I knew I wouldn’t continue with this series. Enough nominations, enough great music – but time moves on, and the motivation I once drew upon writing about music has been dispersed into singing about music. I am not able however to resist the lure and pull and sheer joy of hearing the new summer-worshipping single from Lorde “I want to be Leonard Cohen. I want to be Joni. Fucking. Mitchell.”
The point that Laura Snapes makes in her Guardian article today is well-founded:
With Solar Power, Lorde both welcomes you into her world and revels in that distance. Produced – as was 2017’s Melodrama – by Jack Antonoff, it might be her most universal song, hippy in sound and spirit, and a world away from its nocturnal predecessors. Its loose percussive gait and acoustic simplicity evoke George Michael (both Faith and Freedom 90), Screamadelica-era Primal Scream and the Stones (Sympathy for the Devil), stirring a summer-of-love mood replete with appropriately cultish intimations (“I’m kind of like a prettier Jesus,” she sings, with knowing silliness).
The point that Laura Snapes makes in her Guardian article today is well-founded but overlooks one fundamental truth. Yeah sure, the comparisons are well-made; and yeah, those moments do evoke summer-of-love moods, almost despite the associations – but ‘Solar Power’ easily transcends all three moments listed above – and for why? Because this is 2021, and this is the summer of 2021.
And for millions upon millions this is the morning of their lives.
So good, it sounds timeless and unique already.
I hate the winter
Can’t stand the cold
I tend to cancel all the plans
How NOT to write about music 