On Virgin, Lorde Goes Further Than Skin Deep

Lorde's new album is a sonogram set to music, exploring the innerworkings of one of pop's most interesting innovators.

This is the day the Lorde has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! Much like her namesake, Lorde’s return to the music industry tends to feel like a resurrection of sorts. In the nearly four years since the release of 2021’s Solar Power, the most we’ve heard or seen from the singer has been courtesy of a series of emails and Instagram posts. Her guest appearance on Charli xcx’s “Girl, so confusing” remix was her first musical offering since 2021, save for a cover she lent to the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense tribute album in 2024. Since then, her increased presence both online and at public events led fans to assume that she was gearing up to release her long-awaited fourth studio album. With the reception to Solar Power being lukewarm (to put it gently), it was imperative that this new era undo some of the damage of its predecessor. The question still hovered in the air like a cloud, impossible to ignore- was Lorde capable of making another masterpiece? It didn’t help her case that 2017’s Melodrama is one of the most defining pop records of the last decade, so matching the expectations of fans who were expecting a repeat would always be nearly impossible.

On Solar Power, Lorde eschewed these expectations entirely, coming to terms with this inevitability and seemingly not even making an attempt at reaching her previous heights. When she resurfaced in 2024, her personality seemed much more closely aligned with what fans had come to expect, or even demand, from her. She was performing electronic music with Charli xcx, hanging out with a menagerie of influencers and creatives, and being weird in interviews again. When the news finally broke that new music was on the way, fans waited with bated breath to see what gifts our Lorde had in store for us. Her initial offering was “What Was That,” a synth-pop track that many interpreted as a return to her electropop roots- a sort of Melodrama-lite, if you will. After the release of two more singles leading up to the album, Virgin was officially released this morning. At the time of writing this piece, I’m finishing up my fourth full listen, and I’ve become familiar enough with the material to gather up some thoughts for you all. Here are some of my initial takeaways from Virgin, Lorde’s fourth studio album.

1. Those singles… “What Was That,” indeed.

I’ll be real with you guys, I was fully expecting to be writing a completely different review right now. Based on the pre-release singles, I did not have anything close to high hopes for Virgin. Now that the entire album is out, it’s clear that this is due to poor marketing decisions and not the quality of the actual songs. “What Was That” is the obvious choice for a lead single- it is the album’s most “pop” sounding song and one of only a few others that follow the traditional verse-chorus-verse structure that is favored by radio. While I wasn’t originally impressed by the single- I, like many others, found it to be a toothless reproduction of her past sound- I can now appreciate it much more in the context of the record. I think Lorde would’ve benefitted from saving the other two pre-release singles, “Man of the Year” and “Hammer,” and allowed them to be consumed as part of the whole project. Both tracks are strange choices for singles, “Man of the Year” in particular, and left a lot of fans scratching their heads at what exactly to expect from Virgin. Neither track has anything akin to a traditional sonic structure, both starting off quieting and slowly building until they become an explosion of synths and electronic textures. They make for interesting album cuts, but definitely dimmed my excitement for the album’s potential. If throwing us off course was the plan, mission accomplished. Luckily, Virgin is not as it may appear on the surface.

2. Lorde’s “Weekend Trilogy” is complete

Lorde has previously classified her albums using the different substances she was experimenting with during their creation; I’m choosing to assign each of them a different day of the weekend. If Melodrama is the party (and the afterparty) on a Friday night, and Solar Power is the rejuvenating Sunday full of possibilities for the future, then Virgin exists somewhere in between the two- the hungover Saturday where you ponder every decision you’ve ever made. You can still feel the music reverberating in your skull. The bass is still rattling your teeth. But, the dancefloor is long gone. Much of the music on Virgin exists in this space in Lorde’s sonic universe- the album is almost entirely made up of electronic components, save for the odd guitar or wind chime, but it isn’t what you’d call a dance record. It shares similarities with IDM, or “intelligent dance music,” which is defined as electronic music that incorporates a lot of the same qualities as traditional dance music, but prioritizes the listening experience over its danceability. On Virgin, the synths are buzzing, the bass is thumping, and the drum machines are kicking, but there’s rarely an identifiable dance groove to be found. The night has come to an end, and now it’s time to deal with the aftereffects.

3. Self-exploration through ultrasonic imaging

The ultrasound and other related technology have played an unexpectedly large role in the marketing and rollout for Virgin. The album cover is an X-ray image of Lorde’s pelvis, complete with zipper, belt buckle, and visible IUD. Every single has an associated X-ray image of a different part of Lorde’s body. Her upcoming tour is even called the “Ultrasound World Tour.” For a while, it remained unclear just how important this would become to the album’s overall sound and themes. When “Hammer” was released last week, it opened with the pulsing sound of an ultrasound machine that was then incorporated into the track’s beat. Now that I’ve had the chance to listen to the whole album, I can confirm that ultrasounds are, in fact, one of the record’s key thematic elements. In a literal sense, in addition to on “Hammer,” an ultrasound can be heard on “GRWM,” “Broken Glass,” “David,” and even hidden among the synths on “What Was That,” which I was only able to notice after examining the song with this in mind. In a more abstract sense, the ultrasound is representative of literally looking within oneself, which Lorde does in spades across Virgin. Never before has she been so consumed with the innerworkings of her psyche or the origin of her flaws. Across the record’s 11 tracks, she is working to dismantle and reassemble everything she once knew to be true about herself. The ultrasound is also involved in an interesting battle with another object of self-analysis- the mirror. On “What Was That,” Lorde wants to “cover up all the mirrors,” on “Broken Glass,” she wants to shatter them altogether. The mirror represents the way we all examine ourselves in a superficial sense, assessing our physical appearances. The ultrasound is able to cut through this skin-deep examination of the self, showing us what exists deep inside of us. On Virgin, Lorde is her own personal ultrasound technician, looking within like she’s never done before, and reaching some life-altering conclusions.

4. A different way of cracking oneself open

The point about the significance of the ultrasound leads me to my next takeaway- Lorde is demonstrating a brand new kind of introspectiveness on Virgin. The lyrics across the record are like “Liability” on steroids. Lorde’s pen still cuts like a knife, but her deepest jabs are reserved for herself. Melodrama explored some of Lorde’s personal shortcomings in the context of a failed relationship, whereas Virgin takes a different approach to self-analysis. Instead of examining herself in relation to her romantic partners, Lorde turns inward and reflects on all of the intricacies that make her human, both good and bad. The subject matter explored on Virgin is by far her most varied, touching on her personal identity (“Shapeshifter,” “Man of the Year”), her position in the wider cultural arena (“Hammer,” “If She Could See Me Now”), her past and present outlooks on sex and relationships (“Current Affairs”), and her battle with disordered eat (“Broken Glass”). Some of her most confessional lyrics can be found in the moments between Virgin’s frenetic electronic productions. On standout track, “Shapeshifter,” Lorde tells a potential partner, “in my room, we can do anything you want.” She’s still acknowledging the way she’s willing to bend to appease the romantic partners in her life, but this time in a critical context. The track focuses on this tendency of hers to shapeshift in order to present the most palatable version of herself to those around her. This is just one example of Virgin’s definitive brand of introspection from an album full of similar moments. One listen to “Broken Glass” is enough to break open even the coldest of listeners. If you were underwhelmed with the lyrical content of Solar Power, much like I was, you’ll revel in the destructive power of Lorde’s lyricism on Virgin.

5. Don’t worry, Lorde is still kind of weird

Lorde has never claimed to be anybody’s role model- in fact, she’s often expressed the exact opposite desire for herself and her music. The press leading up to the release of Virgin highlighted some… interesting (?) aspects of Lorde’s personality that often rear their head when she’s in the public eye for an extended period of time. Chief among these was her fascination with the Pamela Anderson revenge porn footage that was released against her will and distributed illegally by a home invader in 1995. Lorde seemed to have come to some very strange conclusions after watching the tape, declaring that she, “found it so beautiful.” Naturally, this rightfully generated some criticism on social media, with users expressing disappointment and confusion at the artist’s decision to willingly watch something that Anderson has previously called deeply traumatic. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident, as a reference to the tape appears on “Current Affairs.” The sentiment expressed is the same, with Lorde calling the video “pure and true.” Hearing the lyric in context reveals that Lorde was attempting to highlight the dichotomy between self-expression and voyeurism, but that doesn’t make the reference any less inappropriate. Someone else’s trauma is not fodder for your journey of personal discovery, and including this line was a misstep that can’t be written off as a mere creative decision. Elsewhere on the record and during its promotional run of interviews, Lorde mentions her experience ovulating for the first time in 10 years. She even openly recognized that her decision to stop taking birth control may reflect some “quasi right-wing programming.” It isn’t my place to pass judgement on that decision, but it is interesting that flirting with controversy was so common on the press tour for Virgin. Lorde’s honesty is a defining characteristic that makes her art so intriguing and masterful at times, but it doesn’t always make for the most sanitized public persona. If there’s any real takeaway from this whole fiasco, it would be that Lorde is still just as weird as ever before, whether you find that endearing or off-putting is up to you.