Music Review: Lorde "Tennis Court"

Lorde

Tennis Court

Album: Pure Heroine

Year: 2013

             Lorde  adjusts to fame in the  atypical  “Tennis Court.”

         Tapping synths open the single, setting a forward tone. Two girls immediately separate once they see her look at the. She returns back to the clothes rack and hears the murmuring again. It was probably something they read on the Daily Mail. She shakes her head and moves towards the purse aisle. Singing is something she’s always wanted to do. It’s also something she’s good at doing and she’s enjoying herself right now. She’s been working towards a singing career since she bought her first record. She had the chance to become a pop star and she took it. The older she gets, the scarce the chances become. However, seeing her occansional picture in a magazine, touting her latest clothing purchase takes some getting used to. Whatever their opinions are, it doesn’t matter. It won’t change who she is. (“Don't you think that it's boring how people talk/Making smart with their words again, well I'm bored/Because I'm doing this for the thrill of it, killin' it/Never not chasing a million things I want/And I am only as young as the minute is full of it/Getting pumped up from the little bright things I bought/But I know they'll never own me.”)

         She’s seen the jokes on the blogs. However, she’s not going to post vitriol back to them. It will only prove them right and not worth risking her career. It’s made warier of people, though. However, she tries to maintain some normalcy in her life by continuing with her routine as before. (“Baby, be the class clown/I'll be the beauty queen in tears/It's a new art form showing people how little we care/We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fear/Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah.”)

          She tells her friend at the tennis court she can only play a couple games today. She has to leave for the airport in a couple hours. However, having a manager, assistant and publicist to consult with is all new to her. She’s afraid of saying the wrong thing in an interview. Everyone watching is her now and it has made her personal life tougher to navigate. Suddenly, she’s getting messages from guys she’s never met and went to school with, asking her out. But if she knows if she wasn’t famous right now, they wouldn’t bother with her. She also knows her shelf life may be short. (“Pretty soon I'll be getting on my first plane/I'll see the veins of my city like they do in space/But my head's filling up fast with the wicked games, up in flames/How can I fuck with the fun again when I'm known?/And my boys trip me up with their heads again, loving them/Everything's cool when we're all in line, for the throne/But I know it's not forever.”)

          The chorus is sung again.

        In the bridge, her agent shows her a paparazzi photo that showed up online. Her eyes are puffy from crying. She had an argument with a friend and was really upset. They had caught her in a vulnerable moment. She thinks it’s hilarious. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Let them invent their drama to sell papers. (“It looked alright in the pictures /Getting caught soft with the triple is it/I fall apart, with all my heart/And you can watch from your window/And you can watch from your window.”)

          The chorus is sung again.

         She repeats the last lyric of the chorus several times to end the single. (“And talk it up like yeah /And talk it up like yeah/Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah/And talk it up like yeah/And talk it up like yeah /Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah.”)

             Lorde’s candid vocals withstand the criticism about her physical appearance, lyrics or whatever else people have decided to pick on today with head held high. She has every right to say something. Being in the public eye doesn’t automatically mean she has to swallow every comment. She recongnizes that celebrities (which she is now) no longer have the luster around them as they did before the Internet.

            Commenting on own’s fame can turn ugly quickly, as the entertainer bogs down the lyrics with complaints and excuses. They play the victim, attacking the people who they feel have slighted them with an unnecessary amount of venom (Lady Gaga with bloggers and the press and Justin Timberlake complaining about Billboard’s review for the 20/20 Experience Part 2 of 2 in a GQ interview earlier this year).

               The classy “Tennis Court” stands up for itself while wisely listening to her advisers.