Bob Schwartz

When you’re a young pop music fanatic, you spend half your time listening. Music is life, life is music. When you get older, you still love it, but it takes its place among so many other occupiers. Which is why some of us who really do care and appreciate end up as “middle of the day” discoverers instead of early adopters.

I nearly had to pull off the road when I first heard Royals by Lorde on the radio this week. I was transported, transfixed, whatever transcendent pop music word you want to use. I am about the five millionth person to find out about this phenomenon, but I don’t care.

This is from the Billboard 21 Under 21 list, where Lorde comes in at Number 6, just a few spots below Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus:

Why She’s Hot: At this time last year, Ella Yelich-O’Connor was an unknown 15-year-old in New Zealand, still two months away from releasing her debut EP for free on the Internet. Fast forward one calendar frame, and one of the songs on that EP, “Royals,” is a record-setting hit on Billboard’s Alternative chart and a Top 5 single on the U.S. Hot 100. Its creator, now known as Lorde, is one of the most fascinating new talents in pop music, with sold-out shows, a beguiling debut album titled “Pure Heroine,” and an astoundingly level head about her heightened profile. The head of Lorde’s record label says that she could be “the artist of her generation,” and thousands agree. It’s time to hail Lorde with a spot in this year’s Top 10.

And if everything else about Royals isn’t already plus-perfect, the song itself, written by Lorde and Joel Little, offers a message about rich pop stars from the common people perspective: “we’ll never be royals.”

I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh
I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies
And I’m not proud of my address
In the torn up town, no post code envy

But every song’s like:
Gold teeth
Grey Goose
Tripping in the bathroom
Bloodstains
Ball gowns
Trashing the hotel room

We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams

But everybody’s like:
Crystal
Maybach
Diamonds on your timepiece
Jet planes
Islands
Tigers on a gold leash

We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair

And we’ll never be royals
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of lux just ain’t for us, we crave a different kind of buzz
Let me be your ruler
You can call me queen bee
And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule
Let me live that fantasy

My friends and I we’ve cracked the code
We count our dollars on the train to the party
And everyone who knows us knows
That we’re fine with this, we didn’t come from money

This is the dream for every artist and producer, and for music fans too: something so familiar yet different, something so infinitely listenable and desirable that it is a musical drug. Will Lorde go on to be, as her label says, “the artist of her generation”? They have to say that, there’s a long way to go, and one great track doesn’t make a career. But what a great track and what a great way to start.