The Path Between Melodrama and Solar Power
By: Lena Sibony
Tags: Melodrama, Music, Lorde, Solar Power

Lorde is one of the most well-known musicians of our age. Her debut album Pure Heroine aptly became a gateway drug for many of her followers: young people desperate for music that spoke directly to them. Her gritty vocals and moving lyrics encapsulated the angst of youth and the pain, hunger and hope of being a teenager. We loved her because she was us. Though she was from a small town in New Zealand, her music was remarkably universal, connecting with her fans from around the world. It’s prophetically appropriate that someone whose stage name was intended to allude to royalty became a teen monarch of music.

When her sophomore album Melodrama came out in the summer of 2017, my friends and I were in our first year of college. We were navigating a world of political unrest, while living away from home and having to grapple with recreating ourselves outside of the confines of high school. This album that encouraged its listeners to be melodramatic, to feel everything deeply, couldn’t have come at a better time. Through the loneliness of “Liability,” the heartache of “Writer in the Dark” and the ecstasy of “Green Light,” Melodrama walked us through the heightened scenes of our lives, making us feel less alone and recognized in our mutual experiences. When many of us finally got to experience the album live, while watching Lorde perform on tour, her small frame took up the entire arena space, and we bore witness to this euphoria together. Then, just as powerfully as she came in with Melodrama, Lorde disappeared.

It is normal for an artist to recede after such a successful album. But for her fans, who saw her as more than an artist: a role model, a guide, even a saint at times, missed — craved her presence for four years. The music of Melodrama touched us so profoundly, and was so intertwined with our lives as young people that she established herself as one of us, someone who went through the same transitional phases that we did, despite her stardom. Her absence felt as if she was leaving us behind. Yet what is remarkable is how throughout those years of waiting, the album never lost its magic. In creating a work so true to herself, Melodrama transcends an era or time period. When I first began writing this piece I couldn’t recall the exact date the album was released, but remember exactly what place I was in emotionally and how her music heightened that state. As Lorde took time away from the spotlight, we reached for the security of her music and the way it stayed personal long after she was there to connect with us.

In June of 2021 we finally received the first single and titular song of the new album, Solar Power. We were coming from a time of depression and isolation, hungry for our “Lorde and savior” to tell us what to do. In the music video, she’s wearing a yellow two piece set and has folks dancing around her and, as a viewer and fan, the immediate response was “yes, whatever you say, we are joining the cult of Lorde.” On August 20th 2021, the full album dropped and quickly a general consensus formed about the album and how sonically different it was from Melodrama and Pure Heroine. Despite the newness and apprehension of some, I still gravitated towards Solar Power, or, perhaps more accurately, towards this human who I so deeply admired and the way in which she has always chosen to engage with us, her fans. From the first announcement of the single to the drop of the album, Lorde began writing long newsletters to her fans through her email listserv. Unlike typical more structured and edited notes from artists, these felt like the long winded and colorful letters you would receive from a friend away at camp or on holiday. She embraced the familiarity we felt with her music to present an honest version of herself who we got to know even more than we already had right before this new album dropped. This relationship she cultivated set us up for the new sound she was debuting. In the way that only someone that you genuinely revere can say “I’m going into a new era, do you want to come with me?” we were primed to accept this new more mature point of view from Lorde. With Solar Power, I was more than willing to forgo my preconceived notions of what this album was/would be, and quite literally step into the light.

As more people around me listened to the album I kept coming back to the opening track, “The Path.” Whether she was writing about the path to salvation or to happiness, when Solar Power came out we were eager to jump right back into this leader-follower mentality. We made the assumption that it would offer the same kind of cathartic experience of listening to Melodrama that fully represented all of our most profound anxieties, particularly considering her years-long silence. Right away though, in the chorus of “The Path”, she sings “Now, if you’re looking for a saviour/Well, that’s not me/You need someone to take your pain for you?/Well, that’s not me” and just like that she breaks the façade. Being a saviour for her fans is the burden she took on with Melodrama; she was this icon who we could confess and be open to about our struggles and joys — who we would follow anywhere because we truly believed her music could and was transforming us. And while of course, that’s a powerful compliment to her artistry, it’s also a huge burden for one young person to carry for so many people. So, wisely, to protect herself, and in many ways us, from following a false prophet, she’s using this album to show us how in her time of hiatus she found the sun and the natural world to be her guide. By becoming a saviour by default, she steps out of her strength. Despite our inclination to raise her up, what has always been her strong suit in relating to her fans is her embrace of imperfection. While we may idolize that quality, with this song she is conveying to us that in this new time we get to spend together we too can find refuge and a path forward in the natural forces of the world, and not just one person.

The sixth track of Solar Power is titled “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen it All)” and is seemingly a direct commentary on her rise to fame and this all-knowing “persona” we had made her out to be. In it she sings “Do your best to trust all the rays of light/Everybody wants the best for you/But you gotta want it for yourself.” Like any good friend she cautions us to remember that we are each on our own journey. In “Oceanic Feeling” the final track of Solar Power, she sings “Oh, has enlightenment found?/No, but I’m trying, taking it one year at a time.” In sharing this new album that is so tonally different she is showing us, through her music, the value of taking the time to grow and mature: she isn’t fully formed, she’s still searching, but she’s inviting us along on the journey. So, as we were yearning for this old friend and dynamic relationship, some might have felt lost in the newness and variance of the music. Solar Power highlights her devotion and commitment to us not as a leader, but as a peer, who walks with us as we navigate the paths we take hoping to find love, joy or whatever makes life a little bit brighter.