Virgin is the aftermath of the unraveling that happened in Solar Power. To understand this record fully,
it’s important to understand Solar Power. Lorde wrote about searching for identity and purpose, and
experiencing an existential crisis. When listening to this record you can feel her spiraling out. Where
she ends up, sets the stage for Virgin. Which is not a solution, or a happy ending, rather the climax,
or middle of a journey through self exploration.
The motif for this record is cutting right
to the bone. Direct, open, ugly, honest, uncomfortable, these are all words that describe the language
and writing on this record. Her writing style transformed from more complex, to in her words, ‘basic’.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I said to myself, ‘We get it. You’re smart. You don’t need to
telegraph it.’ Whereas in the past, I’m really trying to craft these lyrics. This time I was like, ‘No,
be smart enough to let it be really basic. Be plain with language and see what happens.’” She explained
in Rolling Stone.
This kind of writing style perfectly captures the ideas on the record.
Coming to terms with yourself, and understanding life is ugly, and uncontrollable. She writes on Hammer,
“I don’t need all the answers”. As a twenty something myself, this really hit home. Young people today
have grown into a society that places so much importance on having a perfect life or some twisted
definition of success. There is so much value placed upon personal branding and image, and how we craft
meticulously how we shall be perceived by others. We can also recognize she has definitely fit the
world's terms of success. She writes about how that ‘success’ (wealth, fame, status, privilege) doesn’t
necessarily fix your issues. A trope we have seen time and time again from artists, but Lorde doesn’t
spend too much time focused on the issues of celebrity. Instead, she turns attention to healing and
growing into what she has described as a more pure form of herself. From heartbreak and gender identity,
to eating disorders and being a people pleaser, Lorde covers a lot of territory. All while tying it to
this central theme of identity and healing. Despite her writing about things that seem so personal and
unique to her, she writes about it in a universal way that people will relate to.
Lorde also
ensures this very ‘basic’ and direct concept comes through the music sonically. She said in an interview
with Zane Lowe, that sonically the record is like a construction site. “We barely put the walls up. We
kept saying, ‘load bearing pillars only’. As it pertained to the production.” And you can feel that
throughout the record. The production is visceral and moving, yet it is minimal at the same time.
Reminiscent of her first record Pure Heroine, widely recognized for its low-key production and sonic
minimalism. Working with Jim-E-Stack, Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, and Fabiana Palladino, the overall
sound of the record explores sounds I’ve never experienced. Across the record there are distorted vocals
and synths, and aggressive percussion. (Unrelated but have to throw in here that I met Fabiana and she’s
so sweet and spoke quite highly of Virgin!) In a world where anyone can have a platform and share art,
it’s hard to find something so incredible and so new sounding in pop music. Absolutely no one is on this
level. Once again her music sounds of the future.