The teaser campaign for the long-awaited Lorde release has entered the troposphere, capturing the imagination of music lovers and crossword buffs alike. What’s it going to be?
Yesterday Lorde did the most interesting thing to the 7pm New Zealand television half-hour since Dennis Conner stormed off the Holmes show, by dropping a 15-second teaser for her new record across the three main channels.
This morning, she furnished us with more detail, via Twitter, posting a cryptic link to the cryptic website www.imwaitingforit.com, where that very same jolly music, milkshake and mysterious man based clip sits, cryptically, beneath what appears to be a clue to the title of the new single: M*******A.
What might those missing letters be? Here at the Spinoff we have corralled our finest musicologists, etymologists and bookmakers, who have melded art, science, mathematics and things we nicked off the internet to calculate the odds.
MILLENNIA 10-1
At once an allusion to the passage of time, the problem with baby boomers and Robbie Williams’ banging 1998 dance floor hit.
MELODRAMA 10-1
Featuring pathos, overwrought or heightened emotion, moral polarisation (good vs evil), non-classical narrative structure (eg use of extreme coincidence and deus ex machina), and sensationalism (emphasis on action, violence and thrills).
MINNEHAHA 10-1
A lovely beach just up the road from Devonport beloved of locals. Let it be this, that would be the best.
MINNESOTA 20-1
The kind you find in a second-hand store.
MILKSHAKE 30-1
There are two cups in the video which look like they contain milkshakes, so it’s not a bad bet that the song is about milkshakes and a production error led to an incorrect letter being put at the end of the puzzle.
MELANESIA 40-1
A powerful personal tribute to the South Pacific.
MEMORANDA 50-1
Song about emails.
MANCHURIA 75-1
A blistering political satire set in the presidential suite of the Moscow Ritz-Carlton.
MARIJUANA 100-1
Very bad follow-up to Pure Heroine.
METALLICA 200-1
An unexpected new direction sees Lorde pay tribute to the legendary heavy metal gods/crybabies.
MACAREHNA 300-1
An unexpected new direction sees Lorde pay tribute to baby boomers by covering the banging dance floor hit while subversively misspelling it to make it nine letters long.
MEACULPA 400-1
A heartfelt tribute to that bar halfway down Ponsonby Road.
MONALISA 500-1
Song about painting.
MURRRRICA 1000-1
You know this is precisely the kind of liberal elitist propaganda that is to blame for Trump being elected.
MEGAUPLOA 2000-1
An duet in D minor with banging dancefloor fugitive Kim Dotcom.
MISOPEDIA 3000-1
Does Lorde secretly hate children?
MA’AAAAAA 4000-1
A nostalgic, plaintive and heartfelt tribute to the glory days of the All Black midfield.
MANDIBULĂ 5000-1
The Romanian word for the lower jawbone.
MACADAMIA 10,000-1
Delicious, but no.
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