Lorde’s next album, Solar Power, is fast approaching, set to be released in full this Friday (August 20). Ahead of the release, the singer has shared another new single and music video, titled “Mood Ring”.
Like the previously-released singles “Solar Power” and “Stoned at the Nail Salon”, the song is written and produced by Lorde in collaboration with Jack Antonoff, with yet more background vocals from Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo.
“This is a song I am very excited about, it’s so much fun to me,” Lorde says in a statement on the track. “Obviously when making this album I did a deep-dive into ’60s, Flower Child culture. I wanted to understand the commune life, dropping out from society and trying to start again. That really resonated to me when writing this album.”
“One thing that occurred to me as a major parallel between that time and our time is our wellness culture and our culture of spirituality, pseudo-spirituality, wellness, pseudo-wellness. Things like eating a macro-biotic vegan diet or burning sage, keeping crystals, reading tarot cards or your horoscope. These were all things that they were dabbling in back then, and that me and my girlfriends are dabbling in today.”
“I was like, ‘I think there’s a pop song in here’. So this is kind of my extremely satirical look at all of those vibes.”
In a music video co-directed with Joel Kefali, Lorde is also seen trying her hand at life in a utopian commune, donning a blonde wig to lie around, burn sage, and reminisce on the early 2000s (watch below).
In the run-up to her new record, Lorde has also shared renditions of the title track from various rooftops in New York City, performing alongside Antonoff on guitar. Last week, however, she said that the framing of her creative partnership with the producer is often “insulting”, due to the fact that she’s lumped in with his other collaborators, such as Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Clairo, and St. Vincent. “I haven’t made a Jack Antonoff record,” she clarifies. “I’ve made a Lorde record.”
Watch the video for “Mood Ring” below.