The final straw was that the Herald On Sunday, 2 February, included a
very large wall poster, a glossy colour photo of Ella Yelich O’Connor, alias
Lorde, looking 17-going-on-40. The
caption is: Year Of Our Lorde. And there is a quote from her song Royals: We’re bigger than we ever dreamed,and I’m in
love with being a queen. I don’t
know what that means.
A day or two previously the NZ
Herald had a front-page banner headline which read: LORDE ALMIGHTY. Tacky, tasteless, tediously silly.
I was driving past Takapuna
Grammar School last week, and saw to my horror an immense banner with a photo
of Ella Yelich O’Connor (as I assume she was known at school until recently)
draped down the front façade of the main building at the head of the entrance
driveway. All pupils are to be
inspired.
This young woman, age 17, has
won two Grammy awards She did not win
the main award. Her song Royals has gone
viral, as we now evidently say – gone
viral...? I listened to it, several
times in case there was something the matter with me and I was missing what I
should be getting. It’s cute. In a way it’s clever. It doesn’t require you to be able to
sing. But it was hard for me to get past
the strange spastic gestures in the video, as though she was on the brink of a
grand mal episode.
Forgive me, but I do have to
wonder whether her Grammy awards reflect talent so much as the clamant needs of
people to be freshly entertained, the hunger for celebrity, the voracious demands
of trends and trendiness. Is it not all completely
shallow? Does no one ever read Hans
Christian Andersen, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” any more? I am advised that Lorde’s lyrics are quite
interesting. Well, I have listened to
them and read them. Sorry. I’ll swap them any day for George Herbert or
John Betjeman.
In the flood of sycophantic
writings about Lorde one writer told how she responded to some enquiry about
what she would be wearing at the Grammys.
She said a white shirt and black pants.
She didn’t even name a designer.
This depth of naivete cannot last.
Does she know what the pressures will be once the fashion gurus get hold
of her if she is marketable? Maybe she
is starting now to find out.
I wonder how much of all this
is with the really informed consent of this young woman. I wonder what is being destroyed, in the
glittering prospect of celebrity and money, not only for her but also for
managers, designers, recording studios, security personnel. I wonder what has happened, not only to
genuine talent but also to the ability to assess such talent. I wonder about the deleterious effects of
hideous TV shows such as NZ/Australia/Wherever
Has Talent. I wonder about a
culture that has such a relentless and insatiable need to be amused.
