Lorde's Argumentative Essay: Melodrama

Have you ever seen a singer come out with an incredible song loved by all, only to come back with a song that is rather too mediocre for the public to care? In Laura Snapes’s article, “Lorde's US tour has flopped – but it might be the making of her”, she argues that although Lorde is not doing as well commercially with her new album, Lorde is essentially transitioning from “mercurial pop success to a more dependable, liberated kind of career perpetuity” (Snapes). Two pieces of information that Snapes brings to the argument are that Lorde’s tour ticket sales have been rather depressing and that her new album, Melodrama, has not seen as much commercial success as her debut album. Hence, is Lorde a one-hit a wonder? Not quite so. Snapes mentions various artists that have undergone the transition that Lorde is currently experience. For example, Carley Rae Jepsen who came out with one of the biggest songs of 2012, Call Me Maybe, only to follow the viral hit with “her 2015 album Emotion, which sold atrociously” (Snapes). Snapes argues that these failures in commercial success are not as detrimental as they seem; these artists are essentially ensuring longevity in their career by becoming artists instead of slaves to the capitalist industry that bounds them to making public friendly songs.

Despite coming out with Call Me Maybe that made Jepsen an international sensation, her newest album Emotion is a “monumental commercial flop…album debuted at #16 in the U.S., selling only 16,513 copies—30,000 fewer than 2012’s Kiss” (Lindsay). Jepsen’s case is different compared to Lorde’s. Jepsen did create a new sound for herself by balancing “pop and alternative on the album” (Lindsay), but people only want to remember her as the Call Me Maybe girl. However, Jepsen has “attained modern cult classic status” (Snapes) and created a fan base that will support her