Lorde - Team (Video)

Lorde’s Royals is undoubtedly one of the songs of 2013 (although perhaps Lorde herself doesn't think so, naming her favourite tracks of the year here, which include Daft Punk's Get Lucky and Jungle's Drops (good choices) ) Only time will tell what Royals longer term position in the halls of pop history will be and if Lorde herself will be just a shared memory of times past or some sort of artistic pop royalty adored by her loyal subjects forever.

For now though we have Team, the video for which gave a large number of fans (including us) all sorts of problems in playing yesterday when it was first uploaded. “I want to see it so badly!!! I've waited like, an eternity of ten minutes!!!” one comment stated on You Tube last night, which probably said everything there is to say about today’s iGeneration speed culture that the internet has created. Did Lorde kill the internet for a while perhaps? 

The video itself is a bit odd, what with what appears to be a man with a sack on his head being taken to a jousting competition with motorbikes instead of horses and Lorde singing amongst a bunch of tropical plants. For those looking for meaning, here’s what Lorde says:

“This video was born 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.” Wow - when we were Lorde’s age we were dreaming about sexy times with Louise, Penny or Nicola. It probably explains why we're not an international pop star right now.

As for the song, besides Royals (and Buzzcut Season)  Team is one of our favourites from Pure Heroine; the beats and the minimal synth snatches are just right and the moment when Lorde sings that she’s ‘kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air’, is just so petulantly cool it’s brilliant.

Lorde - Team (Video)