New Zealand singer Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, aged 24 and better known as Lorde, has returned with a new summer tune called Solar Power earlier this month. Ever since her 2017 album Melodrama, she has not released any albums, but this past Monday she announced that on August 20 her album Solar Power will be out.
The artist's rise to fame happened back in 2013 when her hit Royals topped international charts. She was 16 at the time, making her the youngest female artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 since Tiffany Darwish in 1987. This track earned her Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2014 Grammy Awards.
The song “Solar Power” (not to be confused with the album of the same name) came out along with a music video with Lorde and Joel Kefali as co-directors. It is set on a beach, with the all yellow-dressed singer prancing around and enjoying the summer. The camarographer films the trash lying on the beach, but in the video, the singer instructs him to avoid filming it. The message it is trying to convey could be how some people (in this case Lorde’s persona in the video) are ashamed of the ongoing climate crisis. The rest of the people in the video seem to be tired and in a sad mood, most probably because they are upset by the contamination in the beach and the damage being done to the planet as a whole.
Lorde released a book in (year) titled Going South, in which she recorded her learning experience from when she went to Antarctica in February 2019. There, she learned about the climate crisis. The title of her book both means that she went to the Southern part of the world, and that the situation is going south, worsening.
She took inspiration from the previously mentioned trip for the elaboration of her album and its title. She says that her work is dedicated to nature and through it, she expresses her close ties with New Zealand and her relationship with nature.
Lorde’s album is “a celebration of the natural world, an attempt at immortalizing the deep, transcendent feelings I have when I’m outdoors. In times of heartache, grief, deep love, or confusion, I look to the natural world for answers.”
Bibliography
Convery, S. (2021, June 11) Lorde releases new single Solar Power to coincide with solar eclipse [Photograph] The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jun/11/lorde-releases-new-single-solar-power-to-coincide-with-solar-eclipse
F82 (2014) Lorde - Royals (F82 Remix) [Photograph] SoundCloud. https://soundcloud.com/f82music/royals-f82-remix
Hirsh, S. (2021, June 11) Lorde’s New Environment-Inspired Song ‘Solar Power’ Is Renewable Energy for the Soul. Green Matters.https://www.greenmatters.com/p/lorde-solar-power
Minsker, E. & Hussey, A. (2021, June 21) Lorde Announces Tour, Reveals Release Date and Tracklist for New Album Solar Power. Pitchfork. https://pitchfork.com/news/lorde-announces-tour-reveals-release-date-and-tracklist-for-new-album-solar-power/
Wikipedia Authors. Royals (Song). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royals_(song)