Lorde’s personal stories resonate with everyone

LORDE “MELODRAMA” (REPUBLIC/UNIVERSAL)

This ties Aimee Mann’s “Mental Illness” for apt album title of the year. Lorde, of course, is 20 years old; her breakthrough singles came out when she was 16. If anyone entitled to be the voice of melodramatic youth, it would be her. If she sounded wiser than her years on her debut, here, on her second album, Lorde acts her age — and in doing so perfectly captures all the awkwardness and emotional whirlwinds that define that period in everyone’s life. First single “Green Light” suggests a more musically upbeat turn, but for much of “Melodrama” Lorde rides the midtempo, slinky groove she built her career on, and explores the lower end of her vocal register. She’s at her most emotionally naked on “Liability,” an anthem for anyone who’s ever been dumped for feeling all the big feelings. As always, Lorde’s primary strength is spinning personal stories into universal narratives: no matter how old you are it’s not that hard to access that formative time in your life when a Lorde song was your reality.

Stream: “Green Light,” “Liability,” “Supercut”

BETH DITTO “FAKE SUGAR” (VIRGIN)

This Arkansas native is one of the most electrifying vocalists of the last 20 years — and yet if she has any celebrity at all (which she does in Britain) it’s as a style icon, a self-identified “fat” activist, a queer role model, and just about anything except the singer of dance-punk trio Gossip, who only recently announced their split, five years after their last record. It’s important to remember why anyone paid attention to Beth Ditto in the first place: she’s one of the most charismatic front people in rock ’n’ roll history, able to whip crowds into a sweaty mess within the first three songs of any set, whether the audience is 30 people or 30,000. And it’s not just through the force of her personality: it’s her voice, that all-American blend of country, R&B, gospel and punk, capable of heartbreaking subtlety and righteous hellfire. It’s a voice with the confidence to conquer small towns and narrow minds, a voice that is and was a beacon to bullied freaks everywhere.

Gossip was a trio that began based in the blues, eventually morphing into Euro dance-pop — in ways that few similar bands, with the exception of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, have ever done successfully. Now that she’s on her own, Ditto doesn’t feel pinned down by any sound: chart pop, new country, sappy ballads (in the best possible way), and of course everything Gossip always did so well. Meanwhile, “We Could Run” sounds like the best track that didn’t make it on to Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs.” The title track is a perfect ’80s soft-rock hit that wouldn’t be out of place on Fleetwood Mac’s “Tango in the Night.” Throughout, Ditto shows off her maturity as a vocalist by exploring softer shades that didn’t always shine through on her earlier work.

She’s 36 now, and playing the long game; these are songs she’ll still be singing when she’s 75 — if her success in the fashion world doesn’t keep her away from a microphone. The world has always needed more Beth Ditto, but these days in particular her voice and her message is much more important than her taste in clothes.

Stream: “In and Out,” “Oo La La,” “Do You Want Me To”

DO MAKE SAY THINK “STUBBORN PERSISTENT ILLUSIONS” (CONSTELLATION)

A perfect title for any band celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album — and doing so with perhaps their best record yet, one capable of convincing the curious and/or skeptical. Maybe that’s in part because, like their label mates Godspeed You Black Emperor, they’ve suddenly found themselves writing in major keys — and maybe that’s because, as the Belgian cartoonist Jean-Claude Servais once said, “The hour calls for optimism; we’ll save pessimism for better times.” Either way, this is a band whose collective experience (Broken Social Scene, Feist, Andy Kim, R&B/metal band Lullabye Arkestra, and more) and chemistry together result in interlocking melodies and gorgeous textures over the alternately jazzy and hardcore punk of dual drummers. Every song here is a miniature film in itself — not just the soundtrack to a hypothetical film, but with enough sonic and harmonic detail to imagine characters and dialogue — not an easy feat for an instrumental band. But not that difficult for a band like Do Make Say Think.

Stream: “A Murder of Thoughts,” “And Boundless,” “As Far As the Eye Can See”