It was 11.30am BST when New Zealand’s biggest indie pop star appeared at a secret set on the third day of the Glastonbury Festival in England on Friday.
This was the first performance by Ella Yelich-O’Connor, or Lorde as the world knows her, since dropping hernew album Virgin that morning.The set was so secret that there wasn’t any inkling of it until an hour or two before the show.Like every promo move Lorde’s made with the new album, she detonated.
Elegantly attired in bone on the Woodsies stage – white T-shirt, white pants and a white bra – the 28-year-old livestreamed to thousands on social media. She opened with Hammer, followed by the rest of the record in a front-to-back performance, adding Ribs and Greenlight from previous albums towards the end.
A page from the Virgin vinyl insert.
Fans have been waiting patiently and holding faith in their Lorde since the release of her last album, Solar Power, four years ago. That album was okay, but Pure Heroine (2013) and Melodrama (2017) both felt like they were ahead of their time.
With Virgin, it feels like Lorde being cracked open and being found entirely free. It is not only Lorde’s best album yet – it may just be up for Album of the Year. Shapeshifter stands outwith its icy, raw tones and rapidly moving textures, making it an edgy, transformative, emotional masterpiece. The music video for Hammer is beautifully wild and intimate – her finest video work. Man Of The Year hints at the artist’s exploration of gender fluidity. She is so exposed. She is so alive.
The record serves as a perfect climax for a cleverly constructed, astral crescendo to Lorde’s new era. But it wasn’t easy for the artist to get there. Speaking to the massive crowd at Glastonbury, Lorde confessed: “I didn’t know if I’d make another record to be honest, but I am back here, completely free.” On Saturday morning, she posted on Instagram: “I tried to love Virgin right the way through these stages at the same time as I was learning to love myself in my many stages of change, growth, brokenness and wholeness.
“This album broke me apart and forged a new creature out of me,” she added.
However, Virgin antics have also been causing outrage. On Friday, my feed on X was various memes of people holding aghast expressions, with fresh discussions on what a woman shouldn’t do with her own body (the Sabrina Carpenter album cover drama was only two weeks ago) and versions of the sentence, “Lorde’s got her whole vagina out”. Except she hadn’t.
This is what I noticed when I pulled out Virgin’s vinyl (blood variant) insert: a photo of presumably the pop star’s body. You don’t see a face. You do see a waist and thighs in clear plastic pants (I thought of JYP in the 90s). Centred in the frame is what the internet is calling “Lordeussy”. But Lordeussy isn’t a vagina. It is only mons pubis with some pubic hair.
From Lorde's Virgin album vinyl insert.
The photo was genius. And it made sense, even though it was unexpected. But unexpected because bare flesh, particularly a woman’s flesh, is stigmatised. Not because it was contrary to who she is. No one thought that. Everyone agreed it matched her vibe.
She’s not the first to expose an intimate part of herself – literally. In 2021, Halsey’s provocative album cover for If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power featured her holding a baby with her breast exposed. John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s vinyl front and back covers of Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins were photos of the couple completely naked. One side of the vinyl label had artwork illustrating half an apple, commonly thought to insinuate a vagina.
Lorde has been foreshadowing Lordeussy, or a pivotal shift in the artist’s career, for some time. From the album name and the pelvic x-ray album cover art to her WhatsApp messages to fans (“I think it’s time for full transparency” was one sent on Monday), she’s been seeping coded messages of deep intimacy, deep vulnerability and a deep desire to connect.
