A Track-By-Track Breakdown of Lorde’s Album <i>Virgin</i>

She has risen. Lorde finally returned tonight with Virgin, her first album since 2021, marking one of the most anticipated music releases of the year. No one was likely more excited than these two ELLE editors, who just so happen to be massive fans of the New Zealand alt-pop star. We tried to be as objective as possible, but ultimately, there’s no denying the truth: The album is damn good.

In the lead-up to this release, Lorde has described this body of work as her rebirth. While it does feel familiar to the synth-heavy music and layered sounds of her Melodrama days, it also feels fresh. As she navigates the rough and murky waters of her late 20s, she expresses it through her music: There are explorations of desire, heartbreak, mother-daughter relationships, gender identity, body image issues, and more. She does it with her unique sound, too, incorporating strings, a cappella arrangements, moments of abrupt silence, and sweeping choral harmonies.

For those who wondered what would follow Brat Summer, Charli xcx said it herself: Lorde Summer is next. Sure, with these 11 tracks, there’s enough to carry us through our sweat-soaked parties, road trips, and flings, but there’s more to it than that. Forget the sound of the summer; Virgin, like most of Lorde’s music, is the sound of growing up.

Here are our impressions after our first listen of the album all the way through.

Samuel Maude, content strategy manager: I know we’ve heard it before, but it really is such a good opener.

Erica Gonzales, deputy editor, culture: I was thinking about that today. On my commute in, I was doing a relisten of Solar Power and then queued up “Hammer” and the singles she released early, and I thought, if the whole theme of the album is rebirth, this is such a good way to introduce it. She literally says it too [in the lyrics], but even the way it creeps in and then grows and grows, it’s like she’s opening the door for you.

SM: Her gender exploration is also so fascinating to me. “Some days I’m a woman, some days I’m a man.” I love Solar Power notably, but for fans who were not as thrilled with that album, this feels like a return to form in a new and special way. Of the three singles, this has been my favorite.

EG: Banger.

SM: It’s like a holy text. I think she wrote another coming-of-age song by saying, “When I was 17.”

EG: I think that would be around the time that she released “Royals” because she was 16 when that song came out. That was when she was becoming famous, so my interpretation of “What Was That” is: Ever since I’ve been in the public eye when I was 17, I was kind of making a product for you. Even though it sounds like she’s singing to a particular person, it also works in the context of her public image.

SM: The imagery in this song is so good. “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils out.” The amount of times I’ve been in a backyard in Brooklyn with friends—not doing MDMA—but smoking a cigarette or something like that. She makes it feel like it’s a unique experience. It’s such a New York album so far.

EG: I’ve always liked how she’s painted imagery in her lyrics. “I wear smoke like a wedding veil” is so vivid.

SM: It’s poetry.

SM: That was offensive. We’re not okay. What was that?

EG: How are we supposed to do this 10 more times? That’s only the third song on the album. Are you kidding? That was insane.

SM: This album’s going to change my life. It already has. First of all, I have this playlist on my phone called Kissing Under a Disco Ball. It has two songs on it right now because they embody that feeling, and this track is going to make that list because of the lyric “I just want to fall.” The strings feel kind of Bridgerton-like too. It just has this starry-eyed, magical feeling that’s hard to replicate.

EG: She’s so singular, because I feel like so many other pop songs that incorporate strings for an uplifting feel end up sounding the same. She just found a way to incorporate orchestral elements without it sounding corny or too earnest. I love that she did that. You could make it sound so basic, but she and her producers made it so cool.

SM: I would love to be in the recording studio with them. There’ve been a few times she’s had an unexpected instrument that makes a song, like the trumpets on “Sober.”

EG: I also was trying to, in my state of utter shock, listen to the lyrics. She’s saying something like, I’ve been put on a pedestal. I’ve been sexualized. And tonight, I just want to let go of all that and do me. Shapeshifting in that context is really interesting, too: I’ve been the child star. I’ve been maligned when people didn’t like my last album. People have put the pressure on me of being the Next Great Thing in pop. I’ve been a recluse. It’s a little bit of everything. She’s like, I’ve done all of these things, and now I’m falling to my next chapter—again, the rebirth theme.

SM: It’s such a rich text. Celebrities seem to have a very wonderful life, but they have to be in the public eye and might not get to experience, say, dancing with friends in a club because people are going to notice them… Maybe you just want to fall, or you want someone to fall for you, not because you’re Lorde. You want someone to fall for you because you’re Ella.

EG: How do we move forward from that? Do we just sit here?

SM: I need 10 business days to process that.

EG: I was like, oh, maybe this will be one of the slower ones. And she was like, no, bitch.

SM: As a single, this was the weakest one to me, but here, it works. I know this song is so important to her. I feel like she said so many times that this is a song that she needed to write. It makes sense to me here.

EG: After hearing all of the big, big sounds of those first three tracks, it’s nice to have something a little more introspective and focused, even though it does get big at the end.

SM: She said in an Instagram post that this was the song she’s “proudest of on Virgin.” Gender is such a huge point on this project. The music video was about binding, which is fascinating.

EG: NO!!! Not a song about a difficult relationship with your mom! Oh my God.

SM: He was too stunned to speak. I am not strong enough. You know when you hear music, and you’re like, this is going to have a profound impact upon my life? This is that moment for me.

EG: I was not expecting that sound-wise or lyrically.

SM: Chasing your parents’ approval.

EG: So that they can live through your success. “All of the medals I won for you,” so you could feel like you were a favorite as well.

SM: Have her parents heard the song? I know some friends who are going to have a tough time with this song.

EG: I’m having a tough time right now!

SM: What was so profound about Melodrama is that the album’s essentially the ending of a relationship from start to finish, and she’s very introspective about it. She distills the problem of that relationship to such a fine point. Here, I feel like she’s addressing gender, relationships with parents, at a very deep level in a fucking pop song, which is so cool.

EG: That’s also what I really liked about Brat last year. A lot of people described it as just a party album, a club album, but no, it’s profound because it’s a club album that also talks about your difficult relationship with your parents, feeling competitive with other women, thinking about “Should I start a family now?” And I feel like this is very similar.

SM: That’s what people are craving, music that has substance. That’s why Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams do so well, because their music and lyrics are very relatable and something that’s speaking to people. And I think this song will really speak to people.

EG: It’s packaged in that way where it’s very uplifting with an upbeat tempo, so you wouldn’t think that it would be so devastating at the same time.

SM: That hurt.

EG: Yeah, that punched me in the stomach.

EG: Whoa. That one made me feel like I was floating. That sample, or whatever it was, in the chorus was crazy.

SM: I was really sad. It feels very deep. It’s clear this song is deeper and has an incredibly important message for Lorde. I think we’ll be analyzing the context of this song for a bit, and I just hope she’s okay.

EG: She captures that feeling of pretending you’re okay when you know you’re not. And again, she invokes her mom. I’m not going to be good after this.

SM: Do I need to take the rest of the day off?

EG: Lots of birthing and mothering.

SM: Every song has been unexpected so far.

EG: I love an a cappella arrangement. It reminded me a little bit of Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek.”

SM: The mother is clearly so influential in this. And people kept commenting on the IUD on the album cover.

EG: This is also another clear example of her songwriting, how she creates a visual and has you sink into a moment or a memory.

SM: I wonder what her label said when she was like, “I want to write an album about pregnancy and birthing.” That’s a risky topic, so to do it in this way is quite incredible.

SM: I am really curious about her mom. Also, the song is obviously “grown woman,” but you don’t call it “GRWM” without also making people think you’re saying “get ready with me.”

EG: There’s a double entendre of growing up or getting ready to become a woman.

SM: I also love how messy Lorde’s production is. I felt this way about Melodrama too. It’s not clean; it’s dirty, it’s grimy. I felt that in this song, and it works so well.

EG: I felt like I was in a metal box being shaken around. I know we have three more songs left, but I am already seeing myself listening to this whole album, front to back, like I would for Melodrama.

SM: Come on, queen. You have three more. Don’t fail us now!

EG: [Long pause] Just to preface, I am already emotionally exhausted.

SM: I have felt like I’ve lived seven lives through this album.

EG: I think this one surprised me the least, as in it didn’t have as many unexpected elements as the other songs melodically or even production-wise.

SM: I’m thinking of the concept of broken glass, breaking through a glass ceiling, or something like that. What is she breaking through? As someone who has greatly struggled with body image, it’s so great to see her really talking about it here. I know it’s been a struggle for her as well, and it can be consuming, and something you can never really shake.

EG: “She” could either be herself or her biggest hater. She’s talking to critics, but she could be one of them.

SM: Which, I am my biggest critic.

EG: I also love the way she starts it off like: I’m in the gym. I can lift your body weight. I’m so fucking strong. I can swim waters that bitches would drown in. Say it with your chest!

SM: I like the rock elements and the guitar a lot. I like how she uses silence too. I think it’s a good example of “know when to say something, know when to be quiet.” She uses silence very effectively throughout the entire album.

EG: It’s also interesting seeing her talk about fame a little bit more, thinking back to “Shapeshifter” and her being put on a pedestal. Here she says, “You’re going to find another starlet, and I’m going to go back to the clay,” to where I came from, back to me.

SM: Then I went, is that about her mom again? Is her mom Mama Rose from Gypsy?

EG: I can also just see it as her talking to the public, like, you guys wanted so much for me. And then, for example, Solar Power came out, and it didn’t please you, and then you found somebody else to become obsessed with—all of the other pop girlies who came up since then or since Melodrama. Honestly, she has inspired so many of them.

SM: That was a beautiful song. This is going to be one of those albums that I think about forever. I remember where I was when I listened to Melodrama for the first time. Now, I’m going to remember that we listened to this for the first time together.

EG: Wow, I’m crying. That song was really beautifully composed too. She adds some synthy elements to something very choral and peaceful. She’s very good at blending contrasting styles and sounds, making something pop but writing about something so heartbreaking. She knows how to work them together. Album of the year.

SM: We have the album of the year!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.