Lorde Begins Anew With ‘Virgin’: “I really came into my own power making this album.”

Songwriting has always been considered as one artist’s strongest means of self-expression.

For some, it’s a diary — a collection of one’s innermost thoughts that they’ve yet to verbalize — while for others, it’s a weapon that cuts deep, acting as a safe space of sorts where they can allow themselves to be vindictive and sting others without the fear of physical harm. Yet for an artist like Lorde, it actually serves its purpose with both intentions. 

Since her debut back in 2013, the Kiwi alternative pop prodigy (born Ella Yelich-O’Connor) has found herself an audience of millions with credit to her impressive pen game. Her records, Pure Heroine, Melodrama, and Solar Power, have served as their own unique set of chapters in her life, with each serving as a compendium of her very own insecurities, realizations, and even affirmations. Whether she’s tackling themes of growing up, heartbreak, or even sprinkling in bits of sociopolitical commentary here and there, it’s clear that her penmanship has always been sharp, direct in its intention, as it cuts its way to reveal some unspoken truths that we’ve yet to confront for ourselves. 

This holds true on her newly released album, Virgin, which sees Lorde still embarking on her continuous coming-of-age journey — albeit navigating the period of her late 20s with a renewed (and somewhat rejuvenated) outlook on her womanhood. Through the course of eleven tracks, it’s almost as if she’s baring her all to us listeners over a series of hushed whispers over a quiet camping ground. Yet even amidst this intimate space she’s conjured up for us, there is still room for any of us to scream, cry, and let it all out within this majestic record of catharsis.

“I think that I really came into my own power making this album,” Lorde tells Billboard Philippines over Zoom, reflecting on what she’s realized about herself following the completion of the record. “In the past, I have really struggled with feeling powerful and feeling fully in my [own] body, so it was really my intention with this one to make something that felt like it could carry the full weight of my inner world, my ambition, and [even] my history.”

History hasn’t been so kind to her over these past few years, following the divisive, if brutal, fan and critical reception to Solar Power upon its release, or even her (somewhat) recent breakup with ex-boyfriend Justin Warren (who is speculated by many to be the subject of certain tracks within Virgin). Though for Lorde, she went looking beyond such a tumultuous timeframe, undertaking a more introspective approach that encapsulated who she’s become in her 28 years of living.

“I thought about my ancestors a lot, and sort of all that has happened for me to be able to be in this position, and [in a way] wanting to do right by them and make them proud of me. So yeah, definitely, it was not a light undertaking,” she laughs dryly.

The weight of Virgin’s subject matter is evident as one courses through its tracklist. The opener, “Hammer,” kicks off the album with hot flashes of euphoria (“an ode to city life and horniness,” as she describes it), while the others meander around more reflective territory that delves deeper into various segments of her life. Whether it’s the aftermath of a breakup, ruminations of a doomed relationship, or a sudden exploration of her gender identity, the record gives us a new outlook on her psyche via such open confessionals. Because in a rare moment, Lorde crooning on about her relationship with her mother on tracks like “Favourite Daughter.” 

“I feel like with my songs, sometimes, it’s sort of a composite of moments. But sometimes, it’s also one very specific sort of hour or minute, or a day that I’m trying to capture,” she mentions. 

“On Virgin, it’s sort of half and half. Yeah, there are songs like ‘Clearblue,’ ‘Hammer,’ and ‘Man of the Year’ that are really sort of like taking a photograph of a very specific moment. But other songs like ‘What Was That?,’ ‘Favorite Daughter,’ [and] ‘If She Could See Me Now’ act as sort of [and more like] a composite of different memories,” Lorde continues. “It’s been a process of stepping forward.”

In her effort to paint such vivid vignettes in every track, the Kiwi pop star acknowledges the manner in which she’s adapted her poetic reflections into song. “My lyrics have used to be a little bit more mysterious or metaphorical, [though] I think there’s like a way in which I use language that is quite recognizable to me. I don’t really even know how I would describe it, but I notice myself sort of using this collection of strong images, memories, and then some kind of insights about those. I think that you definitely can see that as a hallmark of my work [over time],” Lorde affirms. 

Though her candid lyricism serves as the primary backbone to her craft, Lorde also notes the challenge of finding the perfect sonic accompaniment to back such musings. It might have been out of place to retool the synthpop sensibilities of constant collaborator Jack Antonoff on such a vulnerable record such as this, which is why the Kiwi alt-pop phenomenon went on a completely different direction for Virgin — finding its way to Jim-E Stack (also known as James Harmon Stack) with some tracks even in the hands of Devonte Hynes (Blood Orange) and Dan Nigro.

“I’ve always had a really strong kind of rhythmic interest obsession with my work, going back to ‘Royals,’ which was really just sort of my voice and drums. And I really feel that side of my work kind of continuing to refine, definitely here with Virgin. It’s a very rhythmic album, and I tried to just do very simple harmonies, because I wanted [it] to be very plain, very simple, and only do what was needed,” she states..

Soon enough, the album came to fruition little by little, becoming not just a technical nor sonic playground of sorts for Lorde to explore, but as its own means of properly healing into a new era of her life. “Virgin is really like an attempt [of mine] to heal all the parts from a kind of 15-year-old teen me who was having her whole life change (and was sort of thrilled and also overwhelmed by that), to a 2023 me, who was struggling with body image and acne issues,” she says. 

Even as it has been brought up that the album’s predecessor, Solar Power, was heavily marketed as some kind of healing album, the elusive pop figure makes it clear just how different her approach was on each record. “I feel like they are all sort of different versions of me. Making Solar Power was really about nurturing this part of me that wasn’t really seen in my work, who is sort of very private. I thought of it as who I am in my garden, or who I am at my dinner table. After a few years of really nurturing this public side of myself, I wanted to just make sure that she was taken care of, or sort of got some attention or something,” notes Lorde.

“But because of this record, thinking about the 2024 and 2025 version of me has me feeling a lot of promise and excitement — even this lust for life. I really feel the journey of this album, which I often called a quest, because it felt like I was on this mission to really believe in myself and to create an environment to build a house that I could live in for many more years,” she continues. 

While this quest is surely one that Lorde has enjoyed over the past year, not every aspect of it came as easily or even as smoothly as one would expect. Though the single rollout for “What Was That?” was a success (marking her highest debut on the US Billboard Hot 100 at No. 34), she mentions just how challenging it was to film, edit, and release its music video. “I honestly feel like it’s music video was my biggest creative risk. Typically, my work is very controlled. I do not leave anything up to chance. Yet “What Was That?” was one big chance moment, and that was very much by design,” she states.

Marking a stark contrast from every other music video that she’s done in her career, the Terrence (also) O’Connor co-directed visualizer was quite an anomaly. Unlike the bigger budget and cinematic videos of her past singles, this one felt more direct — following Lorde from a handheld point of view across various streets and areas in New York City. Though the concept itself sounds simple, another stressor that posed a significant challenge for the duo was the video’s deadline the next day.

“I wanted to make something that had this feeling of aliveness and imperfection, with some sort of presence of some risk. It was hard to pull off, and we had this sort of big event planned in Washington Square Park. Then too many people showed up, so the police told us we couldn’t do it. So not only did we have this event that we couldn’t do, but we had this [the end of this video, which is coming out the next day] to shoot,” Lorde recalls.

“That was a moment where I was like, is this gonna be okay? Are we gonna be able to put a video out tomorrow? But then I remember feeling very calm in the moment, and saying to my friend Terry [O’Connor] (whom I directed it with) I said, ‘Whatever happens, it will be the right thing, and it’s gonna look amazing because it’s real and we can’t get it wrong.’ And sure enough, it was totally amazing and beautiful, and worked out so well,” she continues, right before joking, “I feel like I got a few gray hairs from that too.”

Now that Virgin has been put out in the world in its entirety, it has opened a new chapter of Lorde’s life — one of bliss, reclamation, and rebirth. It’s deeply personal yet also universally resonant, with critics and fans alike already heaping praise over the record. Yet for the Kiwi artist, what truly matters is the weight that has been lifted off her shoulders, making space for her to evolve into a ‘new creature’ out of herself.

“With this album, Virgin, I just love it so much. I’ve kind of never been so proud of anything, and such personal parts of me have gone into it. It definitely feels like I’ve seen a lot of versions of me, and it’s been quite a beautiful journey so far,” she proclaims.

For Lorde’s songwriting here is as hard-hitting as ever — sharp, unsparing, but grounded in a kind of softness that only time and experience can grant. Because in many ways, Virgin feels like her most human record yet, stripped of spectacle but not of spirit. Just as her previous records have found a home with millions of listeners worldwide, she hopes that anyone who listens to the album will find a sense of liberation, similar to what she’s experienced in putting it together over the past few years.

“I want people to be inspired, to really get in touch with how their life feels — not so much how it looks. I want them to let go of fiction around that, and to focus on how it feels,” shares Lorde. Because I really believe that being free in our bodies in any way that we can is really to all of our advantage. And I think I find it really inspiring to see women really free and sort of confident in who they are. So I invite people to feel that full liberation however they can,” she concludes.

It’s fitting, then, that Virgin closes not with a triumphant bang but a kind of whispered understanding — an echo of the same songwriting ethos that’s carried her all along. For Lorde, music has never just been about melody or marketability, as it’s always been focused on her language for selfhood, a medium through which she can investigate the messiest parts of herself with honesty and clarity.

And just like that, her songwriting returns to its truest purpose — part diary, part dagger —  but now with a third function: a mirror, for anyone else bold enough to look into it and see a little of themselves, too.

Listen to Lorde’s Virgin in its entirety below: