Lorde has announced her long-awaited fourth studio album, Virgin, due out June 27.
The reveal follows last week’s surprise drop of “What Was That”, her first new single in four years.
Virgin was produced by Lorde and longtime collaborator Jim-E Stack, with contributions from Dev Hynes, Daniel Nigro, Fabiana Palladino, Andrew Aged, and Buddy Ross. Mixing duties were handled by Spike Stent and Tom Elmhirst, while Chris Gehringer mastered the record.
“100% written in blood,” Lorde teased. The album artwork is as bold as the music promises to be: a translucent x-ray of a pelvis, complete with belt buckle and visible IUD, cast in icy blue.
In an email to fans, Lorde set the tone for the record:
“THE COLOUR OF THE ALBUM IS CLEAR. LIKE BATHWATER, WINDOWS, ICE, SPIT. FULL TRANSPARENCY. THE LANGUAGE IS PLAIN AND UNSENTIMENTAL. THE SOUNDS ARE THE SAME WHEREVER POSSIBLE. I WAS TRYING TO SEE MYSELF, ALL THE WAY THROUGH. I WAS TRYING TO MAKE A DOCUMENT THAT REFLECTED MY FEMININITY: RAW, PRIMAL, INNOCENT, ELEGANT, OPENHEARTED, SPIRITUAL, MASC.”
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Lorde kicked off the Virgin era last week when she announced a fan meet-up in New York’s Washington Square Park via text blast. By the time 7 ppm rolled around, the crowd was so large police had to shut it down. Undeterred, she performed “What Was That” hours later for those who stuck around.
The scene ended up in the song’s music video, which dropped two days later. Over the weekend, “What Was That” topped the Spotify US charts – her first track to do so since “Royals” in 2012.
Virgin follows 2021’s Solar Power, which Lorde once dubbed her “weed album,” co-produced with Jack Antonoff and Malay. Since then, she’s largely kept a low profile musically—popping up only for the occasional remix (Charli XCX’s “Girl, so confusing”) or a cover (Talking Heads’ take on Al Green’s “Take Me to the River”).
Hints of her return began earlier this month when Lorde wiped her website and social media, later reappearing with a 15-second teaser of “What Was That” in her first-ever TikTok video.
In a voice note to fans, Lorde hinted at the scope of what’s coming. “This is gonna be crazy,” she said. “You have no idea.”
Ahead of her comeback single’s release, she added: “I’ve never felt more intentional with every single piece of what I’m doing,” she said, adding, “There’s such a deep ethos behind all of it, and it all braids together in the end.”
She called the track “one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written,” before explaining its importance: “I really think this song is the music of my rebirth.”
