Twenty seconds into her debut album, Pure Heroine, she's already announced that she's bored. The message is clear: Lorde has introduced herself to the world as someone who gives very few fucks. With the global smash "Royals" (the first song in 17 years by a female solo artist to top Billboard’s alternative chart) she made her name by sneering at everything else on the radio ("We don't care/ We aren't caught up in your love affair"). The other day she spoke too truthfully in an interview and accidentally insulted Taylor Swift Katy Perry asked her to tour with her and-politely but firmly- she said no. (It's an anti-video in the tradition of the Replacements' "Bastards of Young", and, fittingly, her moody cover of "Swingin Party" has been making the rounds.) In a moment when too many new artists seem afraid to offend or go off script, Lorde is an exciting contradiction: an aspiring pop star who's had a major-label development deal since age 12 (she was discovered at a local talent show) but has retained a seemingly genuine iconoclastic streak. That's the message you get from the defiantly low-concept video for her single "Tennis Court", in which the 16 year-old New Zealand singer-songwriter (real name: Ella Yelich-O'Connor) stares right at you-her taunting, onyx pupils burning a hole through the computer screen-for a hypnotic and somewhat uncomfortable three and a half minutes. In the current pop firmament, Lorde is a black hole.
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