When Lorde’s last album came out, it was met with a general head scratch. Solar Power ditched the electronics and synths and party anthems for a much more acoustic, folky, beachy vibe. The beach even showed up in the title track’s video, which many fans derisively likened to a yogurt commercial, practically waiting for Jamie Lee Curtis to come popping out.
The album might not have been terribly successful critically or commercially — charting behind Pure Heroine and Melodrama, which hit #3 and #1, respectively — but it was, at least, an interesting pivot. Melodrama was a major smash, and proved that Lorde was not a one-album-wonder, following her debut’s incredible run of singles (“Team”, “Tennis Court”, and of course “Royals”) with a set of groovy, nighttime hits of its own like “Green Light” and “Perfect Places”. But then came Solar Power, seeming to refute everything that had catapulted the already-catapulted singer to stardom.
To some, it was a bit of a failure. But, again, an intriguing one.
What Virgin, the artist’s fourth LP, does can’t help but feel a bit like course-correction. Both Virgin and its predecessor are undoubtedly deeply personal sets of songs, but Virgin brings us back to the dancefloor, succeeding her most acoustic record with probably her most synthetic record yet. Whizzing by in a sugary 35-minute rush (her shortest record yet), Virgin gives us songs centered on dark grooves; tight, thin beats; coruscating keyboards and synth patches and loops and samples; and, as ever, Lorde’s pliant and powerful voice. Her singing retains much the same special edge to it that it had all the way back on her teenage debut, and here she gets a chance to dabble all across her range, though tends to favor more of the high end here, oftentimes multiplying itself into a wall of sound all its own.
That aforementioned sugar rush is part of the thrill of Virgin — her sound given a Frankenstein zap of resuscitation — but it is also part of the problem. From the growling opening of “Hammer” to the abrupt cut-off of closing ballad “David” (which is actually quite lovely, if deeply sad, overall), the album really does pass by a little too quickly. “Abrupt” might be the operative word, in fact, as several of these songs feel a bit undercooked, underdeveloped, like they are on the cusp of being great but instead stop short and settle for good. Some feel like they end too quickly or before the song has truly completed its journey. For example “If She Could See Me Now” is a late-album highlight despite the shortchanging, but it could have been such a mammoth hit of a penultimate track with just a little more meat on its bones.
The same goes for many other songs. “Broken Glass” has all the makings of a fizzy pop banger, and has one of her more pop-centric choruses here, but just doesn’t quite hit the mark in the end. Others, like “Hammer” or “GRWM” suffer a similar fate, hitting a neat passage or idea but never coming to total fruition. And then there’s “Clearblue”, the oddest song here (complimentary!), in its Imogen Heap-meets-Bon Iver a’capella vocal layering, sounding both human and robotic. Lorde’s rumination on a possible pregnancy scare as a point of realization and maturity is potent, and the effect is one of the most striking on the album, but at just shy of two minutes, it’s neither short enough to be an interlude nor long enough to feel like a substantial track — and it would’ve been more effective as either. As it stands, it’s a bit awkward.
All that being said, though, there are a lot of redeeming qualities to Virgin. Beyond Lorde’s strong singing throughout, the sound and production is remarkably consistent across the board. Mostly handled by Lorde and Jim-E Stack, the songs slink and strut, never getting quite as involving as Melodrama’s highpoints, but creating an austere environment for Lorde’s tales of heartbreak, growing up, gender, and identity. This album, perhaps more than any of her previous LPs, proves how much Lorde follows her own desires when crafting a record. This is pop music, maybe even dance music, in most respects, but it never really sounds cool in the sense of following trends. Virgin is music to dance to when you’re alone and it’s a little cold in there.
Just check the bizarre sounds that form the bedrock of “Hammer”, or even the song’s orgasmic, wordless lead up to the drop in its chorus. The alluringly strange (and strangely catchy) “Man of the Year” finds Lorde singing over just a spare bassline for the first half — a maybe-cousin to Solar Power’s highlight, the bass-driven ballad “Stoned at the Nail Salon” — until it erupts in a wall of sound and crashing, gated drum hits in the finale. And “Shapeshifter”, by far the most robust song here, has multiple catchy refrains and different vocal stylings, and it all works perfectly under Lorde’s steady hand. It’s no surprise, though, that the album’s longest song is also its strongest.
Various points of Virgin are weird and catchy at the same time. “If She Could See Me Now” has a sticky chorus and one of the most head-banging instrumentals; “Favourite Daughter” takes a personal reflection of her mother and places it into a poppy tune that wouldn’t have been too out of place on past records. But there’s just something slightly underdeveloped about the thing as a whole, as if Lorde was excited to excise these meditations and get them into some interesting musical passages. It feels like there was little time or thought given to how to build them out even more. Because for all the grand ideas here, it feels like Lorde has more to say about them, and as the aesthetic and songcraft of Virgin illustrates — almost despite all of this — she is more than skilled enough to do so.
