By Anastasia Miskaki,
Ella Yelich-O’Connor, widely known as Lorde, has just released her third full-length studio album, four years after her critically acclaimed ode to young adulthood, Melodrama. Solar Power feels different, yet still distinctively Lorde. A re-introduction of who the New Zealand pop star has grown to be, this record is about roots as much as it is about finding oneself on the surface of a planet hit by climate change, celebrity culture, and humanity’s effort to reconnect with Mother Nature.
The album opens with “The Path”, a slow guitar-riffed thesis statement whereby Lorde lays bare the overarching themes of her new artistic effort: “Born in the year of OxyContin, raised in the tall grass, teen millionaire having nightmares from the camera flash. Now I’m alone on a windswept island, caught in the complex divorce of the seasons”, she sings. Born in 1996, Lorde simultaneously expresses late Millennial angst and early Gen Z hope for a better future. She has been raised in the tall grass of a generation that conveniently ignored environmental issues as well as psychological stability. So, now, escaping to her homeland in New Zealand as the seasons change abruptly seems like the only option. Lorde, however, is not crowning herself a hero, despite proclaiming that she is “like a prettier Jesus”. As her voice oscillates back and forth singing “if you are looking for a savior, well, that is not me… Let us hope the sun will show us the path”, we understand that this is Lorde’s open invitation to catch a glimpse of her own journey of introspection, an escape into her own version of a summer characterized by a firm connection to the elements of nature.
The titular track, “Solar Power”, is precisely this — a return to a simpler, more natural style, akin to that of flower children. Lyrically as well as sonically, Lorde is at a different place than Melodrama and Pure Heroine. She has exchanged dance and synth-pop for unplugged acoustic guitars and more organic arrangements that add a flair of authenticity to this earthy music. In the track, the pop star exalts the warmth of summer and the emotional and physical freedom it bequeaths to its worshippers. She sings of “a new state of mind” and of boys and girls dancing on the sand, drunk on “a new kind of bright”, on solar power. In an interview with NPR, Lorde reveals that for her solar means gold, a hue accentuated by her having synesthesia: “Drums get very sunshiny, very yellow, very gold, in a way that I needed them to get for this album. There is always a moment when the color or the picture doesn’t quite match up — that can be panic. And then it all comes up gold”. Maybe this visualization of the process of creation is also enhanced by the free space quitting social media has provided her. Three years ago Lorde decided to “throw [her] cellular device in the water”, as she sings, and turn off Twitter and Instagram: “For me, it was realizing that I was an addict. I was in bad, and I needed to put some blocks up for myself”, she explains.
Partly, this was motivated by her realization that it is rather impossible to remain sane under the chains of the mechanisms of contemporary pop star culture. In “California” Lorde waves “[g]oodbye to all the bottles, all the models, bye to the clouds in thе skies that all hold no rain”, as her vocals swell over her love for the state that has given her so much, yet somewhat stripped her of sanity. Similarly, “Secrets from a Girl (Who has Seen it All)” is an open letter to her younger self, the one that was engulfed by stardom at 16: “Couldn’t wait to turn fifteen, then you blink and it’s been ten years. Growing up a little at a time, then all at once, everybody wants the best for you, but you gotta want it for yourself, my love”. At times this record gets deeply personal, as with “The Man with the Axe”, a stripped-down love song, or “Big Star”, a song about her dog, Pearl. “Stoned at the Nail Salon” is another example of the singer’s turn toward introspection and solipsism: “I love this life that I have, the vine hanging over the door and the dog who comes when I call, but I wonder sometimes what I’m missing … I do not know, maybe I am just stoned at the nail salon”.
Other times, Lorde treads carefully upon respectful satire, as in “Mood Ring”. The song, which shares the themes of spirituality and wellness with “Dominoes”. The former, however, is more of a critique of and, at the same, time, indulgence in “[getting] well from the inside”, crystals, sun salutations, burning sage, horoscopes. At the center of it all lies uncertainty, along with the never-ending quest for a frame of reference, for meaning: “I cannot feel a thing, I keep looking at my mood ring, tell me how I am feeling”.
The same feeling can be traced in “Fallen Fruit”, a track that blooms with psychedelic folk and pop influences, slow guitar riffs, and an unexpected bridge arrangement. Lorde’s concern over the current state of the environment and how previous generations and how they will “leave us walking on fallen fruit” chimes in with Going South, a photo-book/memoir that documents her trip to Antarctica, released earlier this year. The singer’s environmental consciousness is also reflected in how she decided to go about the release of Solar Power — no CDs, but direct release to digital music and streaming platforms as well as in the form of vinyl LPs. Although the interlude of the album, “Leader of a New Regime”, presents a bleak post-apocalyptic future in which we need “SPF 3000 for the ultraviolet rays”, Lorde sees a glimmer of hope amidst the chaos, and the whole of Solar Power proves that point.
The album concludes with “Oceanic Feeling”, a slow, contemplative piece that seems an appropriate closure to this sunny, earthy collection of songs. As Lorde sings “the rays are in the bay now”, she wonders if this sunset means she has reached some sort of “enlightenment”. Her answer is negative. She just has to “tune in” and “breathe”, as she takes a “step into the choir” of the ocean naked.
References
- The Guardian, Billie, Lorde, Lizzo: Has being a female pop star in 2021 become unbearable? Available here.
- NPR, Lorde, Now fully adulting, embraces a folksy analog on ‘solar power’. Available here.
