We can’t love everything. And neither should you. —Ed.
At 17, Lorde would appear to have a long career ahead of her. That is until she opens her mouth. And words come out. Words like, “Dancing around the lies we tell/ Dancing around big eyes as well, ah/ Even the comatose/ They don’t dance and tell.”
Ponder that for a moment, and then surrender to the fact that it has to be the dumbest line since, “Walking slowly down the hall/ Faster than a cannonball.” And Lorde doesn’t have the excuse that she sprinkles cocaine on her cornflakes in the morning.
But when it comes to the vapidity of so-called higher cognition, there’s no beating Lorde’s “White Teeth Teens.” At least “Team” boasts those big handclaps, and a catchy chorus, even if it also includes the inexplicable and unfortunate line, “Now bring my boys in/ Their skin in craters like the moon.” “White Teeth Teens” boasts a catchy chorus as well, but there’s no escaping the ludicrousness of the pre-chorus, which goes, “We got the glow in our mouth/ White teeth teens are out/ White teeth teens are up for it.” Lord help us all. They’re out! Escaped! With their blinding white teeth! With their big blinding white horse choppers! And they’re up for it, whatever it is! Biting your finger off, maybe!
But the real vacuousness of this tune about the glow-in-the-dark good fortune of the enamelly blessed isn’t revealed until the punch line, when Lorde—and this is hard to fathom, I know—sings, “I’ll let you in on something big/ I am not a white teeth teen/ I tried to join but never did.” Tragic, I hear you cry! Poor dear Lorde, blessed with exquisite beauty but inadequately glistening incisors!
It makes me want to cry for her sad and horrifying fate, especially when she sings, “Their molars blinking like the lights/ In the underpass where we all sit.” Not only are those white teeth teens blessed with molars as pure as the driven snow, they blink as well! It’s so unfair. New Zealand’s Lorde, who has everything—beauty, talent, the name of the Lord, Michael Jackson’s chin, four Grammy nominations, and one Brit Award—lacks pearlies so pulsating white they could bring a plane safely to Earth in a blackout. Is there no justice in this world?
