16 hours ago
Our first reactions to Virgin, Lorde's brand new album
The Spinoff writers share their thoughts on Lorde's fourth album.
After returning from her typical four-year hiatus with a series of thrilling pop-ups, including one in the YMCA bathrooms in central Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand pop star Lorde released her fourth album Virgin at midnight last night. With an icy blue cover depicting an X-ray of the singer's own pelvis, the album has brought with it much fan speculation. Will it be even more revealing than her verse in 'girl, so confusing'? Will it be a return to the Melodrama era? And why, oh why, is there a Baby Bash credit? We took a long, hard listen overnight to bring you these findings.
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
My virgin Virgin listen was exactly as God intended: alone in my bedroom with the lights off waiting for the midnight release. This is a good nighttime album in the sense that there's an equal number of songs to cry (in a Melodrama way) and dance (in a kind-of Brat way) to – but mostly this is the kind of album that will make you hope the next drug the Act Party makes available over the counter is ketamine.
How will Virgin rank in the overall Lorde discography? It's definitely above Solar Power and hitting a sweet spot between Melodrama and Pure Heroine. She's showing off her vocals a bit more, but also really nailing that David Byrne thing of treating lyrical delivery like spoken word that can puncture a melody, rather than flow with it (which kind-of irked me in 'GRWM' and 'Shapeshifter' at first, but now it's very much grown on me).
There's a lot of lyrics in this which could work like cryptic Instagram posts ('2009 me'd be so impressed') or something I'd write in my diary if I was crashing out ('if I had virginity, I would have given that too'). And production-wise, Virgin is pretty stripped back, which might be hard for the 'Supercut' and 'Hard Feelings/Loveless' heads.
Lorde told us this album would feel like shotgunning a Red Bull and kissing someone you really like, and given the album's runtime and lyrical content, yes, exactly that. 'Clearblue' feels like a new career all-timer for her – a song about wishing you kept the pregnancy test from your last relationship as a memento is exactly what I want to hear from Lorde's ovulation album, and 'your metal detector hits my precious treasure' is my favourite line at the moment. I'll be ready to discuss 'David' after a few more therapy sessions.
Mad Chapman
In a beautiful and completely coincidental turn of events, I listened to Lorde's new album in full the minute it was released, while riding a city bike around the waterfront in Singapore. I managed two full listens through before dragging my clammy self back to the hotel.
My first thought: I wish it was longer. At 34 minutes it ends before it's really begun. But where albums often fall over by not living up to their pre-release singles, Virgin feels like the inverse. 'Favourite Daughter' and 'Current Affairs' are like therapy, and 'David' will likely have the longest shelf life.
Lyrically, welcome back to the poet Lorde. Production-wise, I had hoped for a bit more experimenting, though there's a safety (as a listener) in dropping straight back into the melodies and moods we recognise. The final moments of 'David' are thrilling and felt like she was about to dive into something new and then bam, the album is over. Wanted more, enjoyed what I got.
P.S. Has Lorde ever made a joke in a song? Because I laughed out loud at the 'Suga Suga' reference.
Gabi Lardies
Wow not fair guys, I listened to Virgin through headphones in the corner of the lunch-room while being assaulted by the smell of my colleagues' morning eggs. I also encountered some technical difficulties [ads interrupting the flow] due to recently having cancelled my Spotify subscription. I am still trying to figure out an alternative, recommendations welcome.
It was during the third song, 'Shapeshifter', that I thought 'ahhhh I know what this is' – bedroom pop, albeit made by one of the biggest pop stars in the world and certainly not lo-fi. These songs, entirely constructed of Ella Yelich-O'Connor's voice and electronic melodies and instruments, are introspective, intimate, nostalgic and sometimes dreamy. Though they're a million miles off Solar Power, they don't hit those party highs of Melodrama. There were moments, particularly in 'Clearblue', when I was reminded of Kody Nielson's Silicon project, and other moments where I thought of Pickle Darling.
This is a perfect winter album, something to curl up with on a cold night alone. The lyrics are easy to relate to [it's a break up album too] and it's nice to have some pop for introverts.
Alex Casey
As Lorde has established herself, this album is probably best enjoyed in a subterranean carpark or a grimy toilet block, alas my first Virgin listen was while doing the damn dishes and making myself a damn omelette before work this morning (as a wise woman once said: vine hanging over the door, dog who comes when I call etc etc etc). Nonetheless, the first three tracks lifted me out of chilly Christchurch suburbia to a place much more thrilling, sweaty, and industrial. She doesn't want us to take our time and bliss out in the sun anymore, but absolutely ping out with urgency under the blue lights.
I saw Lorde say in an interview recently that she was put here to make bangers, but that doesn't mean that these songs are all feel-good euphoria. 'Favourite Daughter' is my immediate favourite, a soaring release of a pop song that also fucked me up so insanely hard that I was in tears by the last line. Mum stuff, my god. The whole run through 'Man of Year' to 'Favourite Daughter' to 'Current Affairs' to 'Clearblue' is a powerful Mount Rushmore of knotty unspoken women's shit, confirming suspicions that 'girl so confusing' was just the tip of a very gnarly iceberg.
Also the line from 'Suga Suga' – 'Got me lifted, feeling so gifted' – in 'If She Could See Me Now' is the 'Can I kick it? Yeah, I can' from 'Solar Power' and I love it. Not just because I am fuelled almost entirely by early 2000s popular culture references, but because it brought back a vulnerable memory I have long tried to bury. Sometime in 2016, a bunch of us journalist freaks and Lorde, somehow, were on a cursed van ride home from a boozy media schmooze-fest. She had control of the aux cord (rightly so) and I bellowed 'play Baby Bash!!!!' at her in a sav-fuelled fugue state.
The look on her face has haunted me ever since, but hearing this lyric on Virgin makes me think that maybe she didn't hate the suggestion as much as I have assumed she did for the last near-decade. That's healing, that's growth… that's Virgin.
