Lorde Summer is upon us: the pop star’s fourth album Virgin will be out on June 27. It’s been four years since her last album, Solar Power, and the 28-year-old artist’s output between albums tends to be pretty minimal. Fans have been anxiously anticipating what her new era will bring, especially after her lead single “What Was That” teased a bigger, bolder sound than her third LP.
Lorde divulged details of her new album in her Rolling Stone cover story, her first in-depth conversation about the new album. Here’s what we know so far about Virgin:
Lorde had been working with Jack Antonoff for her last two albums, but it was time for her to shake things up. She had reached out to Stack, who has worked with Bon Iver and Danielle Haim, around the time she was set to begin her Solar Power tour. They recorded a song in 2022, but she wasn’t totally sure what the album was going to be until they reunited towards the end of 2023, as her tour and festival dates wrapped up. They hunkered down in NYC for most of 2024 to write the music on Virgin.
Lorde was nervous about revealing too much of the album and is nervous for how people will respond. She teased how the lyrics will make her not seem as “good” as she has been conditioned to act. “There’s going to be a lot of people who don’t think I’m a good girl anymore, a good woman. It’s over,” she said. “It will be over for a lot of people, and then for some people, I will have arrived. I’ll be where they always hoped I’d be.”
Over the past four years, Lorde has been in the midst of a life upheaval. An eating disorder and breakup had slammed her into “rock bottom” as she put it, but the journey to re-centering herself was vastly helped by MDMA therapy sessions she had begun before her Solar Power tour to get over her crippling stage fright. Two years’ worth of sessions helped Lorde re-discover her body; as she found clarity, she began to redefine her gender as well, which she describes as “expansive.” (On the album’s opening track, she sings “Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man.”)
“I think coming more into my body, I came into an understanding of the grotesque nature of it and the glory and all these things,” she said. The lyrics on Virgin reflect that. “It’s right on the edge of gross. I often really tried to hit this kind of gnarliness or grossness. ‘You tasted my underwear.’ I’ve never heard that in a song, you know? It felt like the right way to tell this whole chapter.”
For Virgin, Lorde and Stack emphasized the percussive elements above all else. She wants the production to work on the body before the brain. That means that she tried to keep the language as simple and plain as possible. “This is going to sound crazy, but I said to myself, ‘We get it. You’re smart. You don’t need to telegraph it,’” she explained. “Whereas in the past, I’m really trying to craft these lyrics. This time I was like, ‘No, be smart enough to let it be really basic. Be plain with language and see what happens.’”
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Lorde and co-director Terrence O’Connor shot the “What Was That” video on iPhone. It was an intentionally raw way of capturing the visuals, reflective of the nature of Virgin. She said the color of the album is “clear,” amplifying its transparency. The cover is an X-ray of her pelvis, showing off the zipper on her jeans and her IUD. “There’s as little between me and the brand as possible,” she explained. The video and more tiny details like the font used in the booklet for physical releases are meant to evoke a “school project” touch.
Fans immediately recognized some Melodrama touches to “What Was That,” but the old Lorde song that ended up blowing was from her first album instead. “Ribs” hit the Hot 100 and has helped Lorde recognize some connections between her teenage self and the woman she’s become.
“I’m now seeing that Virgin has this connection to Pure Heroine, and to this young, brave part of myself. I’m seeing that all these albums have connective tissue,” she said. “Having ‘Ribs’ bubble up next to songs I’ve written when I was 28. I can’t wait to see what continues to bubble up when more of this album is out. What are the connections going to be?”
From Rolling Stone US
