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Thursday, June 22, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS

By JACK BRANDON

Daily Arts Writer

When Lorde won the Billboard

Music Award for Top Rock Song,
with “Royals” in 2014, she turned
her fists into rocker horns with a
confused expression on her face.
Her smash single had won her an
award in a category that not even
she thought she deserved to place
in — a testament to her artistry,
skill and charm. Her sophomore
album Melodrama was released on
June 16th, a culmination of four
years of work, crafted by a young
artist who isn’t afraid to poke fun
at herself.

Despite
being
the
dreaded

sophomore album, Melodrama sur-
passes Pure Heroine creatively. The
persona of Lorde has outgrown her
teenage ennui and has developed
into a thoughtful, tender young
adult unafraid to embrace her
experience. While songs off Pure
Heroine repeat a similar theme in
a different manner, Melodrama
offers a complete experience of
thought, emotion and expression.

The sound of her sophomore

album is rich and diverse. Singles
“Green Light” and “Perfect Places”
are energetic tracks comprised
of driving percussion and heavy
synth. Others like “Liability” and
“Writer in the Dark” are made
soley by the accompaniment of gui-
tar or piano to Lorde’s voice. These
emotional ballads are reminiscent
of the compositions that dominat-
ed Pure Heroine, but brought to
a new level by traditional instru-
ments. Melodrama takes the old
formula, mixes it up and adds
another step.

Vocally, Lorde stretches herself

to embody a distinct feeling on
each song. Her voice starts husky
on the first track, but by the pre-
chorus of “Homemade Dynamite,”
it has morphed into breathy sighs.
On the deeply poignant ballad
“Liability,” Lorde croons in a full,
warm voice to contrast the cold
sounds of the piano. By “Writer
in the Dark,” she coughs and spits
each note out, her voice frayed.
These two tracks demonstrate
the remarkable nuance in Lorde’s
delivery that is evocative and pow-
erful. On “Hard Feelings/Love-
less” and “Liability (Reprise),”
Lorde’s voice is warped and mold-
ed by a harmonizer.

Apart
from
her
impressive

growth as a singer, Lorde has cata-
pulted to new heights as a com-
positional artist. She manages to
balance the tragedy and comedy
of the break-up that inspired the
record without seeming “melodra-
matic” or insincere. Lines like “So
they pull back, make other plans
/ I understand, I’m a liability” are
mocked by “Are you lost in us? /
Have another drink get lost in us
/ This is how we get notorious.”
While in opposition, there’s a ten-
derness and an edge to Lorde’s
candor, that by some sleight of
hand rub together to make magic.
Other moments reveal Lorde’s
flirtatious and adventurous side,
as written on “Homemade Dyna-
mite”: “See me rolling, showing
someone else love / Hands under
your t-shirt / Know I think you’re
awesome, right?” She is far from
the 16-year-old girl who sang of
“craving a different kind of buzz”
four years earlier.

Lorde has always shone as a

lyricist; every line off Pure Hero-
ine is poetry, and Melodrama is no
exception. Multiple songs ditch
traditional rhyme schemes in
favor of slant rhymes and from
her synthesia comes vivid and
miraculous images: “I’d get your
friend to drive, but he can hardly
see / We’ll end up painted on the
road, red and chrome, all the bro-
ken glass sparkling / I guess we’re
partying.” Always incisive, Lorde
critiques teen culture while impli-
cating
herself.

However, we can
take the bitter
with the sweet,
as
so
many

songs are heart-
achingly tender:
“Blow all my friendships / To sit
in hell with you / But we’re the
greatest / They’ll hang us in The
Louvre.”

In a pop music market that

often feels dry and repetitive,
Lorde is as refreshing and origi-
nal as she was four years ago. Her
work has an element of artistry
that eschews the mainstream idea
of pop stardom. Melodrama, just
like Pure Heroine, is filled with
hidden treasures: keen insight,
a full heart and youthful charm.
Lorde is an artist you can put faith
in.

By NISA KHAN

Summer Editor in Chief

“What you need to know is that

my life is split in two, cleaved not so
neatly. There is the before and the
after. Before I gained weight. After
I gained weight. Before I was raped.
After I was raped.”

“I began to eat to change my body.

I was willful in this.”

Renowned writer Roxane Gay

presented her new book, “Hunger:
A Memoir of (My) Body,” to a crowd
of over a thousand gathered in Hill
Auditorium this past Friday, where
she discussed her process writing
the difficult moments of her life as
well as the social faults in approach-
ing weight and sexault assault.

The event was hosted by Lite-

rati Bookstore. According to event
organizers, “Hunger” is already the
store’s bestselling book. Gay is well
known for her series of essays titled
“Bad Feminist” and her novel “Ayiti,”
and she is the first Black female lead
author for Marvel in a Black Panther
series “Wakanda.”

“So I have a new book out called

‘Hunger.’ Because I’m a masochist,”
she said. “But really, this is a book
about my body. Often times when
you are overweight, or fat, your body
becomes a public text, and people
project a lot of bullshit about your
body. A lot of things like why you’re
fat, why you don’t lose weight, and
so with this book, I wanted to rede-
scribe the narrative of my own body.
To tell the story about my body in my
own words.”

Two passages were read from

“Hunger.” One is about her time
with her physical trainer — “I have
a membership to Planet Fitness,
although I have never visited. Basi-
cally I donate $19.99 to Planet Fit-
ness every month,” Gay said.

The other is her search for and

imagining the confrontation with
the man who assaulted her years
later. Gay was 12 years old when her
classmate, along with several other
boys, raped her.

“I Googled him when I wrote this

book. I don’t know why. Or I do,” she
read. “I sat for hours, staring at his
picture on the webpage on his com-
pany’s website. It nauseates me. I
can smell him.”

She admits that writing “Hun-

ger,” revealing her vulnerabilities,
made the process much more dif-

ficult than her previous work. Gay
explained writing usually comes
more naturally to her — therefore,
the hesitancy she was facing in
writing “Hunger” was a new expe-
rience.

“I am used to words coming

quickly. With this book... when I
was trying to figure out the scope
of this book, I thought and thought
and thought. When I got some-
where where it made me uncom-
fortable, I would stop,” Gay said.
“And so there was nothing to write,
because there was nothing going
on in my head at all. And so ‘I don’t
want to go there.’ And so, I found
myself forcing myself to go to those
places I did not want to go.”

“Oh my God, it was just coming

out in the most painful paragraphs.
And for me, it was a foreign experi-
ence. Usually it’s great, but this was
just shitty paragraph after shitty
paragraph. I kept looking at it like,
‘Who is this person?’”

While the new memoir revealed

much of Gay’s personal thoughts,
she also set up borders for topics
she would stray away from such as
details about her relationships or
some of her experiences.

“I really stick to my gut where

my boundaries are concerned... I
remind myself, I am allowed to have
boundaries,” she said. “I am allowed
to tell people ‘no,’ even though they
are good people. You don’t have to
give people everything they want.”

“Hunger” was delayed, forcing

Gay to write it faster.

“It was just difficult. I think fac-

ing yourself is difficult,” she said.
“Looking at your body and looking
at all of the baggage I have been car-
rying along with being fat, baggage
that is not mine to carry but I car-
ried nonetheless, was challenging...
It was worth the delay. Anything I
would have put out June 2016 would
have been mediocre at best.”

One audience member, who said

she was nervous in writing a memoir
on a similar topic, asked if Gay had
any fear of her attacker’s retaliation.
Gay explained she kept all of the
details of the assault vague and used
pseudonyms.

“Lastly, I would say that we

often fear retaliation, and it’s totally
understandable... one of the things
you can try to do is look that fear for
what it is and try not to let that fear
be an obstacle to writing what needs

to be written,” she answered.

Reactions to weight were a cen-

tral point of discussion — especially
the term “fat”, and how it has been
fashioned to become an insult.

“What they are conceiving is that

‘fat’ is an insult. That I am insulting
myself,” she said.

However, Gay finds the term

“overweight” to be worse —
implying that there is a normal
weight. “Obese” or other medical
terms have also left her with neg-
ative experience from doctors.

“As a fat, Black woman, I am

sometimes degendered. I am
called ‘sir.’ Every day, I am called
‘sir.’ Which is weird, because I
have huge boobs. It’s just like,
they are magnificent,” she said,
explaining the conception that
being fat takes away feminin-
ity. “There is always this cultural
baggage in this intersection of
Blackness and fatness. And, it’s
challenging. It’s really challeng-
ing... But I find that the Black
community tends to be far more
accepting of body diversity.”

Throughout the event, Gay

was also asked about her opin-
ions on Black Panther (“It was
so
sexy.”),
the
Bachelorette

(thrilled to see “31 mediocre
white men” court an exceptional
Black woman. “It’s about god-
damn time.” “Collectively, those
31 dudes make half a good man.”),
and the Handmaiden’s Tale (one
of Gay’s favorite books, accord-
ing to an audience member. Gay
said she loved the first episodes,
but stopped watching in disbe-
lief after hearing the cast say it
wasn’t a feminist work)

As the event neared an end,

Gay was asked how many users
she blocked on her active Twit-
ter (her bio: “If you clap, I clap
back.”): over 2,700 users. “I
block people every single day.
Because people are trash.”

When
asked
if
“Hunger”

allowed
some
healing,
Gay

explained that in the beginning
of writing, she would have said
“no,” as she had to look at dif-
ficult stages of her life.

“I feel now I am finally in a

position in my life to truly move
forward in a way I haven’t been
before,” she said. “So yes, it
turns out that writing this book
was healing.”

Lorde is magical
on ‘Melodrama’

Roxane Gay gives powerful
discussion about new book

COMMUNITY CULTURE EVENT
MUSIC REVIEW

Melodrama

Lorde

Republic Records