Pure Heroine — the highly anticipated follow-up to New Zealander Lorde’s The Love Club EP — is streaming a week in advance of its due date. We heard the chart-topping single “Royals” over the summer and “Team” last week, so it’s no surprise that the rest of the tracks on Pure Heroine boast the same minimalist production and thematic elements. Lorde isn’t writing lyrics veiled in double-meaning and poetry — her songwriting mimics the same knee-to-the-gut bass hum that underscores her crystalline voice. Lorde is only 16 — she sings about sort-of lovers buying her orange juice, growing older, and living in ugly places. But mostly, Lorde sings about gossip. Pure Heroine is undeniably a pop record, meaning that every track will be deconstructed before critics and fans and ex-fans hang them out to dry. But Lorde has a naive bravado that makes you feel like she’s ready for the onslaught. “Don’t you think that it’s boring how people talk?” she implores in the first moments of the album. She spends nearly 40 minutes sensationalizing this boredom before answering her own question at the record’s close, “Let them talk.” Stream Pure Heroine below.



