NEWS
Lorde has looked back at her ‘Solar Power’ album, and said that it made her realise that it didn’t quite fit in with who she is.
The Kiwi singer opened up about the record during a new interview on Therapuss with Jake Shane. In the discussion, she looked back at how she came to make the album after feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the tour for its predecessor, 2017’s Melodrama’.
“It was also so crazy touring ‘Melodrama’. I found it very intense for that whole time to be in this endless hardcore music [atmosphere] every night,” she said. “I found it pretty intense and I just wanted something light and easy after that. It was cool.”
Explaining how that led to her seeking a more stripped-back approach in the 2021 record, Lorde then admitted that she came to realise the sound captured in ‘Solar Power’ didn’t fully represent who she was.
“I love ‘Solar Power’ so much, and I truly needed to make it,” she shared. “I wouldn’t be here with another album if I hadn’t made ‘Solar Power’. But it showed me that you have no choice but to be who you’re supposed to be.
“Me disappearing and being all wafty… I was like ‘actually, I don’t think this is me.’”
Speaking to NME about the 2021 album, Lorde – whose real name is Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor – explained that it was inspired after a trip to Antarctica.
During the visit in 2019, she learnt about the science being used there to help understand climate change, and went on helicopter rides to look for whales.
Sharing how this inspired the sound of the record, she explained: “I came back really sure my focus had to be on the outside and what was happening there. It was so, so fascinating to me and so inspiring in a way that my phone had stopped being, celebrity culture had stopped being and popular culture had stopped being.”
“I guess that was part of why I stepped back from consuming the internet in a really consistent way – I wanted to know what I would make when I wasn’t dialled into what everyone else was making,” she added. “One of the things that starts to happen when you have any sort of community is you start to move as one, in a way. I honestly don’t think I could have achieved this if I tried four years ago, just because [I was in] the whirlpool.”
Set for release on June 27, recent weeks have seen Lorde share details about things that may have impacted her sound. These include candid discussions about her gender identity, her time overcoming eating struggles, and how the upcoming shows may be her “masterpiece”.
In a recent in-depth interview with Rolling Stone, the ‘Ribs’ singer opened up about her gender evolution and how she explores it in the LP. “My gender got way more expansive when I gave my body more room,” she said, before explaining that the opening line of the first track on ‘Virgin’ – “Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man” – reflects her current headspace in terms of gender fluidity.
“[Chappell Roan] asked me this. She was like, ‘So, are you nonbinary now?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.’ I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up,” she said.
Later this year, Lorde will be hitting the road again for some headline tour dates across the UK, Europe and North America in celebration of the album.
Special guests will include The Japanese House, Nilüfer Yanya, Chanel Beads, Empress Of and Oklou, as well as Blood Orange – with Devonte Hynes featuring on the album – and co-producer Jim-E Stack. Visit here for North American tickets and more information, and here for any remaining tickets and details for UK and European dates.
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
