On Aug. 19, 2021, Lorde released “Solar Power,” her third studio album. She had reached a considerable amount of fame with her earlier albums, “Pure Heroine,” whose single “Royals” was a radio fixture for much of the early-to-mid-2010s, and “Melodrama,” the moody breakup album rife with prime crying-in-the-car material. Lorde’s music was described by some, perhaps reductively, as “sad girl music,” along with the music of artists like Mitski, who was the opening act at several shows on the “Melodrama” tour.
Lorde had set a precedent for releasing her albums four years apart, with “Pure Heroine” releasing in 2013 and “Melodrama” in 2017, so when 2021 came around, expectations were high. Sure enough, Lorde started dropping hints about new music soon after the release of Going South, a photo memoir about a trip she took to Antarctica. Then, finally, there was music.
During the summer of 2021, Lorde promoted her new album with three singles: “Solar Power” (the album’s titular song), “Stoned at the Nail Salon” and “Mood Ring,” as well as an email campaign in a style that was uniquely hers. The first email, which announced the release of “Solar Power,” was a long-form letter in which she introduced her album’s concept to the world, accompanied by photos of her on a beach in a yellow two-piece outfit.
It was evident from the first glimpse of the email’s yellow background that this was a stark departure from her preexisting aesthetic identity. Early in her career, Lorde showed up on red carpets wearing black dresses and purple-black lipstick, building a unique persona. At only sixteen years old, she sang about the terror of leaving childhood naivety behind and the superficial standards imposed on anyone who wants to simply exist in the world, and her public identity reflected that idea of the precocious, pensive teenager building a career from her deep-cutting art.
Four years later, “Melodrama” came out. Lorde’s public identity had shifted: her makeup was more subdued, she was wearing more colorful clothes and the world got a startlingly intimate look into her heart as she dealt with a breakup. Her lyrics, such as in “Writer in the Dark,” were all but soul-shattering: “I am my mother’s child / I’ll love you ‘til my breathing stops / I’ll love you ‘til you call the cops on me.”
So, when we started seeing Lorde perpetually at the beach in yellow bikinis, flowy skirts and minimal makeup, her persona underwent a complete reframing. The dramatic change was not lost on her — in “Oceanic Feeling,” she evokes her old aesthetic, singing: “Now the cherry-black lipstick’s gathering dust in a drawer / I don’t need her anymore / ‘Cause I got this power.” She fully embraces the changes in her life, her identity and her psyche, despite the risks inherent in departing from the very things on which she built her career. A year later, “Solar Power” still feels glaringly new and exciting, a reminder of the potential for change that dwells in everyone. I may not be as far along as Lorde, but I’m aiming for less crying in cars and more basking in the sun, too.
