Single Review: Lorde - "Perfect Places" / *Audio Included!
Lorde released moments ago a new song from “Melodrama”. It was “Perfect Places”, the closing track from her upcoming second studio album and a co-production from Jack Antonoff. The song, besides being your everyday “countdown single”, is also believed to be the official follow-up to “Green Light”, which, let’s face it, is already well dead by now.
On the inspiration behind writing “Perfect Places”, Lorde explained herself quite lengthily on a Facebook post just now:
“today, PERFECT PLACES is out in the world. this is a special one. i was living in new york during summer last year, writing melodrama – i’d ride across the brooklyn bridge every day, or sit on the subway uptown in the heat, then go back home to new zealand winter for a week at a time to party with my friends. my life was like a weird little etch-a-sketch i kept scribbling on and resetting. and all last summer, i couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone i knew or saw was searching for something – trying to transcend the news and the screaming pavements, drinking that one drink hoping it’d get them someplace higher. this song comes from that endless cycle of evenings and the violent heat of the summer. it took us a very long time to get right, from an aching piano demo to where is it now. it’s close to my heart. i hope you like it.”
“Perfect Places” is by far my favorite song from the “Melodrama” era to date. It’s radio friendly, it screams “Pure Heroine” a lot (which I love), and it’s just such a fresh YOUTH ANTHEM for the summer. Lorde needed a hit to stabilize this new era, which started a bit shaky (“Green Light” didn’t perform as everybody expected), and I think “Perfect Places” is that hero track! I’m jamming!