This article contains references to disordered eating.
Over the past decade, Ella Yelich-O’Connor — the 28-year-old singer-songwriter known as Lorde — has grown up. And with her fourth studio album “Virgin,” released on June 27, she sinks into the messiness of adulthood. Leaning into bare-bones production, unconventional song structure and intense lyricism, Lorde has never been more unglamorous, devastating and inexplicably beautiful.
The first track, “Hammer,” starts the album with a bang, setting the stage for a record that finds Lorde in a spotlight more interrogatory than ever. The song begins with a steady synth pulse and a simple declaration, “There’s a heat in the pavement, my mercury’s raising.”
Throughout the introductory track, Lorde beckons the listener into a world where spiritual items like a “liquid crystal” or “aura picture” can soften the cut concrete edges of the city. A muted bass line leaves room for the song’s lyrics to shine, with “Hammer” acting as the album’s thesis: This LP is about uncertainty. On “Virgin,” Lorde confronts the nuances of fame, gender, sexuality and a lost love’s long-lasting impact, setting out to bear a lifetime of insecurity.
“Shapeshifter,” the album’s third track, harkens to Lorde’s musical past while charting a path to her lyrically vulnerable present. As she details her desire for privacy, Lorde centers her bedroom as a place laden with the childhood nostalgia of her past songs..
Now, as she unpacks the emotional baggage of her younger years, Lorde mourns her teenage self: “I become her again / visions of that teenage innocence,” she sings. Today, Lorde’s bedroom is barren — just a bed and a mirror — as she sheds the soothing, yet inauthentic, self-assuredness of “Solar Power” (2021) for something raw, grungy and defiant.
“Man of the Year” is the strongest track on “Virgin.” At the outset, it becomes clear that Lorde’s relocation from New Zealand to New York City has had a sobering influence on her songwriting. In this song, she focuses on the freneticism of the city streets rather than the saccharine sweetness of nature. Beginning with a few simple strums of the guitar, “Man of the Year” finds Lorde “gliding through” the cityscape. The production is restrained, letting Lorde’s dysphoric lyrics sear at the forefront. She battles ennui: “Days go by in a haze, stay up and sleep late,” as she struggles with a stagnancy she seeks to break and gender walls she aims to tear down.
With pain in her voice and verses that catch at the back of her throat, Lorde looks in the mirror while providing the listener a window into her struggles with body image and identity. And as she thrashes in a dirt-filled apartment in the “Man of the Year” music video, the drums and synths blister beneath the surface as if they were filtered through the walls of the neighboring apartment. Lorde sings of self-empowerment: She will give herself the confidence that society promises a man will provide.
In “Current Affairs,” Lorde dissects the effects of a purely physical relationship as she struggles with wanting more. Physical intimacy with her lover is empty and more self-serving than satisfying: “He spit in my mouth like / He’s sayin’ a prayer,” she sings. But on tracks like “GRWM,” a double entendre for “grown woman” and “get ready with me,” the singer’s hard-hitting lyrical simplicity suffers from a lack of relatability. After all — with lines like “2009 me’d be so impressed (So impressed, oh)” referencing the year when she signed a development contract with Universal Music Group — Lorde admits she has lived with fame longer than she has lived without it.
And that is why some lines on “GRWM,” feel contrived, like she is trying too hard to come off as a regular city-dwelling twenty-something-year-old. Further, some lyrics are overtly sexual to the point of becoming off-putting — the kind of scoff-worthy vulgarity you find in the vocabulary of a 13-year-old harnessing their first set of curse words. But as she describes finding maturity as she nears her thirties, like when Lorde discovers her present form as a “grown woman in a baby tee,” even Lorde’s weakest lines pack an emotional punch. Her signature entrancing, gravelly vocals and electrifying humming over synth-heavy soundscapes amplify this strength.
On “Broken Glass,” a catchy trip-synth track that confronts an eating disorder, Lorde strikes a balance between sizzling production and lyrical weight. She quips rhetorically about what her body image struggles have led to, “Did I cry myself to sleep about that? / Cheat about that? / Rot teeth about that?” and she provides a sarcastic answer, “Huh, all of the above.” She wonders what life could be like if she punched her mirror, a simple yet shattering act of rebellion that signals a rejection of externally imposed beauty standards.
“Virgin” concludes with the haunting “David,” which unravels the uncomfortable power imbalance between her — a vulnerable young star — and her former lover. As a quiet pool of synths builds to a shimmering crescendo, Lorde admits she gave “David” what he wanted: “At the Sunset Tower, you said ‘open your mouth’ / I did,” as she laments her impressionability: “If I’d had virginity, I would have given that too.” She looked up to this man, whom she named after Michelangelo’s “David” (1501-1504), a representation of masculine perfection. At the end, after chipping away at the image of a man she once viewed as infallible, she wonders if she can ever find love again. But with the raw power, intense self-reflection and spiritual healing of the songs we have heard up to this resounding finale, it is clear that she can.
On “Virgin,” we find Lorde at her most lyrically vulnerable since “Melodrama” and musically experimental in her career. She has never bared more or sung better. The restrained power of Jim E-Stack’s production, which aims to uplift Lorde’s poetry rather than create a party anthem, strengthens her voice.
With the whirlwind of superstardom behind her, Lorde is ready to unpack all she’s gained and lost along the way — the supercut of memories and feelings she is only now looking through. She has moved past the seclusion that kept her at arm’s length from her fans in “Solar Power” and she has returned to her brooding roots. After all, Lorde has always been an artist living on the edge — of youth and adulthood, of shadow and spotlight, of broken and whole. And in “Virgin,” she rediscovered the wild and daring darkness that has always made her so compelling.
If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered eating, you can reach Emory’s Counseling and Psychological Services at (404) 727-7450. You can reach the National Eating Disorders Association helpline by texting (800) 931-2237 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays. You can call the hotline at (800) 931-2237 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays.
Hunter Buchheit (he/him) (28B) is majoring in U.S. History and Business. He loves writing about music, Emory events and politics, and in his free time enjoys playing piano, running and spending hours crafting the perfect Spotify playlist.
