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REVIEW: Fans of the New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde have long commended the artist for her visceral pop craft. Her music, to certain ears, sounds like freedom. On her new album, it is as though Lorde is able to hear it, too.
On Virgin, the singer born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor’s fourth studio album and first in four years, pop hits are devoid of any anxious filtering. She is raw.
When Lorde first emerged as a gothic popstar — with Royals, and its critique of celebrity culture and hyper consumerism — she did so with prescience. Her sparse production style and cursive-singing had come from the future, and its influence would be felt for many years to follow. Her debut, 2013’s Pure Heroine, suggested that she possessed something her contemporaries did not; the synesthesia synth-pop Melodrama in 2017 all but confirmed her greatness.
She took a step back from all that for the sleepy sunshine of 2021’s Solar Power, and then took another — veering away from the spotlight all together. It seemed that this outsider dynamo had distanced herself from fame in an attempt to centralise artmaking once again. (Later, as it was revealed in a Rolling Stone cover story, she was mourning the longest romantic relationship of her life, making up the bulk of her twenties, and that she was overcoming an eating disorder and anxiety through MDMA and psilocybin therapy.) Virgin was born after that period of reflection.
Lorde performed a surprise, exclusive gig in the YMCA bathroom. (Source: Lorde/Instagram)
Musically, Virgin threads the needle from Melodrama to the current moment. The lead single, the synthpop What Was That, is a reserved derivation of her previous work but no doubt a banger; on the syncopated rhythms of Hammer, she’s matured her racecar-fast pop. There’s a new malleability here. She sings, “Some days I’m a woman / Some days I’m a man.”
An album standout, the metamorphic Shapeshifter, possesses a tension between organic and electronic sounds that continue onto Man of the Year, with its bass and cello contributions from frequent collaborator Dev Hynes.
Credit is due to her new production partners Jim-E Stack and Daniel Nigro.
Thematically, Lorde’s never been more fluid and feral than on Virgin, in her descriptions of gender experience (Favourite Daughter) and sexual autonomy (Current Affairs, with lyrics that might scandalise fans not expecting messy eroticism. “You tasted my underwear,” she sings, partnered with a sample of the dancehall record Morning Love by Dexta Daps.)
Lorde attends the 2025 Met Gala Celebrating "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" at Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Source: Getty)
For a singer who has always performed physical pop songs, Virgin is her most bodily work to date as well. Take, for example, the shortest song on the record, the vocoder-affected a cappella performance of Clearblue — a play on the popular pregnancy test brand, and not the only place where motherhood appears on the album. (Fertility is another theme; the album cover features an X-ray of Lorde’s pelvis while wearing jeans; in it, an intrauterine device is visible.)
"100% written in blood," the singer said.
Entertainment
Thu, May 1
The New Zealand musician spoke to RNZ days before she let the world into the raw, fleshy world of her new album.
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10:58am
The tour, titled Ultrasound, will follow the release of her new album Virgin on June 27.
Entertainment
Fri, May 9
This is a new Lorde — a more self-assured artist, warts and all — but one that recognizes and evolves her sonic signatures. Now, like in the early days of her career, Virgin is both avant-garde and pop radio ready, a confluence of unlike features that mirror its messaging. Only now, she sounds unshackled.
By Associated Press music writer Maria Sherman.
