In a world of superficiality, Lorde knows how to tell the truth as it is.
Nearly four years since the release of her 2021 album, Solar Power, New Zealand’s indie popstar Lorde is back with a whole new eraof raw, candid energy. Virgin, which was released on June 27, is a return to an intimate, unfiltered album that balances vulnerability and deep honesty with undeniable bops.
After the sun-soaked stillness and peaceful energy of Solar Power—a stark departure from the emotional turbulence and dark atmosphere of her earlier works—Lorde returns to the pulsing synth-pop that first defined her.
In Virgin, Lorde continues her pattern of crafting albums as mirrors of her life—an intimate project that reflects personal growth and self-examination. Lorde has been writing and making music for so long—since she was 16 with the release of her debut album, Pure Heroine—that she seems to grow and enter a new era of life with each album.
The first theme of aging nostalgia appears in Pure Heroine, with Melodrama next capturing an era of chaotic uncertainty when being introduced to freedom, next Solar Power brought the era of serenity and clarity that comes with maturing. Now in the Virgin era, Lorde has fostered a creative homecoming—a return to teendom with new adult wisdom.
The title ‘Virgin’ invokes an image of purity and innocence that tastefully juxtaposes its gritty, bold sound. Opening the LP version of the album, one is greeted with a photo of a woman wearing completely transparent plastic pants with no underwear that seems to go hand in hand with the album’s themes of lucidity, leaving everything bare to the world, with only the guise of a veil.
Lorde captures the experience of being alive in a body full of desire and excitement, making Virgin nothing short of an album that’s full of emotional intensity that’s stripped of surface-level decorum.
The album opens with ‘Hammer’, a chaotic melody set to electropop, where she ironically refers to her artistry, saying, “It’s a beautiful life, so why play truant? / I jerk tears, and they pay me to do it.” Referencing her musical career and its fiscal retributions breaks the fourth wall—the metaphysical space that separates the performer from the audience—with cheeky self-reflection.
‘Hammer’ deepens Lorde’s ongoing exploration of gender, a subject she’s spoken about with candour about her own identity. While she identifies as a cisgender woman, her understanding of gender remains fluid and resistant to strict categorization. In the line “Some days I’m a woman / Some days I’m a man,” she articulates a vision of femininity that is shifting and unfixed—one that exists outside binary constraints.
My personal favourite can be found six songs into the album, ‘Current Affairs’. Starting with Lorde singing slowly over an electric guitar strum, the song gradually assimilates into the ethereal sample of Jamaican artist Dexta Daps’ ‘Morning Love’, followed by a repetitive echo of Lorde’s voice calling out. The song is a medley of betrayal and dizzying sexual confusion with lines such as, “My bed is on fire / Mama, I’m so scared” and “You tasted my underwear / I knew we were fucked.”
The final track of the album, ‘David’, is a warped crescendo where Lorde reclaims her autonomy and power, repeatedly stating throughout the song that she’ll never belong to anyone.
‘David’ is hard to predict, swinging between synth-pop, raw vocals, and catchy adlibs. While the song can be interpreted as a breakup song, it’s also a defence of her autonomy as an artist, creating a foundation of worth and respect for herself, rather than a reliance on critics’ and fans’ validation of her art.
Beyond reclaiming her individuality and autonomy, ‘David’ also refers to Lorde’s Pure Heroine, singing, “uppercut to the throat, I was off guard / Pure heroine mistaken for featherweight.” With this line, she seems to be reminding listeners not to underestimate her power as an artist—with Solar Power not landing well with music critics due to its departure from the typical Lorde sound.
When digesting Lorde’s music, it’s hard to separate her previous works from her current artistic moments, as all the works seem to complement one another.
All of us, Lorde fans, seemed to believe that her sound was changing and becoming softer, perhaps more detached. Yet, with Virgin, Lorde goes against the preconceived conceptions of creating a new sound; instead, she reclaims her power and reminds listeners she’s still the original icon she always was.
Her angst hasn’t faded with age, but has become more defined and polished.
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