Love | Hate: Columnists compare top female pop stars

The female musicians of 2013 are doing an extraordinary job. From the toe-tapping jams of Janelle Monáe and Lady Gaga to the diverse rocking styles of Haim and Savages, the experimental ambiance of Julianna Barwick and Julia Holter to the emotional guitar tunes of Kacey Musgraves and Laura Marling, the girls have got it this year.

With so many excellent artists to choose from, there are many loves to share, but also a few hates to balance them out. Columnists Sebastian Torrelio and Tony Huang provide their take on four female artists currently making their mark, whether impressive or crude, on the Billboard scene.

 

BY SEBASTIAN TORRELIO
A&E Senior Staff
storrelio@media.ucla.edu

LOVE: Lorde

It may not be the most controversial opinion, but there is something to be said about Lorde, a young New Zealand artist catching the attention of both Mainstream Top 40 listeners and the indie music crowd. Her hit song “Royals” has just claimed the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 (replacing Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball”), making Lorde the youngest artist to reach the No. 1 position in almost 26 years.

But there is a distinguishing factor about Lorde that makes me respect her a bit more than the other artists vying for her queen bee position right now: She’s not the standard pop act. In fact, one could argue that she’s the antithesis of pop, a musician of minimalistic beats and very delicate lyrics.

Lorde doesn’t care about the limelight. Heck, the girl declined to go on a world tour with Katy Perry. But it’s not like she needs to. The far-too-talented-for-her-own-good artist’s debut album, “Pure Heroine,” is pretty great, a promising album of eerie modern lyrics. Maybe we’ll check back up on her and her inevitable Grammy collection in a couple of years.

 

HATE: Katy Perry

Speaking of which, Katy Perry has disappointed me lately. And by lately, I mean over the last few years. Several songs from her earlier career and breakthrough album “One of the Boys” were inspiringly anthemic at the time of release. “Teenage Dream” is an exceptional tune as well, proving Perry’s talent as a talented singer and songwriter when it comes to making summer classics.

The album “Teenage Dream” is where the taste gets a bit sour, but I blame the general population for that one. Independent of quality, the album spawned five Hot 100 No. 1 singles, the most of any album in history (tied with Michael Jackson’s “Bad”), automatically making it a historic musical landmark whether we like it or not. And some of those songs, including “E.T.” and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” exposed a lazier song style that I had feared would grow in popularity.

Now there’s “Roar,” which will make a wonderful Kidz Bop song some day. I have faith in Perry to release a good single or two in her upcoming album “Prism,” but in order to do so, she’ll need to be a bit more innovativeconfirmed with writer<” class=”inline-comment collapsed”> in her technique. Being simplistically catchy isn’t everything these days, fortunately enough.

— Email Sebastian if you have an opinion of his “love” or “hate” side at storrelio@media.ucla.edu.

 

BY TONY HUANG
A&E; Contributor
thuang@media.ucla.edu

LOVE: Miley Cyrus

As acknowledged before in this column, I wasn’t a big fan of Miley Cyrus’ stunt at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards – far beyond any sexual or racial connotations, I thought it was amateurish and ill-conceived. But the passion behind the stunt is encouraging, and if the direction that “Bangerz” signifies is anything to go on, then the teen-pop idol might transition to producing fascinating work soon enough.

Everyone has a rebellious phase, after all, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for expressing that phase. There’s probably going to be a fair amount of embarrassment, but the vulnerability that tags along is more than enough to make compelling music.

Not that I’m expecting her to shed skin and turn into Liz Phair overnight – given her hip-hop inclination, I’d say she’d rather aim for M.I.A., however high that goal might be. But the new album is hard-hitting even through its inevitable pop sheen, and I don’t know if it’s a production gimmick or the alcohol’s gotten to her throat but there’s a track or two where she sounds almost like – really – Adele!

 

HATE: Chvrches

I don’t get these guys. Or maybe I just feel like I’ve heard them before, in a better version called Grimes. Pop band par excellence is their goal, I think, only there’s some percussion in there and some ambitious song titles – indie cred, as they say, not that it really matters.

What matters is that their music is kind of boring, willy-nilly brash synth crooning with nary a drum beat out of place, not nearly as bracing or as emotional as they might believe. The songs blur together fairly quickly, which wouldn’t be the end of the world if the one song they know wasn’t so predictable both musically and lyrically – some vague pop throes, some inarticulate depressions, laid over a groovy verse-chorus-verse structure that rarely attempts anything than to assert a catchy confirmed with writer cliche.

People are falling over lead singer Lauren Mayberry, probably with good reason – she seems like a nice person and her cadences are subtly seductive. But there’s nothing to linger on with these so-called pop gems. They expose few nerves. They beat a mechanical pulse.

— Email Tony if you have an opinion of his “love” or “hate” side at thuang@media.ucla.edu.