‘It’s one of my great weed albums’
We’re finally just weeks away from Lorde’s long-awaited third album, Solar Power, and the musician is giving us more and more clues about what to expect.
In a video interview with The New York Times, as part of the publication’s Diary of a Song series, Lorde unpacks the making of the album’s title track. When asked whether the lyric, “Come on and let the bliss begin // Blink three times when you feel it kicking in”, is a reference to LSD, Lorde replied: “I thought I was going to make this big acid record, but I don’t think it was an acid album. I had one bad acid experience in this album, and I was like, ‘Meh, it’s a weed album’. It’s one of my great weed albums.”
This may not come as a surprise, given the second single Lorde dropped from the record is called “Stoned at the Nail Salon”. Both singles feature background vocals from Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo, who Lorde said “are masters of the kind of singing that I think of myself as a master of”.
Speaking about the evolution of “Solar Power” – the video of which has major Midsommar vibes – Lorde added: “The feeling of writing that… it’s like drugs to me. It’s the reason I make music; there’s no better feeling than pop alchemy building in real time.”
“I’ve grown a lot,” she continued, “I’ve done a lot. I’m happy. I work out a tonne, my body’s hot. I’m feeling good. Life is good, you know, and I’m bringing you in on where I’m at right now, and I hope people get that.”
Solar Power is set to be released on August 20, and will contain 12 tracks and two bonus tracks, with the majority of the song titles including references to nature. Lorde also announced an accompanying world tour, which will begin in the singer’s home of New Zealand. You can see the full tracklist here.
Last month, the musician appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to perform “Solar Power” on a New York rooftop. She then visited a different NYC rooftop to perform the same track with her long-time collaborator Jack Antonoff, this time in much stormier weather – Lorde later said the pair “had plans to do a handful of songs but… we had to tap out for fear of electrocution”.
Watch Lorde’s full NYT interview – which also features Antonoff – here, and look back at her discussing Solar Power while eating insanely spicy wings with total composure here.
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