Though this album falls flat, the man behind it has got a voice (both literally and P.O.V.-wise) and I don't want to stop hearing it.

MixtressRae's final RATING -- 1/5
Best Tracks -- "Gimme What I Don't Know (I Want)" and "True Blood"

Top Five JT songs ever:
"Cry Me a River"
"FutureSex/LoveSounds"
"What Goes Around..."
"Lovestoned"
"True Blood" (maybe...I've only known this song three days)

Queens of the Stone Age // ...Like Clockwork

Queens of the Stone Age has made a career out of sounding like ‘70s hard rock with sincerity, integrity, and vocals (that of Josh Homme) few rock gods of the era could achieve. The aforementioned voice is lilting without sounding falsetto, hardcore without exclusivity, and dripping with sexuality without sounding overtly macho. I worship at the feet of Homme’s honey-pipes, as I’ve expressed in many other places before. Another oft-mentioned confession I have about Homme’s voice is the following: I don’t feel like it’s summer until I’ve driven down the sun-soaked roads of Joplin with it in my ear-holes, an event I achieved just this week, in case you were worried it wasn’t summer. It is.

This record does NOT disappoint, if you couldn’t tell where this was going. I’ve only ever reviewed one album I didn’t like (Madonna’s “MDNA”) in these pages (those of the Current, Etc where this was originally published). If you already like QOTSA, you’ll like this album, though it doesn’t sound totally akin to other albums before it. The lyrics, song and album titles include a lot of cliches (“passing ships in the night”, “why the long face?”, “is there anyone out there?”, “it’s all downhill from here”), but I think that might be the point, and though I’ve criticized Madonna for this exact same reason, I can look past it when the riffs are THIS good. The essential elements of QOTSA we know and love are all here in abundance: crunchy bass, guitar distortion striking just the right balance, driving/drilling/hypnotic guitar riffs, and Homme’s voice cooing throughout. Overall, the headbangers are subdued to spirited chin-juts and the tempo is slowed to more of a groove than their usual faire on most tracks of “...Like Clockwork”, but you won’t mind, I swear. 

If you get into QOTSA for the first time (this album is in all the regular streaming and music selling places online) and want to REALLY go down the Homme rabbit-hole, check out not only Queens’ other albums, but also Them Crooked Vultures, Kyuss, and Eagles of Death Metal. That should tide you over for an entire summer of creek-ventures, porch beer-parties and long drives to Mother Nature’s Crack. Happy Summer, boys, girls, and other creatures of the night!

Favorite Lyric: “When you own the world, you’re always home.”

Favorite Song (So Far): Keep Your Eyes Peeled

Rating: 7/10

Let me know your thoughts on this and Homme’s other musical endeavors here: mixtressrae@yahoo.com