After wiping her social media page and website, Lorde used that clean slate to tease what sure sounds like a bit of new music.
On Wednesday, April 9, the musician shared a 15-second video on TikTok showing her walking through New York City’s Washington Square Park. The clip was set to a song that suggested Lorde might be returning to her moodier synth-pop roots following the sun-bleached sounds of her last album, Solar Power.
The lyrics, meanwhile, are quintessentially Lorde — confessional, conversational, and just a bit confrontational: “Since I was 17/I gave you everything/Now we wake from a dream/Well baby, what was that?”
It’s been almost four years since Lorde released Solar Power, which dropped back in August 2021 (and at the time marked Lorde’s first LP since 2017’s celebrated Melodrama). Fans have been eagerly anticipating new music since at least last summer, when a few other tidbits and teasers appeared online. They included a cryptic message about her new creative path, a snippet of new music, and a post from producer Jim-E Stack suggesting that she was working with Lorde in the studio.
Since dropping Solar Power, Lorde has released just a handful of songs including a cover of “Take Me to the River” for the last year’s Talking Heads tribute album, Everyone’s Getting Involved. Earlier this year, she joined fellow New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams on his song, “Kāhore He Manu E”; the track appeared on Williams’ first Māori language album, Te Whare Tīwekaweka, which arrived last week.
But most notably, last summer, Lorde hopped on the remix of Charli XCX’s “Girl, So Confusing” remix. The track — which landed at Number Nine on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Best Songs of 2024 — appeared on Charli’s deluxe album, Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not, and the pair also performed it live during Charli’s show at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
