Green Light

As a guy in my fifties, I don't pay a lot of attention to what's going on in pop music. I almost never listen to radio anymore, and you may recall that last year I had some observations about how current pop sounds very homogeneous.

So it's at least a little unusual for me to be saying this: I really like "Green Light," the new song from Lorde. I happened to come across the official video online a few days before her appearance on last weekend's Saturday Night Live. Hearing the song again, and seeing her perform it, solidified my feelings about it. (Entertainment Weekly called it "the year's first great pop anthem.")

Lorde (I was quite relieved to learn that is not her given name) is a 20-year-old from New Zealand who has been performing since she was in grade school. She has a distinctive, unusual voice, and there are moments when it sounds like she isn't really a good singer, but she is. As a consumer of music I have always responded to talent, and that's what I see and hear in Lorde. It's clear that in her young life she has listened to and absorbed a lot of music, and that she is capable of using that to create something that stands apart from what most others are doing.

See for yourself. Here are both her SNL performance and the music video.