In a new New York Times profile, New Zealand pop singer Lorde gushes about Katy Perry’s music. She goes so far as to call Perry’s 2010 hit “Teenage Dream” a “holy” experience.
“There’s this sadness about it, where you feel young listening to it, but you feel impermanence at the same time,” Lorde said in the interview.
“When I put that song on, I’m as moved as I am by anything by David Bowie, by Fleetwood Mac, by Neil Young. It lets you feel something you didn’t know you needed to feel […] There’s something holy about it.”
The singer has been studying pop while writing the follow-up to 2013’s Pure Heroine, Melodrama. Perched in a booth at a 24-hour restaurant in uptown New York, she has been examining the work of Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado.
“I have such reverence for the form,” she said. “A lot of musicians think they can do pop, and the ones who don’t succeed are the ones who don’t have the reverence — who think it’s just a dumb version of other music. You need to be awe-struck.”
The singer also admitted to having sound-to-colour synesthesia, a condition where she can visualize songs before she writes them. With two songs out now – “Liability” and “Green Light” – the singer is primed for the release of Melodrama, which is out June 16.