In 1985, the Replacements released their major label debut Tim, and towards the end of the first third of the album four out of five of the tracks are about as great as you can get. In 1985 they were better than about as great as you can get. You know what I mean, “Waitress In The Sky”, “Bastards Of Young”, and “Left Of The Dial” are three of them, taking you past the walf way mark and into the heart of side two.
The one I haven’t mentioned is “Swingin Party”, a lo fi piece of extended self-loathing outsiderdom built around an entirely apt play on words, it is a sort of folk jazz quasi fake rocker acoustic guitar break and so shaken in its insecurity, Westerberg seems on the verge of a collapse, maybe into somebodies arms. The song is seen as a major harbinger of a lot of stuff waiting in the wings, but really, it seems to bypass grunge and emo, and go straight to modern indie.
Lorde’s cover is much more in keeping with her age, a sixteen year at a party and she isn’t really having a good time. Here the social ostracized is more like a teenage angst, or, maybe not strong enough to be exactly angst, more like the uncool one at a cool party, the otherness of teenage alone together somewhere. The song hums and broods, it feels like the indie equivalent of new r&b.
Lorde sings it pretty well, she isn’t a twenty something, she doesn’t see it as a life sentence but a deadened teen cool moodiness, the swingin party here is a mood swingin party not a rope swingin. It suits Lorde really well, it is where she is at; her self-aware pro nice girl aura that had Mary Magpie dubbing Lorde a heroine here. Here she dangles it from a great distance, here she is a 16 year old at a party where fun is impossible to buy.
From “Royals” to “Tennis Court”, Lorde plays teenage otherness the way Brian Wilson could, you’d love to hear her try out “In My Room”. Her hair itself is a mark of not wanting to fit in and as the youngest in her family, she has the scrappiness you find in so many youngest members. All of these things come together and one more which you can’t hear yet but will one day: self-assurance; since she just signed a $2.5M publishing deal, assured is what she should be.
Swingin Party – The Replacements – A
Swingin Party – Lorde – B+
