Lorde's day at All Points East is a next-gen pop coronation

Patrons spill into Victoria Park notably early this year for the Lorde-headline All Points East. This isn’t their first time at the festival, though, you can tell by the bandanas hanging from their belt loops. They’ve faced this dustbowl head on before and have come back for round two, cunning and more prepared this time. It’s only 3pm and the site is already buzzing with fans trying to catch a glimpse of Nell Mescal and Ninajarichi. Two artists that could not be more estranged in styling, establishing the gamut of music on display today. Both united, however, by first carving a narrow aesthetic identity, and then making their universe expansive. Conventionally, pop as a genre is seen as one that draws within the lines: neat, candied, just-under-three minute earworms manufactured in a lab somewhere between L.A. and Stockholm. It wouldn’t be unfair, necessarily, to hear the term and immediately think of an Ed Sheeran track from a decade ago, or a nostalgic cheesy tune befitting of a retro light-up dancefloor and one too many tequila shots. Songs omnipresent in the culture like “Espresso” or “Shake It Off” are so algorithmically favourable that it took them just a few days before the...