Lorde, the 17-year-old New Zealand chanteuse, can apparently do no wrong.
Her hit tune “Royals,” a witty ode (and send-up) to the monotony of bling-obsessed raps, has spent nine straight weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s pop singles chart, fending off stiff competition from the likes of more seasoned divas Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. The song has sold a stellar 3.7 million copies to date. If that weren’t enough, Rolling Stone recently named her debut LP, Pure Heroine, the seventh best album of 2013.
Now, the singer formerly known as Ella Yelich-O’Connor has just released her latest music video for one of the best tracks off her debut album, “Team.”
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The video opens with picturesque shots of the ocean, similar to those featured so prominently in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, before settling on a giant abandoned edifice on the water. Inside, sporting a set of braids that would make Katniss Everdeen green with jealousy, is the self-anointed “queen bee,” Lorde. Surrounded by greenery, the singer is flanked by her minions—who’ve all been transported to this mystical commune, and pass around a gallon jug of some mysterious blue liquid—as she croons the song’s addictive chorus:
“We live in cities you’ll never see on screen / Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things / Living in ruins of the palace within my dreams / And you know, we’re on each other’s team.”
This is the “palace” within Lorde’s dreams and it is, by the looks of it, a pretty magical place. Lorde posted the following message about the video to her Facebook page:
"This video was borne from a dream I had a few months ago about teenagers in their own world, a world with hierarchies and initiations, where the boy who was second in command had acne on his face, and so did the girl who was Queen. I dreamt about this world being so different to anything anyone had ever seen, a dark world full of tropical plants and ruins and sweat. And of this world, I dreamt about tests that didn't need to be passed in order to be allowed in: sometimes the person who loses is stronger. Enjoy."
Check out the video for yourself here:
