As Lorde wrote, it “bugs me how publications like complex will profile interesting artists in order to sell copies/get clicks and then shit on their records? it happens to me all the time- pitchfork and that ilk being like “can we interview you?” after totally taking the piss out of me in a review. have a stance on an artist and stick to it. don’t act like you respect them then throw them under the bus."
Azalea responded to the post via Twitter, writing, “I agree @lordemusic media LOVE to flop about, But when you’re completely spineless Im sure its hard to stick to even ur own opinion #GoGirl.”
Part of his response starts by playing on Lorde's age, which is perhaps trying to suggest she's young and naive. But anyone who follows her on social media knows otherwise. She's plenty media-savvy, which makes her attack on the media seem a bit odd. Ahmed goes on to say...
"... Lorde declaring “have a stance on an artist and stick to it” is a bizarre notion for an organization like Complex, which is to say bizarre for any media organization that claims to have any journalistic integrity. No one should stick to their opinion when new facts (possibly in the form of new music) are made available that can alter your views...
"... If Complex—or the media at large—operated the way Lorde wished, it would do away with journalistic integrity all together. Lorde—as well as Iggy—seem to confuse press as “respect” and criticism as being thrown “under the bus.” Truth is, not every media interaction will be mutually beneficial...."
Lorde and Little, winning stuff since last year/forever
Lorde won the fifth annual Taite Music Prize this evening, collecting $10,000 and recording time at Red Bull Studio, plus a years worth of Red Bull. In her acceptance speech, via video from Las Vegas, she graciously offered to give up the prize money to the other finalists.
Lorde said "I think everyone is kind of sick of me winning stuff at the moment and other people are in more in need of the funds and exposure right now. So if you will accept it, the prize money and the studio time have been split between this year's nominees. If you don't want it, that's cool too."
The other finalists were Unknown Mortal Orchestra (who won the Taite Prize in 2012), Beastwars, Sheep Dog & Wolf, the Phoenix Foundation, David Dallas, @peace, and Jonathan Bree. They will get approx $1600 each. And a few Red Bull. If Lorde doesn't drink them all. [kidding]
Grant Smithies, one of this year's judging panel, said "Lorde's LP was a rare example of an underground pop record being so damn good, it went mainstream, not just here, but worldwide."
It seems a long shot to try and argue Lorde's album was ever going to be underground, given it featured a global hit single, and got released in late September 2013, on the last possible day of eligibility for this year's Grammys. There is no question it was going to go mainstream. Only question was how big would it get. Maybe Smithies is referring to the sound of the record. It will be interesting to see the reaction to such a commercially successful artist winning an award based solely on originality and artistic achievement, not taking into account any commercial success or otherwise.
The prize giving took place at Galatos in Auckland, the location for Lorde's first ever live performance. Also awarded was the IMNZ Classic Indie Album prize, with a very moving and funny speech from Kerry Buchanan, celebrating AK79.
Buchanan noted that AK79 was part of the cultural change of 77-79 in NZ. It didn't happen apart from current events.
He talked about the importance of AK79 in capturing a moment in time, and how that spread. He gave an example - of working in a record shop and this guy wearing a bunch of scarves wandered up and shook his hand and started talking to him about AK79 - it was Silvio from The Sopranos, better known as Little Steven - guitarist with Bruce Springsteen, and host of a radio show called Little Steven's Underground Garage. Steven loved AK79.
The award was presented to Ripper Records boss Bryan Staff, the man responsible for the legendary compilation but he wasn't in the room at that moment, so Kerry blagged off with it. Fair enough. NZ Herald's Hugh Sundae caught up with Bryan later in the evening, watch that here.
He tells Hugh about the practical aspects of getting AK79 out - Bryan had all these demo tapes of Auckland punk bands who had been on his radio show, and a colleague suggested he put out a record, and Bryan thought, why don't I do that? Aren't there laws against that sort of thing?
So he went to off Ode Records and asked them if they could take the compilation tape and make a record and bill him. They did that, and he got the record, the inner sleeve, the outer sleeve, and the hardest part about getting the record out was Bryan had to sit there putting the sleeves together, getting numerous cardboard cuts for the next week it took to do the initial 250 copies.
The Record Warehouse bought the lot and gave him a cheque, and Bryan went back and ordered another 500, then that sold and he ordered 500 more from the man at Ode [probably Terence O'Neill Joyce], who said "How can you do this? I've struggled for years to get acceptance and you have this crap record that no one will play, yet it's selling." Bryan said "Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!"
SJD (the 2013 Taite Prize winner) and his band played a short but utterly delightful set to close the night. SJD made a speech earlier in the evening, highlighting all the joys winning the prize had bought into his life, noting that he with only 17,000 more plays on Spotify, he can afford a new guitar pick. That's the dream, kids. Watch SJD's speech here.
Lorde has won two of the four Grammys she nominated for at the awards in Los Angeles. Congrats! NZ is going nuts right now. It's a nice change from sporting-induced madness.
She won the award for best pop solo performance, and for Song of the year (with Joel Little). She missed out on Record of the Year, which was won by Daft Punk, and Best Pop Vocal Album award, which went to Bruno Mars for his album Unorthodox Jukebox. More at NZHerald.
Lorde's excitement at winning best pop solo performance, as a gif. Thanks, internet
She and Joel join a list of Kiwi Grammy winners that includes Kiri Te Kanawa, Alan Broadbent, Flight of the Concords, and Kimbra. Read the full list here.
When NZers Jon Mark and Thelma Burchell won a Grammy in 2004 (best traditional world music album), the NZ media ignored them. Except for journalist Steve Braunias, apparently... From the NZ Herald, Feb 11 2004... " The Grammy win led the front page of the Times of Tibet, but passed without comment in New Zealand.
"Mark did make headlines yesterday [Feb 10 2004] - but only because of his dispute with New Zealand Listener journalist Steve Braunias, who published details of one of his royalty cheques in the magazine."
I asked Steve Braunias via Twitter earlier today about the royalty cheque - he recalls it was for the grand sum of US$52.75, but it cost him a lot more in court fines - "court ordered me to pay maybe $500 to a charity. Gave it to Cats Protection League!"
ADDED Lorde proved to be one of the most talked about figures on Twitter during the Grammys show, for her live performance, and her win of best solo pop performance... source: "these moments during the telecast of the Grammys drove the most conversation on Twitter" TPM= tweets per minute
Here's my re-edit of this cover of Royals. Chopped down and compacted to its funky essentials, focusing on the break. Hats off to the Rekkidz for the wicked cover. Hear it over on youtube...
Hat tip to Murray Cammick for this. Video info says "Two of the guys playing on Royals (Window & Rooster) are in a southern-fried-voodoo-funk band named "Harvey Knows A Killer". They are hard at work on their debut album, check them out at the following link"... http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/harvey-s-debut-album-fund. The Rekkids on Facebook
Great mashup of MIA with Lorde, via The Clash, harmonies work seamlessley... hat tip to Cheese on Toast for this one.. and then Bob Daktari hit me with this one... cheers, sir...
The winners for the technical categories for the 2013 NZ Music Awards were announced earlier this evening, along with the finalists in other categories, and the Legacy Award, which goes to Shona Laing.
Leading the pack, Shapeshifter are up for six awards, and Aaradhna is up for five. Lorde and Unknown Mortal Orchestra both have four nominations each - note Lorde's album came out after the June 30 cutoff date for eligibility in this year's awards - and The Phoenix Foundation and Fat Freddy's Drop are up for three awards - they also picked up some of the technical awards.
Performers on the night of the awards, held at Vector Arena on Nov 21, are Lorde, Aaradhna, Titanium, Jamie McDell, Iva Lamkum, and Jamie McDell. Ruby Frost will perform a tribute to Shona Laing. Were Shihad unavailable? (jokes). Tickets to the awards are open to the public, and cost $25, via Ticketmaster.
Technical Awards Winners Best Album Cover to Gina Kiel & Harry A’Court – ‘Blackbird’ (Fat Freddy’s Drop) Best Producer to The Phoenix Foundation/Lee Prebble/Brett Stanton – ‘Fandango’ (The Phoenix Foundation) Best Engineer to Brett Stanton/Lee Prebble/The Phoenix Foundation – ‘Fandango’ (The Phoenix Foundation) VNZMA Finalists Mentos Album of the Year Aaradhna ‘Treble & Reverb’ Fat Freddy’s Drop ‘Blackbird’ Shapeshifter ‘Delta’ The Phoenix Foundation ‘Fandango’ Unknown Mortal Orchestra ‘II’ Vodafone Single of the Year Aaradhna ‘Wake Up’ Lorde ‘Royals’ Shapeshifter ‘In Colour’ Stan Walker ‘Take It Easy’ Unknown Mortal Orchestra ‘So Good At Being In Trouble’ Steinlager Pure Best Group Fat Freddy’s Drop ‘Blackbird’ Shapeshifter ‘Delta’ The Phoenix Foundation ‘Fandango’
Spotify Best Male Solo Artist Lawrence Arabia ‘The Sparrow’ Unknown Mortal Orchestra ‘II’ Willy Moon ‘Here’s Willy Moon’
Spotify Best Female Solo Artist Aaradhna ‘Treble & Reverb’ Iva Lamkum ‘Black Eagle’ Jamie McDell ‘Six Strings and a Sailboat’ Westpac Hotpoints Breakthrough Artist of the Year Jamie McDell ‘Six Strings and a Sailboat’ Lorde ‘The Love Club EP’ Willy Moon ‘Here’s Willy Moon’ Best Rock Album Beastwars ‘Blood Becomes Fire’ The Datsuns ‘Death Rattle Boogie’ Villainy ‘Mode. Set. Clear.’ The Edge Best Pop Album AnikaBoh&Hollie ‘Peace of Mind’ Jamie McDell ‘Six Strings and a Sailboat’ Kids Of 88 ‘Modern Love’ Best Alternative Album Lawrence Arabia ‘The Sparrow’ The Phoenix Foundation ‘Fandango’ Unknown Mortal Orchestra ‘II’ Best Urban/Hip Hop Album @Peace ‘Girl Songs’ Aaradhna ‘Treble & Reverb’ P-Money ‘Gratitude’ Best Roots Album Fat Freddy’s Drop ‘Blackbird’ Latinaotearoa ‘Sonido de Latinaotearoa’ Soljah ‘Aotearoa’ George FM Best Electronica Album K+LAB ‘Space Dirt’ Shapeshifter ‘Delta’ Sola Rosa ‘Low and Behold, High and Beyond’ NZ On Air Best Music Video Joel Kefali – ‘Royals’ (Lorde) Nick Dwyer – ‘In Colour’ (Shapeshifter) Thunderlips – ‘Frankenstein’ (Randa) NUMA Trust Best Maori Album Kirsten Te Rito ‘Te Rito’ Maisey Rika ‘Whitiora’ Ngatapa Black ‘I Muri Ahiahi’
Best Gospel/Christian Album Edge Kingsland ‘Edge Vol.2: Due North’ Go Stop Go ‘Go Stop Go’ Strahan ‘Posters’ Best Classical Album Gillian Whitehead ‘Arapatiki’ Helen Webby ‘Pluck’ Michael Houstoun ‘Lilburn’ Vodafone People’s Choice Award Shapeshifter Aaradhna Lorde Stan Walker Titanium NZ Herald Legacy Award recipient Shona Laing Hallenstein Brothers 2013 Critics’ Choice Prize Line-Up (Nov 6 at Kings Arms) Janine and the Mixtape Paquin Sheep, Dog & Wolf
The Apra Silver Scrolls were held last night at the Vector Arena, a departure from their usual venue, the Auckland Town Hall. They managed to squeeze in between One Direction and Beyonce, one presenter pointed out, which explains why it was on a Tuesday night.
The evening kicked off with an introduction from Apra's Anthony Healey, who mentioned the success of having a New Zealander at the top of the US charts for the first time. What a BIZARRE thing to say. HOW very BIZARRE. Maybe I misheard him.
The first of the cover versions of each of the finalists, as is Apra's tradition, was Rackets [watch] taking to Thames Soup by the Phoenix Foundation giving it a rough, noisy edge, but not really bringing anything new to the song.
The Sounz Contemporary Award went to Karlo Margetic for Lightbox, which was performed by the MPC Trio [watch], a delightfully leftfield combo of Jeremy Toy (She's So Rad), Lewis McCallum, and Johnnie Fleury. That was some out-there space rock.
Then we got to the induction for the latest NZ Music Hall of Fame recipient, Dave Dobbyn. Warren Maxwell delivered the speech, toasting Dave, his songs, and his life.
Maxwell talked about Dobbyn's place in our history saying that "Your Wikipedia bio is ingrained in New Zealand folklore." Maxwell talked of reading through Dobbyn's lyrics, and choosing a few of them to read out.
He recited Beside You (which won Dobbyn the Silver Scroll in 1998), and Lap Of The Gods, adding in a few asides to lines he particularly liked. Maxwell said of Dobbyn that "You are living the dream, of being a successful human."
Then there was a video presentation, of Dobbyn's musical friends and mates talking about him, like Chris Bourke talking about Loyal, saying even the America's Cup couldn't kill it - intercut with voxpops from people on the street, talking about his music and what it meant to them.
Dobbyn came up and accepted the honour, to a standing ovation. He worked thru his thank you list, chronologically, and said he'd thank the big guy at the end. He commented on the kind words said about him in the video, saying "It's like being at your own funeral, and you get to talk to everybody." He also said "To the record companies and labels, thank you. It's over!" And then he laughed.
The musical tributes to Dobbyn [watch] came from country singer Tami Neilson singing with harpist Weiting Shyu doing Language, a very sparse, spooky version; Mark Vanilau (who often plays in Dobbyns current band) with Scribe doing It Dawned On Me, which started with Scribe rapping, then joining in singing in beautiful harmonies with Vanilau, and totally nailing it - NZ Herald's Russell Baillie said "it was "one of the all time great #silverscrolls performances"; and the closer of this section was Shihad rocking out on Be Mine Tonight, an energetic photocopy of a rendition.
[The day after the awards, I saw someone on Twitter congratulate Scribe on his singing, suggesting the singing lessons had paid off. Scribe replied "I've never had singing lessons. I take it as a compliment! I hate singing. I did it for Dave Dobbyn! #TheMan". I also remembered later that Scribe sang on his debut The Crusader, like the hook on Dreaming, for example.]
The Maioha award was next, presented by Te Awanui Reeder. He talked a bit of the history of the award, and listed some Maori performers, from Tui Teka and Dalvanius, to Pieter T "and our favourite Maori, Lorde!" Then he got serious for a second and congratulated her on her success.
The finalists were Iwi, Maisey Rika, and Ngatapa Black. Maisey Rika, along with co-writers Te Kahautu Maxwell, and Mahuia Bridgeman-Cooper, won for their song Ruiamoko. It was then performed by Tama Waipara [watch] with University of Auckland percussion ensemble and guests, which included Godfrey De Grut, who also acted as musical director for the evening. Cos doing that job wasn't enough for him. Super busy dude. Respect!
Apra board member Don McGlashan took the stage, and talked about the recently departed Dave McArtney, then shifted to congratulating Lorde, peering out into the crowd saying "I hope I'm looking at you - there's a lot of people here with big hair - I could be looking at Lorde, or Laughton Kora."
Later the MC for the evening, Dai Henwood, talked the house band into singing Happy Birthday for Jordan Luck, and everyone joined in. The house band onstage was a nice touch.
After a million years, someone other than Neil Finn won the award for most performed NZ work internationally. Brooke Fraser took this out (and also the prize for most played NZ song in NZ), and her manager, Campbell Smith, got up to accept it, saying "I spent the last two years drunk in Paris while this song did its work."
He said he felt like he was in a Trivial Pursuit question - Neil Finn won this award for 100 years, Ella (Lorde) and Joel will win it for the next 100 years -which song won it in between? Nice touch.
Anna Coddington's Bird In Hand got a big, beaty, bouncy treatment from Sola Rosa [watch], with Cherie Mathieson on vocals, killing it.
Royals got a suitably radical take [watch], starting with Lionel Reekie wandering onstage singing and playing accordion, then joined by splendid soul diva Bella Kalolo, and a young Asian beatboxer by the name of Phillip Fan. He even did a beatbox solo half way thu, then switched up the tempo and it went drum n bass for a second. Brilliant.
Tattletale Saints' Complicated Man got covered by Jesse Sheehan [watch] with Chip Matthews and Tom Broome, rocking it up in a brisk fashion.
And the last finalist, Aaradhna's Wake up, well how do you make a funky song even funkier? Get three drummers to perform it. That was just monstrous.
The drummers were Nick Gaffney, Scotty Pearson, and Katie Everingham [watch]. They were lit from behind in silhouette mostly, hammering away like they were auditioning for the Glitter Band (hat tip to Russell Baillie for that reference). Pounding good time.
I wanted Aaradhna to win the Silver Scroll, her song Wake Up is such a gorgeous pop tune, but Lorde and Joel Little took it out. Did the final voting process happen before or after the song started to take off? Who knows. But it is unlikely to slow down its trajectory any time soon.
The top five finalists were voted on by Apra's 10,000 members in August from a long list of 20 decided by a judging panel (all of whom are significant APRA writer member themselves) - voting started on July 25 and closed August 18, and that list of five finalists was announced on 12 September.
Lorde's speech [watch] was warm and goofy: "What's cool about this is I'm so new to this, and everyone has really accepted me, which is awesome." Then Joel had a brief natter, saying that it took him ten years to get on that stage, and Lorde did it in ten months. He also said to her "the scary part of it is you definitely haven't written your best song." The winner gets to keep the Silver Scroll trophy for 11 months, and a $5000 prize.
I observed Little doing an endless string of interviews in the media room before the event, with Lorde and manager standing 6 feet away, back to the media. I saw a journalist approach them and get rebuffed - Lorde is not doing any interviews tonight. And then at one point, Lorde turned around, pointed at Little and laughed, and then went back to her company. Watching her boy do all the work. Answering the same questions over and over, And people wonder why she doesn't want to do media.
Then we had the closing number. I heard a whisper about this a few weeks ago, and I couldn't really quite believe it was gonna happen. Hats off to whoever pulled this off.
The closing act was,... Sisters Underground, doing In The Neighbourhood, their big hit from 1994 [watch]. With a choir. It was so freaking rad. People jumping up and dancing all over the arena. And Greg Semu's video playing behind them, with scenes of South Auckland playing out. What a blinder of a finish.
This year and last year, I noticed a trend is starting to emerge - the calibre of the presentation and performances around the NZ Music Hall of Fame inductees seem to be so high now that they are overshadowing the awards, to a certain extent.
This is also happening with the NZ Music Awards - see the level of excitement generated around Toy Love's induction last year. It's a fascinating problem to have. The outcome may be that it makes everyone raise their game across other areas of the awards, to meet this. And that can only be a good thing.
ADDED MC for the evening Dai Henwood, filled in some time mid-show by asking the house band to improvise some music based on his random descriptions, watch house and member Sam Allen's video here.
Via NZ Herald - Dave Dobbyn's induction, in full, below...
It's been another big week for Kiwi pop star Lorde. Here song Royals is still sitting at #1, for the second week in a row on the US charts. She has two releases in the Billboard Top 200 albums, Pure Heroine and Love Club EP.
Her song Royals was covered by some street urchins in a tv ad for Samsung, featuring football star Lionel Messi. He uses Samsung's latest technology to demolish a building in the slums and create a playing field for the grateful urchins. Apparently the ad is inspired by Messi's own charitable foundation doing similar work.
The reaction online to Royals featuring in a tv ad right after it topped the US singles chart was lively, to say the least. Many online commenters were turned off by what looked like a sudden grab of a pop hit from Samsung, although Billboard quoted an ad exec saying they estimated the music was signed off in late July, well before Royals headed up the charts.
The comments on that post suggest that Patel has a long history of taking any opportunity to slam Samsung. Is he trolling, or does he have a point? He also mentioned on Twitter that it's "particularly bad timing for Samsung as Royals is currently under fire for being racist." Let's not go down into that particular cesspit.
The Verge's followup piece talked to the ad's director, Adam Hashemi... "Choosing a song proved difficult, and Hashemi makes it sound as though one wasn't selected until late into production. His team considered tracks ranging from David Bowie's "Starman" to Johnny Mercer's "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive." When they finally landed on "Royals," it only had 2 million views on YouTube, he says, and wasn't yet a hit single, although they saw potential. Now, it's at closer to 28 million, and sits atop the Billboard Hot 100. Hashemi isn't sure if Lorde ever saw and approved her song's use in the ad, but a licensing team did clear it."
So, will Lorde cash in on this ad? Her co-writer, Joel Little, has a publishing deal with Sony ATV, and Lorde is yet to sign a publishing deal. Her record company probably won't get any income from the ad, as they have used their own recording of the song, not the original recording. Lorde's publishing will have been done thru AMCOS, in lieu of a publishing company. [Updated Nov 14 2013 - Lorde has signed a publishing dealwith Songs Music, possibly worth about US$4M].
Will the exposure in the Samsung ad hurt her or help her? Simon Grigg (OMC's label) says if the ad only has a short run, then it will help ingrain the song, but if it has a long run, it will become known as the song from the Samsung ad, which may be offputting to radio.
Grigg says "most radio will not want to play a song that is seen to be endorsing a brand." Her future income will be from publishing, and that is linked to airplay. Grigg says when OMC's album came out it sold 1.5 million copies and made it to #39 in the US charts, but that was back when albums were still selling in big numbers. Lorde's album sold 127,000 copies in it's first week, which Grigg described as soft sales.
Meanwhile, she's started doing more interviews, as her album gets released in various parts of the globe. The Guardian's Alex Petridis talked to her, ahead of her album's UK release on Oct 28.
"... Interviewing an international pop sensation while their mum hovers in the background is a slightly odd experience, but then, as Yelich-O'Connor points out, she shouldn't really be here herself. She should be back home in New Zealand, in Davenport [sic], a suburb of Auckland that's apparently known locally as the Bubble – "because it's so insular and closed off from everything" – and which she describes, winningly, as "the kind of suburb that people make movies about, there's quite weird mums everywhere".
ADDED 31 October 2013 - Lorde is on her 5th straight week in a row at #1 on the US singles chart -she posted this on Twitter today - "@billboard: .@lordemusic #Royals crowns the #Hot100 for a fifth week: http://blbrd.co/1aDPEtw ” - soon they'll run out of puns.' Royals has just hit #1 on the UK singles chart too.
She and her co-writer Joel Little recently won her first award, the APRA Silver Scroll, for songwriting. Read more about that night here.
It's a fascinating backgrounder on Ella and her family life. Why is she so assured onstage for a newcomer? That will be eight years of doing drama classes. Originally published in Metro magazine, the story is now available online in full at FasterLouder.
There are approximately six million covers/remixes/mashups of Royals floating round the internet right now, here's the funkiest one. Hat tip to Murray Cammick for the above clip. Video info says "Two of the guys playing on Royals (Window & Rooster) are in a southern-fried-voodoo-funk band named "Harvey Knows A Killer". They are hard at work on their debut album, check them out at the following link"... http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/harvey-s-debut-album-fund. The Rekkids on Facebook
On Tuesday November 5th 2013, Lorde was in New York, performing at the MOMA for an event honouring Tilda Swinton. See the photo below...
The next day was Lorde's 17th birthday (in NZ) - she was still in New York, a day behind on the dateline. She wrote about that over on her Tumblr, read that here... she reflects on her previous birthday , which "...fell in the middle of exam revision but a bunch of my friends came over anyway to eat cake and ruffle my hair and talk about pokemon. Weirdos..."
Lorde has done hardly any local press here in New Zealand - she did her first interview with blogger Katherine Lowe back in January; her first and only press interview to date was with Stinky Jim in The Listener in March, and she's done only her second local press interview to coincide her album release, with Duncan Greive for Metro magazine. That story came out this week, read an excerpt of it here...
snip: "One August afternoon, I sat in on a meeting between Ella’s manager, Scott Maclachlan, his assistant Amy Goldsmith and Ella ... The pace of the meeting is brutal. In 15 minutes they cover an impending UK release, Ella’s ideas for the next music video, payment options for a remix and a standing invitation to a writing camp for the next Major Lazer album with Pharrell Williams and Diplo.
Just last year she emailed Maclachlan: “You asked me a while ago who my dream producer would be, and I think these days I’m leaning toward Diplo.” Now things have changed to the point where she can say breezily of the camp, “I thought it’d be cool to swing by for a day.”
Of course this tight control over her media exposure has led to a lot of talk, with some music critics attempting to call her out for the supposed hype, such as Simon Sweetman's attack on Lorde. [And then Sweetman's review got reviewed]
In Duncan's Metro piece, he asks Lorde if she's seen that review by Sweetman. She messages back from her Paris hotel room saying she has, but she's looking out her window at the Arc De Triomphe and that review makes her feel nothing.
As the story suggests, she's got other things on her mind - the next single, writing for her next album, etc. Duncan's Metro piece also features an unfortunate gaff, suggesting Lorde is the first Kiwi to top the US charts since Crowded House. How bizarre.
excerpt: "Each day I'd take the train [to the studio]. The night-time rides were my chance to breathe, relax for a few minutes. Then I'd pull out my laptop and hit play on whatever we'd worked on that day. For a few seconds with a new song there's always this thudding amnesia, like it's not your work,and you get to listen with fresh ears to this thing that's still newly born.
"For months and months I took that night train and listened to my voice and the beats over and over, silvery, suspended. I'd grin like a creep from Kingsland to Grafton, face all moony under the white light. It's the best thing I've ever made...."
Read it in full here. And this is why we need better public transport in Auckland.
And it's strange watching how many people want to talk about Lorde in various online forums, she has this wonderfully polarising effect, like all great pop music. Right now it's important to be seen to have an opinion on her, even if you have no significant engagement with popular music in its current contemporary form. It's certainly not dull! Watch this girl make moves.
Oh yeah, and this: Lorde - "If I'd granted every sandwich chain and skincare brand and coming-of-age blockbuster use of my songs, I'd probably be a millionaire. But I'm extremely fussy. A while ago I watched a clip of Patti Smith (eternal queen of cool in my eyes) relay this thing William S Burroughs had said to her. He said, "Build a good name for yourself, because eventually that will become your currency."
Lorde and her homies the NKs out the back of the Devonport Folk Club. Not.
I was going to tell you all about the time way back when that I saw Lorde and The Neo-Kalashnikovs jam at the Devonport Folk Club, after a mean set on the spoons from Finn Andrews (later of The Veils). I think Lorde was probably about 11 or something. Except it never happened.
And then I got distracted by the internet, or more specifically the fun and games The Neo-Kalashnikovs provided over at The Corner after they got reviewed. And so here's some of the funny stuff that happened. Excerpts... read in full at The Corner.
via The NK’s Facebook: Tall poppy syndrome much? Trust New Zealand lowlifes to start throwing knives at a young band who has done nothing but try and actually achieve something. Are you guys for real? ... The video budget was $200 the song took one take to record what the fuck do you expect???? Trust a bunch of NZ nobodies to dissect and hate on something that they don’t get cause they are to dumb, bunch of dodos! It’s called exposure I don’t care what you think of the song or the video!!!!
To judge a young self-signed band like they are supposed to be Fleetwood Mac with thousands of dollars behind them is just plain trippin. This is why all of our countries real musical success stories have been from NZ artists who have escaped this hellhole and it’s warped, conservative, snobby, judgemental, under achieving attitude that promotes the talentless and slams real achievers. And Nirvana would have done exactly what we have done cause they were smart and didn’t give a fuck....
Christopher W “The video budget was $200 the song took one take to record what the fuck do you expect????” Sounds like you’re not entirely happy with the finished product either.
Robyn
“I don’t care what you think of the song or the video!!!!” Right, I’m glad we got that sorted. Now everyone can go back to what they were doing.
Nerdy Frames "... As someone mention, they didn’t ask for a penny from the Government to fund their video and most of their vids are DIY so for continuity sake that aesthetic remains.
Funny too cause if you know them personally and you know their background then you should give them props for giving the finger to NZ on Air and their awful watermark (seriously how do you remove that shit, its like a bad stain!)....
...Here is something else. Why are you not praising a band like The Neo Ks but rather (and I hate to utter this person’s name) focusing on Lorde as she is praised as the second coming of Christ? Why…cause she is signed to a major and with that has umpteen amounts of media at her disposal including that George FM idiot Nick D wrapped around her finger?"
Moss Bioletti Official and Final Response from The Neos: "... We had nothing now we got something and your made haters because all we did was use our brians, and have some self-belif. As for the Corner you guys need to get flung off cliff because people who judge music that only make terrible music themselves are not the people I wan’t to be judged by. So next time The Corner don’t be a little bitch and go behind my back and publish an interview you should have had my approval of, I should have you trumped up kids on defamation charges..."
And then it ended with a death threat.
Shane Warbrooke "Hi Dudes! Just letting you know that the Neo Kalashnikovs threatened to have the Hells Angels kill me. I have a pretty rad screenshot of it. I believe they were upset because I asked for a link to all the sweet positive reviews they keep talking about."
excerpt: ".... if you feel you can't ignore reviews and need some help dealing with the bad ones, you should check out Chris Singleton's excellent post "How to deal with a bad review."
Singleton shares 7 tips on dealing with bad reviews. Here are the tips but you should go the read the post cause he goes into more detail and knows what's up. 7 Excellent Tips On Dealing With Bad Music Reviews.....
1. Keep calm and don’t write letters to the publication
2. Remember that you can’t please all of the people all of the time
3. Accept that the critic might have a point
4. Put your stinking review in context
5. Remember that even a bad review can have some benefits
