After teasing new music for months, our 20-year-old mother from New Zealand had returned with a new single and video—the first from her upcoming sophomore album, Melodrama.
“Green Light” (co-written by Jack Antonoff, who seems to have a hand in every pop single these days) finds Lorde in a place we’ve never seen her before: the club. She’s just gone through a nasty breakup and just needs to DANCE. IT. OUT. “I know about what you did and want to scream the truth,” she cries while staring at her reflection the dingy bathroom. “She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a damn liar.”
The track’s piano, its greatest asset beyond Lorde’s stunning voice, is sorta house and sorta Hornsby, and gives “Green Light” an exciting heartbeat that reaches its peak during the thrilling, “Dancing On My Own”-esque chorus. “Green Light” sounds like nothing from Pure Heroine, and contains the kind of catharsis we’ve never heard from her before. She’s grown up, after all. She’s loved, and—apparently—lost. But she’s still singing. Welcome back, mom!!