There is so much gorgeousness in the world today coming out of some incredible ladies who are accomplished, driven, and express themselves with completely individual style. I want to take the Monday blues and bathe in inspiration – for both new looks AND life goals. Monday Muse will hopefully be the space where I can do that regularly.

It’s been awhile, folks!  Life is busy-ish, and new schedules abound, but I’m hoping to have a few posts up this week for your enjoyment.  Let’s dive right in and fawn over my latest inspiration, the singer-songwriter-poet-performance-artist, Lorde.

Lorde is only 20 years old, and was only 15 years old when her first album was released – an album with one of my all-time favorite titles, Pure Heroine.  I heard “Royals” and was immediately blown away, and then even more so when I found out how young she was (and is!).  “Royals” was such a fantastic first-release for her in hindsight, as it completely sets up an incredible tone that informs the rest of her work: Mainly, her poignant and self-aware descriptions of her high school cohorts, and refreshingly honest rejection of “aspirational” pop music.  For once, there was a young pop star staying far away from a common keening over boys; she wasn’t desperate to be seen as fun, fun, fun all the time –  bright pink and effervescent, yet hardly there at all.  Instead, she blatantly rejects this notion, showing almost puzzlement over the idea that all people her age want is an expensive car or jewelry:

And we’ll never be royals
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of life just ain’t for us
We crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler, you can call  me Queen B
And baby I’ll rule (I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule)
Let me live that fantasy

More than just just merely turning away from all that’s pure surface, Lorde clearly articulates that she – and those in her age group – are not so dumb to confuse the obtaining of a particular lifestyle with any real power.  She wants to be your ruler – more likely, to be able to rule herself – not just enjoy the riches.  To know that difference and to call out for real control, for self-agency in a world with corporations preying on young people to be nothing but Beautiful and Rich is so utterly empowering and necessary.

The power of youth, again, seems to lay in what young people can eventually be – with the proper, adult influence – as opposed to what they already are.  I adore the imagery in Lorde’s work: Of everyday, yet forever-cemented-in-the-mind moments of all those who were young once:

You pick me up and take me home again
Head out the window again
We’re hollow like the bottles that we drain
You drape your wrists over the steering wheel
Pulses can drive from here
We might be hollow but we’re brave

I love these roads where the houses don’t change (and I like you)
Where we can talk like there’s something to say (and I like you)
I’m glad that we stopped kissing the tar on the highway

– 400 Luxe

There’s always this perfect balance in her songs of imagery and feeling.  You can picture exactly what’s happening and what’s in her head.  I remember the first time I heard, “You drape your wrist over the steering wheel / pulses can drive from here,” and I thought (and still do) that it was one of the best lyrics I’d ever heard.  The beat of that song is so steady and calm, adding to the same feelings you had when one of your friends that could drive – or even better, a cute guy that you liked – would pick you up and you’d drive around with nowhere to go, and how utterly great it was.  The power of all of these words lays in the fact that the Lorde was still doing stuff like this when she wrote them; she wasn’t an older songwriter feeling nostalgic about her younger, more carefree days.  It’s a testament to her brilliance that she can easily zero in on what’s important while it’s happening, and write about it in an accessible, clear, cut-to-the-heart manner.

Lorde’s young age was again a red herring before the release of her second album, Melodrama.  Maybe she couldn’t repeat the success of Pure Heroine; maybe all of those imagery-laden lyrics were just a fluke.  Fortunately, there was no sophomore slump, and I think most of her fans knew everything would be okay – even if this second album was mainly about the break-up of a long-term relationship.  Again, Lorde has this incredible self-awareness that I knew before it even came out that it would probably be one of the best albums about heartbreak and growing up ever written, across all genres.  Even titling the album “melodrama:”  That’s the precise thing most people think of when considering young people in love and breaking up.  The tongue-in-cheekness of it – ugh, I just love it.  There’s a wink there or something, or at least a dryness, that simply reading the title sets you up perfectly for what she’s about to say and get into.

 

Because, of course, “melodrama” is never the whole story of a young breakup.  The song, “Sober II” that actually uses the word “melodrama,” is not defensive about how a young woman’s first breakup is actually quite serious; nor is it about how she actually doesn’t care, haha, she’s a cool girl and to give a shit would be melodramatic and she’s not that (both angles the go-tos for lady pop breakup songs).  Instead, it goes incredibly deep:

We told you this was melodrama
(Oh how fast the evening passes
Cleaning up the champagne glasses
Our only wish is melodrama
(Oh how fast the evening passes
Cleaning up the champagne glasses)

And the terror
And the horror
And we wonder why we bother
And the terror
And the horror
And we wonder why we bother
All the glamour and the trauma and the fucking melodrama

This isn’t just melodrama (though just reading the lyrics, it sounds a bit melodramatic, eh?).  It’s real drama, and it’s real hurt.  The world “melodrama” is used to indicate something false, a storm in a teacup.  And this isn’t it, and she wishes it was because she was told that it would be.  If it was just melodrama, a fake drama, then it’d be just fine, wouldn’t it?  At this point, it might not even be about her breakup; going back to her themes about youth and society’s underestimation of them, chalking teens’ attitudes and opinions up to their being “melodramatic” is getting less and less valid every day.  They’re the ones having to live with the grown ups’ choices; they’re the ones being reduced down to just passive players.

I’m constantly startled by her perfect balance of adult power and depth with youthful innocence and curiosity in her lyrics.  And it doesn’t stop there – this is a beauty blog, of course, steeped in the aesthetic side of things.  Her performance highlight the same themes of her music, going back and forth between looking like a soul-stealing witch, or a young person trying to find and embrace who she really is.  (All of the photos from the next three sets are from her Instagram page.)

LOOOOOOOK.  There’s no trend here,  only this spooky embrace of lady power.  Usually a “unique look” tends to swing in the direction of bright colors, shiny fabrics, and geometrical shapes (think: Katy Perry, whom I also love but not as much as Lorde).  Instead, there’s this weird, almost colonial Salem vibe happening.  And she kills the same look with white, too:

Fucking swooooooon.  I want to go to a Lorde concert so fucking badly.  I always forget to buy tickets to arena shows, though.  Oops.  Aside from this kind of thing, though, the woman gets clothes, and how good certain, more modern things look on her – especially bright colors.  But she does them in this cool, non-sexy-yet-sexy-in-that-it-isn’t way I can’t get enough of.  Also, she, like me, is a jumpsuit girl.  And we get each other, I bet, in that way.

If you were doubting at all her talent, look no further than David Bowie’s prediction of her success.  DAVID FUCKING BOWIE.  The alien endorses the witch, and it makes me want to weep with happiness.  After his death (ugh ugh ugh), Lorde performed “Life on Mars” at the BRIT awards in dedication to him, and it’s one of my favorite of her performances.  I also love David Bowie, and it makes me emotional, so there’s that too.

And, in one of my favorite performances by her, playfully dancing around onstage, sometimes lip syncing, at the MTV Video Music Awards because she had the flu.  This performance is sort of the clincher for me when it comes to figuring out her vibe.  It’s basically however she’s feeling at the time, which means it always works.  It’s so authentic.  Like adding the sneakers with the white witchy dress above, she accesses a part of her that’s slightly off of the usual look, but it’s completely infectious.  Sweatpants, Adidas, and a silver junior prom dress – that’s probably what a lot of young girls wear as they lip sync to “Homemade Dynamite” in their rooms (maybe not all of those things at once):

I can’t help but grin, watching that.  Above all else, I love Lorde because she’s sincere, and, in fact, dwells in sincerity – even as her presentation of it shifts. I just adore her full ownership of herself, and getting that she can be All The Things: Sexy, strong, deep, playful, sweet, funny, dramatic, melodramatic, etc.  And that they all work – there’s never a moment when you feel that it’s artifice, that she’s just playing to her audience.  She may be adhering to whims, of course, but they’re her own.  To have the self-confidence she possesses so young is such a fucking inspiration – I wish I had an ounce of it at 32!

The above video is testament that no matter how melodramatic things get, Lorde never forgets the joy of it all, as well as who is watching.  Sincerity is so lacking these days; actually caring about things makes most of us feel awkward, but she’s leading the new generation toward a world where you can give a shit and be free.  The freedom, in fact, comes from the sincerity, comes from the full recognition of one’s self and place – even if you’re not sure of it in the next moment. The embracing and going with who you are, no matter how it will change the next day, is where the true power hides.  Lorde is bringing that out, and I sincerely can’t wait to see who she is tomorrow – and the next day, and the next.