We've reached a point recently where if we go out in the car as a family I have to share the car stereo with my daughter, ET, aged 10. I get to choose the music on the way there, her on the way back, or vice versa. This sometimes leads to my routes being more circuitous and her's much more direct. The other day on her leg of the journey my music was playing when we pulled out of the multi-storey carpark and a few minutes later she cottoned on and asked for her turn. 'After this song' I said, knowing it was a seventeen minute and two seconds long Orb remix. One-nil to Dad.
Her in-car cd collection is made up of three Now That's What I Call Music! compilations (numbers 84, 86 and 88 I think. I don't know why it's just the even numbered ones). On the current one there are three good tunes, which over two discs and nearly forty songs is a low hit rate (for me, not her- she likes 1D, Lawson, The Vamps etc). Now! 86 had a handful of good ones that helped soundtrack last summer's jaunt to France. The previous one had nothing on it that didn't want make me to want to cut my ears off.
To get to the point, I have actually discovered a new song from Now! 88 that I love. I may be late to the party here, but Lorde's Royals is stupendously good. In fact, seeing as it's had over forty seven million views on Youtube and has been number one around the world I am clearly very late to this party. The song is terrific, with a minimal backing track- just simple drums, some finger snaps and bass- and Lorde's wonderful voice, and lyrics about not being like the others, rejecting gaudy material goods, how she 'craves a different kind of buzz'. You can call her Queen Bee. It's stripped down, dramatic and moody, slinky too, a bit like The Xx with a more distinctive vocalist possibly. Lorde is a teenage New Zealander and seems to be outrageously talented. You probably know this already but it was a bit of a revelation to me.
Royals
