Lorde disappears into the sun on Solar Power
With her third album, the 24-year-old New Zealander writes her ode to the sky, but gets lost in the clouds
Music Reviews Lorde
Four years ago, Lorde sang, “You’re all gonna watch me disappear into the sun,” on her heart-wrenching sophomore record Melodrama, an album all about the riotous woes of young adulthood and first heartbreaks. Now, she’s harnessed the power of the sun—not for her devoted listeners, but for herself. On the New Zealand artist’s third album, Solar Power, she embarks on a path that is purely her own, as she returns to herself and her home country, guided by our closest star’s rays.
Lorde’s been a musical messiah of older Gen Z since her debut with Pure Heroine in 2013, on which she embodied the fleeting nature of youth, and the suffocating nature of suburbia. In the opening track of Solar Power, “The Path,” she rejects her role as someone responsible for creating the life soundtrack of those in their mid-20s. She sings, “The savior is not me,” pointing to the heavenly star that fuels life on Earth. She’s cast aside the notion that she should (or even could) be an oracle of wisdom, who channels her pain into songs for her fans to relate to. But there’s still plenty to learn within Solar Power, which tells the tale of a burnout generation looking at inheriting a burning planet. In “Leader Of A New Regime,” she asks the pressing question: Who will leads us into the future when the planet is becoming unlivable, and no amount of sunblock will protect us from the celestial orb that went from being our guide to our punisher? Lorde knows it can’t be her.
Unfortunately, this philosophical journey Lorde embarks on throughout Solar Power results in her least connective work yet—and one that lacks self awareness, to boot. Instead of looking for ways that she resembles her peers, Lorde looks for all the ways she doesn’t, while decrying the digital world and all that it encompasses. However, this mindset begins to take on a new stereotype: the person in their twenties who thinks they’ve seen all the cruel realities of the world, and begins to ponder a new way of life, preferably while smoking lots of that sweet green.
On “California,” Lorde takes an introspective look at the early moments of her career, such as when Carole King announced her Grammy wins in 2014. Within these reflections come visions of models, liquor bottles, jet setting, and kids buying Supreme, all of which flashed before her eyes as a teen pop star. As she sings, “Don’t want that California love,” she waves goodbye to the influencer culture, instead attempting to represent a kind of counter-culture that once existed in the Golden State, in the time of free love and a return to nature. (It feels like eons ago, and her efforts to recapture it come across as similarly past their sell-by date.) California enters the scene many more times throughout Solar Power, especially on the surf-pop track “Dominoes,” where she pokes fun at someone who now does yoga and prefers weed over copious amounts of cocaine. (Yes, there is some cognitive dissonance there, given the image she projects on the rest of the record.) She’s pointed in her criticism of the materialistic culture from which she wishes to unsubscribe, but it leaves a lot to be desired, creatively. Bashing models in L.A.? Not quite so revolutionary.
She backs all of her messages about the healing powers of nature with a more acoustic sound than she’s ever offered before. The singer-songwriter turns typical Cali music stylings on their head, evoking ’70s influences like those found on another recent Jack Antonoff-produced record—Clairo’s Sling—while mocking the wellness culture that pervades Los Angeles. Anything that starts out close to the earth and beneficial to the mind, she argues, is inevitably co-opted by capitalism, and colonized by white people. Lorde pings this message again on “Mood Ring,” making fun of Americans who turn to vitamins and Eastern practices to achieve a sort of faux-enlightenment. It’s clear she finds something more meaningful and genuine in New Zealand than she’s ever found in the states. In a way, though, she does capture the anxieties of her generation: one that’s facing climate change, the false reality that exists on social media, disenchantment with celebrity culture, and the endless pressure to buy, buy, buy. She’s not alone in her desire to return to something real.
As relevant as the themes are throughout Solar Power, Antonoff’s influence on the album is a little too clear. The Bleachers frontman evokes the records of his past in a way that doesn’t create anything new, and Solar Power ends up meandering, circling the same sounds and tonalities throughout the album. The layered vocal effects (created with the help of Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo) fail to extract anything new by the time the fourth or fifth track begins; like much of Solar Power, it’s potency wanes like the sun as the day goes on. While Lorde’s autonomy in her music is undeniable, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Antonoff has too much influence, when he’s playing the vast majority of the instruments on the album, while also writing and producing the entire thing right alongside her. Even as she finally approaches vulnerability in her stark reflection on youth in “Secrets From A Girl,” it feels cheapened by Antonoff’s generic guitar melodies. Nothing lurches out and grabs you by the throat as her music so often did in the past—all of the instrumentals, and even the most touching lyrics, feel like they’re lounging on a beach chair on some distant island.
As Solar Power goes on, it becomes an isolating listen. One of the biggest luxuries money can buy nowadays is simply being able to step away from the things that suffocate the rest of us: social media, capitalism, the everyday toil of life. Following the release of Melodrama, Lorde tuned out social media, and in her fan newsletter admits that she doesn’t even have any social apps on her phone. She took an adventure to Antartica, got to spend time off on exotic beaches, and checked out from the rest of the world without the pressure of money looming over her. The Kiwi’s made it clear that she rejects modernity, but that’s a luxury few can afford. At several points during the listen, it begins to feel like a rich white woman telling everyone she meets about how rejuvenating her all-inclusive, off-the-grid getaway was, and how everyone should take time off to travel.
Solar Power’s a little messy and rough around the edges, and features a Lorde now moving on from her youth and wanting to keep some things to herself. In short: It’s just like being 24. Given that she’s been famous for nearly a decade of her life at this point, her experiences diverge profoundly from the average twentysomething, and she’s found a space to reckon with those changes in order to reach a more level ground. She didn’t return from her break with all the answer for everyone’s problems, but did show up with some wisdom for herself; unfortunately the wannabe-deep messages get lost, because the music’s splashing around in the shallow end.
72 Comments
It’s okay. We still have Fiona.
She’s one of the royals now.It’s unfortunate that anytime an artist says their upcoming album is about finally having fun, being comfortable in one’s own skin, learning to love life again, etc. etc., it’s basically a red flag that it’s gonna suck.
I think what Lorde has lost more than anything else is relatability. Pure Heroine was so good because it felt so true – it was a girl on the outside reflecting her unglamorous life, and even for people who weren’t teenagers, there was a lot about that album that really connected. She still may be really good at making music that reflects where she is personally but it may not land as well with a general audience anymore. Which is fine if she wants it – she wouldn’t be the first artist with a major breakthrough debut who decided “ F this, I’m not going to go chasing hits, I’m still going to be me.” It just seems like she’s headed in a much more niche direction and we’ll always have Pure Heroine as a memento.
I agree. Even her core fanbase, which is basically around her age and has been growing up with her, feels detached from this album because the experiences the fans have had in the period between Melodrama and SP are way different than whatever Lorde’s experienced. This wasn’t true for Pure Heroine and Melo, where the corresponding experiences were pretty similar (coming of age, break-up). The relatability factor is really low (plus the music is kinda boring too).
It’s so bad. I don’t even care about her changing her song and lyrical choices, but I do care about it being a very boring album with little to no substance. Also, quick soapbox – a lot of songs will have universal idioms as lyrics that you hear and go, “oh yeah, that’s pretty insightful!” Lorde’s version of this on this album is “you grow out of all of the songs you love at 16″ and while I get the point she’s trying to make in regards to her own music, that is just straight up not true or universal in the slightest. The majority of people still fucking love the music they loved at 16!
“you grow out of all of the songs you love at 16″ is indicative of that one ‘too cool and wise’ phase people go through in their 20s where what they loved at 16 seems hopelessly uncool. Then in your 30s you realize that liking only what’s ~cool~ is limiting and really not fun.
Yeah I agree, most people never grow out of their teenage songs, and only listen to them for the rest of their lives! Otherwise I love that song, and enjoyed this album for all its summer-slacker vibes
In context of her age and somehow getting post-college blahs despite her status, I can appreciate the album as a time capsule of mid-twenties shiftlessness. But she’ll cringe in 5 years or so at it.
It’s like people who you KNOW were hair metal or Thompson Twin fans retroactively became big fans and influenced by “Delta Blues” 30 years later. They wouldn’t recognize a blues scale if it fell off a fish. If I liked someone’s music I have no problem “owning up to it” – talking ‘bout you John Denver. That doesn’t mean I didn’t prefer Soundgarden, but music is music.
Right- or like how at that age I was all “oh I don’t like pop music because I am too ~deep~ and ~cultured~ for such things” and now I’m like “ugh, I was such a pretentious nitwit- it’s okay for music to be fun!”
I’ve only heard Solar Power on the radio, and am lucky it’s a short song or I’d have nodded off and driven off the road. Boring is right.
“The majority of people still fucking love the music they loved at 16!”The majority of people are also complete and utter morons.
Fucking hell, talk about cynical. You having a bad day? I unashamedly like the majority of what I listened to when I was 16, which was 20 years ago.
The majority of people just really don’t care that much about music. They like songs that remind them of good times, they might latch on to something catchy right now then forget about it next year. I don’t think that alone makes them morons just makes them.. disinterested. I don’t care about baseball and I’m sure there are baseball nuts who thinks my not knowing who won the World Series in 2017 makes me a clueless idiot. *Shrugs*However I do agree there are a lot of morons out there.
To be clear, I don’t think listening to the music you liked when you were 16 makes you a moron. I justfind appeal to the majority arguments pointless.
“Lots of people name their swords”
“WHY YOU SWORD GUYS ALWAYS GOTTA TALK ABOUT HOW COOL YOUR SWORDS ARE?”
I dunno. I was 16 in 1991-1992 and I loved Pixies, Dino. Jr, Sabbath, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Soundgarden, Metallica, Anthrax. Still do. Maybe the year you’re 16 is important here. Huh.
Oh fuck, we have the music version of Andrew here.
You’ve said it. This album’s kiss of death is that it is fucking BORING. It’s one thing to try something different and fail. At least we can say “well, this sounds like shit but hell she tried!” This is the worst kind of bad. So bland I can barely muster the effort to type these wo rdszzzz
This album’s kiss of death is that it is fucking BORING. I don’t know, that’s exactly what I thought about the new Billie Eilish (endless draggy dirges, like her soporific slog of a Bond theme, and her earlier hits had me so optimistic), and that got a really positive review here. The songs I’ve heard from this are significantly more energetic and engaging than any of Eilish’s more recent work to my ears. Ah, well.(Definitely right about how talk about not liking songs you liked as a teenager is nonsense, though. That stuff stuck with me for life.)
I personally thought the new Billie Eilish was also terribly boring!
Feels weird being an old fart complaining that the young people’s music is too quiet, slow & mellow.
At 16, I listened to a lot of really pretentious prog. It was in my 20s that I found punk, goth, and industrial that I still listen to today.
I replied to the wrong comment but meant to reply to you:The majority of people still fucking love the music they loved at 16!You are 100% right, and here is the science behind why:Revealed: Why our favourite songs are ones from teenage years
Why won’t it let me do a hyperlink? Fuck I hate Kinja. https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/revealed-why-our-favourite-songs-are-ones-from-teenage-years-7204409.html?amp&fbclid=IwAR1yHTZU34nzlMMqTJ0j-Kcyj-csyiUtZymi1_6eUuuMB3cA-jWt0vTHx44
I suspect this also explains why I’ve heard like three Matchbox Twenty pop remixes on the radio. The people who grew up on that stuff have industry jobs now!
I loved Pinkerton and Siamese Dream and The Downward Spiral when I was 16. It was probably just luck that those turned out to be the best 3 albums ever. I’m not sure what kind of nonsense I would have been into if I grew up in the “content” era.
If you had (or had friends with) good musical taste at 16, then there’s nothing to grow out of. If you listened to standard Top 100, then yeah I can see it sounding totally dated years down the road.
in ‘Mood Ring’ she’s imitating Rosanna Arquette’s character’s voice in the movie ‘Pulp Fiction’ there’s a photograph of Rosanna Arquette which is a good photograph of Rosanna Arquette rather than of the character which is Mena Suvari the image mena suvari ‘Entertainment Weekly Mena Suvari sings backup on an electronica release | EW.com’ is a German relative of Sylvia Hoeks who is a student at ETH Zurich how do I know this I thought Ms. Hoeks was very good in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ and I paid attention to how her character looked and I know if a girl in a photograph is Swiss German
I feel I made this exact same argument on the Antonoff article 😉
Honestly I really liked this album. I’m not saying it was up to par with her previous ones in quality exactly, but a good lazy summer album. And I get the desire to not just try and recreate her first one.
Music critics have become so deferential to big artists that it’s genuinely shocking when one of them gets a negative review. Kind of makes me want to hear it more tbh.
The cover, in which we are invited to join Lorde in putting our heads up her ass, appears indicative of the content within.
30 years from now her ass is going to sue her for that album cover
Oddly, it will have a tattoo of itself by then.
The cover is definitely the best part of the album
And it’s not even an original cover…the group Free did it better
I’m one of the few that did not like Melodrama. Green Light was fantastic but the rest of that album is a snooze. My proclamation then was that Lorde had went from the weirdo, outsider making proclamations against the cool kids (showing that being one of the cool kids is just as full of intrigue as the game of thrones) to sitting at the cool kids table. Even then I bemoaned that she left her first producer behind.
Uh… you don’t have to be fabulously wealthy to turn off social media. You just delete the apps from your phone. I was relatively poor before I did it, and I’m relatively poor now.
I feel like a damn prophet, having deleted my FB account long before it was cool.Mibnd you, one of the rare perks of living in a small town is that it’s pretty much superfluous anyway.
You do in her industry – any type of entertainment or creative job these days basically requires you to have a social media footprint.
I found the recent Billie Eliish one subdued and restrained as well. It seems becoming world famous while a teenager has understandably thrown them both, and both are intentionally stepping back a bit musically (Lorde after going more pop on her second album and Billie right away as the glare of her success was even more intense). Both really talented so hopefully they’ll come back in a few years more energized.
Yeah, it gets hard to remember just how young they are, and that to call them has-beens is more than slightly premature
Hey, good for Lorde. She used to hang out with Bowie and clearly she’s absorbed his influence to take big swings & try new sounds. Maybe this doesn’t work but frankly not all of Bowie’s experiments were home runs either. Hopefully she doesn’t revert to the mean as the result of negative reviews, and her next album is a gothic industrial concept album about cyborg serial killers or something.
Hopefully her next album is a gothic industrial concept album about cyborg serial killers or something.Yes please!
Um, I’ll take cyborgs over whatever melted push-pop nonsense I just watched. Side of serial killers? Yes please.
“a gothic industrial concept album about cyborg serial killers or something.”
Yeah I really don’t want her to regress to what she thinks her heyday sound is, and she doesn’t seem the type that would. I give credit for something different.
She needs a Brian Eno then.
YES. Or instead of “a Brian Eno”, how about just, y’know, Brian Eno?
I am so here for this
The majority of people still fucking love the music they loved at 16!You are 100% right, and here is the science behind why:https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/revealed-why-our-favourite-songs-are-ones-from-teenage-years-7204409.html?amp&fbclid=IwAR1yHTZU34nzlMMqTJ0j-Kcyj-csyiUtZymi1_6eUuuMB3cA-jWt0vTHx44
My theory is that music really has gotten worse over time, after peaking in the mid-60s through to the 70s. I listen to music now I was unfamiliar with at 16, but it’s mostly still stuff released before the ‘00s (or before I was born).
I feel like they’re just recycling sounds from the last 40 years at this point. I swear I’ve heard some version of Doja Cat’s “Kiss me More” every summer for the past ten years. Same sound, different artist.
Only so many songs can be sung…
I think music peaked in creativity and being a cultural force around then, but even they were ripping off even older artists (especially old blues artists) and until the early 00’s you had to pick a scene and never stray, lest you be ostracized by your friends. Nowadays you can listen to a bit of everything without judgment. There would never be the crazy teamups between age and genre that we see today. They’d be basically at war with each other. With that, alot of genres have blended together and everything sounds kind of the same. But- there’s also an endless supply of artists you can discover thanks to the interwebs. Especially if you have spotify premium or something similar.
Genres, Objects, and the Contemporary Expression of Higher-Status Tastes:https://sociologicalscience.com/download/vol-8/july/SocSci_v8_230to264.pdf
Are contemporary higher-status tastes inclusive, exclusive, or both? Recent work suggests that the answer likely is both. And yet, little is known concerning how configurations of such tastes are learned, upheld, and expressed without contradiction. We resolve this puzzle by showing the affordances of different levels of culture (i.e., genres and objects) in the expression of tastes. We rely on original survey data to show that people of higher status taste differently at different levels of culture: more inclusively for genres and more exclusively for objects. Inclusivity at the level of genres is fostered through familial socialization, and exclusivity at the level of objects is fostered through formal schooling. Individuals’ taste configurations are mirrored in and presumably reinforce their adult social-structural positions. The results have important implications for understanding the subtle maintenance of status in an increasingly diverse and putatively meritocratic society.
Some data plotted against time on this point:https://jsmp.dk/posts/2019-04-29-musiccritics/
I’m willing to step up and say that the years I came of age (early 2000s) were the worst for music. Hip-hop got significantly better once Kanye defeated 50 Cent and sent that glossy circus-music gangster rap to the grave, pop got better once the artists felt more free to experiment with different moods and sounds from the Max Martin machine, and rock…well…rock stayed splintered, unmarketed and mostly dead as dirt, but at least there’s no more Limp Bizkit.
“She’s not alone in her desire to return to something real.”Lol, wut?
No pipes. Don’t mumble and whisper at me.
Oh my god she is the worst.
Still waiting for that Carly Rae Jepsen/Charli XCX collaboration she teased.
her lyrics have always been pretty thin and boring, so this isn’t a huge surprise
I really liked some songs but overall it is dreamy to the point of sleepy. I’m willing to bet this will be a footnote in her otherwise successful career. To break the pop mold 3 times before you’re 26 is asking a lot of someone.
Wow she’s still only 24?! we’re all acting like she’s a seasoned veteran, which I guess she is.
Title track is good. Rest of the album is meh.
we’ll always have Melodrama.
I read a different review of this album trying to compare Lorde to Joni Mitchell!! Like, are you kidding me? What actual musical talent does Lorde have? How can we talk about her seriously as an artist??
“At several points during the listen, it begins to feel like a rich white woman telling everyone she meets about how rejuvenating her all-inclusive, off-the-grid getaway was, and how everyone should take time off to travel.”
So, she basically became another Madonna.