Lorde chills out, checks in with ‘Solar Power’
Behold the glory of Lorde. Since emerging from a roughly fouryear hiatus in June with her luminous, psychedelic single “Solar Power,” the two-time Grammy winner has been omnipresent online: spawning memes with the song’s cheeky cover art and music video, thoughtfully answering “73 Questions” for Vogue, and getting delightfully day drunk with late-night host Seth Meyers. Her appearance on the web series “Hot Ones” went viral, as she calmly sampled the spiciest wings on deck without breaking a sweat, earning the title “the Lorde of the Wings” from Twitter users.
“I feel like it should’ve been a couple levels (hotter),” jokes the singer (real name: Ella Yelich-o’connor), curled up by a window on a recent Zoom call. Traveling stateside from her native New Zealand to promote new album “Solar Power,” out now, “it’s such a different mode for me, coming from being at home to wearing makeup all the time and being on camera. But I’m enjoying myself. Full pop-star mode has been activated.”
“Solar Power” marks Lorde’s third album and her first since 2017’s “Melodrama,” a Grammy nominee for
album of the year. While “Melodrama” mined heartbreak and teenage revelry for its pulsing pop anthems, her latest 12-song effort is a decidedly mellower affair. Once again collaborating with producer du jour Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, St. Vincent), her influences ranged from classic rock greats the Eagles and The Mamas & the Papas, to pop/r&b artists from her youth, including Natasha Bedingfield, TLC and All Saints.
Their music “sounds so sunshiny and so outdoors,” says Lorde, 24. And coming off an exhaustive world tour in 2018, she was in dire need of both those things.
“I was tired after ‘Melodrama,’ ” Lorde admits. “It was a very intense album and I felt I’d given it my all. I needed to just go and slow down at home, and I very much did that.”
She started writing “Solar Power” in early 2019. In the meantime, she cooked, walked, gardened and “doubled down” on spending time with family and friends whom she’d missed on the road. She also unplugged from social media and blocked Google on her phone, choosing to jot things down so she can only search them on her laptop later on.
“If you told me the thing that’s going to be really inspiring is going for a walk in the park by your house every day for a year, I would have been like ‘No, no, no, I’m not gonna write an album about that,’ ” Lorde says. “But I did. So (the music) sort of comes from places that are difficult to pinpoint. I didn’t really feel any pressure to make it happen.”
But writing “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” the album’s elegiac second single, “I definitely had a moment of being like, ‘Am I too young for this slow way of life I’m adopting?’ I was 22, 23 maybe, and this new crop of brilliant teenagers were coming up. And I was like, ‘Oh God, I’m an elder stateswoman now.’ So I had a little moment of mourning that younger self with that song.”
Much of Lorde’s 2013 debut “Pure Heroine” wrestled with the then-16year-old’s impending fame and growing up, offering wistful wisdom on standouts “Tennis Court” and “Ribs.” “Solar Power” explores similar themes, but from the perspective of a slightly older, more battle-tested songwriter. Hazy opening track “The Path,” for instance, deals specifically with celebrity worship. “Now if you’re looking for a savior, that’s not me,” she sings, imploring people to turn their eyes sunward instead.
These last few years, “I had a specific kind of epiphany around the natural world, and with that came the realization that people in my position are not going to be the ones to save us all spiritually,” Lorde says. “A lot of people look to people like me for spiritual guidance, and starting the album like that was my way of saying, ‘I’m just as (messed) up as you are. Don’t look at me. But if we all look up here, maybe we’ll find out something interesting about ourselves.’ ”
She reflects on her first Grammys in “California,” name-checking one of her music idols Carole King, who presented her the song of the year award for No. 1 hit “Royals” alongside Sara Bareilles.
“It is very surreal, like the way I describe it in that song,” Lorde says. “Just the room making all that noise, you walk up there and there’s Carole King giving you this symbolic ornament that will change your life. One of the coolest things about it was Quentin Tarantino was in the row in front of me, and he kept looking back at me like, ‘You got this!’ ”
In the years since that monumental night, Lorde has developed, if not an ease with the spotlight, a way to navigate it on her own terms. She remains unconcerned with radio charts and selling out the biggest venues possible; instead, next year’s “Solar Power” world tour will primarily play theaters. She’s also still off social media – save for a semi-anonymous Instagram account where she sporadically reviews onion rings – preferring to play pen pal with her fans through casual email newsletters.
Starting out, “there can be a lot of pressure, especially for a teenager,” Lorde says. “I remember being asked a lot if I felt pressured to be a role model, and I would always be like, ‘No, no, I’m gonna (screw) some (stuff ) up eventually. Don’t get it from me because you’ll be let down.’ So I was already talking that talk back in 2013.”