Lorde attends the 2023 GQ Men of the Year at Bar Marmont on November 16, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Before Lorde returned with Solar Power in 2021, she launched a newsletter to keep fans up to date with what was going on in her life at the time and how it was inspiring the music she was creating to follow up her opus Melodrama. Recently, the musician has been checking in again as she prepares for the launch of her fourth album. Only this time, she’s supplementing her newsletter with a texting service that connects her directly to her fans and allows them to respond as though they had her actual number.
“I just wanted to say hi because everything is about to change and these are really the last moments where it’s just us, which is crazy but so right,” Lorde said in her first message to them earlier this week. “I’m so ready. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to say that, but I am. I’m so thankful for your patience. I’ve felt your love, I’ve felt you right there. This is gonna be crazy, you have no idea.”
Talk about giving new meaning to her “Girl, So Confusing” remix verse, where she sings: “Well, honestly, I was speechless when I woke up to your voice note.” She performed the remix with Charli XCX at Coachella, making a surprise appearance during the Brat musician’s set.
“I could feel it behind me and I was walking out over to the stage at dusk, thinking about all the Coachellas that I’ve been at across 12 years and just thinking about how it’s this thing that can really make you lose yourself,” Lorde said. It’s so crazy and it’s all these people around. But I felt so real and so solid. I can just feel all that I have kind of shed to be able to be in this the way I am right now. I was like, ‘It’s dusk in the desert. Fucking enjoy it, bitch.’”
Lorde is basking in the freedom that comes with having lifted a weight off her shoulders. Last week, she previewed her forthcoming album on TikTok with a snippet from what is believed to be the first single. “It was cool going into it having this little taste out, this 15 seconds,” she said about her appearance at Coachella, knowing this little moment of music is out in the world. On the song, she sings: “Since I was 17/I gave you everything/Now we wake from a dream/Well baby, what was that?” (On Wednesday, she revealed the name of her upcoming new single, “What Was That,” and wrote that it will be “out soon” along with sharing a pre-save link.)
Even the off-the-cuff TikTok, which finds her filming herself while strutting through New York’s Washington Square Park, aligns with her weightless approach to this new era. She isn’t abandoning her newsletter now that she has the messaging thread, but there’s less overthinking involved in shooting off a quick text or voice note.
“I’m in the zone, not wanting to think too hard about how to communicate,” Lorde said. “I don’t want to be stressing about capturing the moment with the right language. What if it’s just about saying it, maybe getting it wrong, and that being okay?”
From Rolling Stone US.
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