Conclusion
In an interview with Billboard, as mentioned by reporter Bethonie Butler in The Washington Post, Lorde said that she does not like to be in the spotlight, yet here she is right in the center and under a very bright spotlight in the music video for “Tennis Court” (Butler). Furthering this contradiction, at the same time that she criticized the consumerist culture idolatrized in pop culture by singing “Royals” at the 2014 Grammy Awards, she was being praised by the artists that construct and support that ideology. She criticized pop culture at the biggest music ceremony in the world and (somehow) got away with it.
Lorde depends on pop culture to make a point about rejecting it and as a result, she exposes the cultural contradiction of the desire to go against this consumer-pop culture, but still buying a product of it, buying into the idea of rejecting mainstream pop. Lorde might have partially become one of the materialists that she criticizes, as we have seen that she functions both in the worlds of the ordinary and of the spectacular, but when one listens to her music, it still brings a feeling of relief. It still feels fresh, honest and authentic for saying something different than other pop songs. In this way, Lorde is able to make her fans feel like they are facing and confronting the contradictions of rejecting versus accepting/consuming popular culture. However, by accepting and relating to her ideas, which are conveyed through pop culture, one actually buys into just another product of it, getting stuck in a vicious cycle of never being able to set free from mainstream-pop conventions. That is ultimately the contradiction that Lorde stands for, exposes and embodies. It will be interesting to see how this changes with the arrival of her sophomore album in June 2017.
