Those experiences she鈥檚 after are intensely physical, though not as glamorous or easily aestheticized as you鈥檇 expect from a pop artist. Twenty seconds into opener 鈥淗ammer,鈥 Lorde utters a word I鈥檇 wager has never been heard in the Hot 100鈥斺渙vulation鈥濃攁nd follows it up with 鈥淪ome days I鈥檓 a woman/Some days I鈥檓 a man,鈥 a striking, if uncharacteristically blunt, subversion of biological essentialism. On Virgin, her singing is visceral and sometimes鈥攖here鈥檚 no other word鈥攐rgasmic. Her relationship to her own body is complicated by her history of disordered eating, which she references freely across the album. But in her telling, living in a human body is also sublime (鈥淭he mist from the fountain is kissing my neck鈥) and cathartic (鈥淚 rode you until I cried鈥). And it鈥檚 abject: It鈥檚 cum on your chest and acid reflux from throwing up and peeing on a stick because you might be pregnant.
That last vignette comes from 鈥淐learblue,鈥 a spare swirl of vocoder melody 脿 la Imogen Heap. It鈥檚 all Lorde鈥檚 voice, words running across her tongue like ribbons curling against a blade as she recounts a pregnancy scare that blurred the boundaries between intimacy and independence. The incident passes, becoming a precious reminder of her own vitality; the test a relic, lost to the trash. But the topic of motherhood remains potent. The presence of Lorde鈥檚 mom, the poet Sonja Yelich, is felt across the album鈥攑articularly on 鈥淔avourite Daughter,鈥 a bubbly number where Lorde imagines her own career as the fulfillment of her mother鈥檚 ambitions. Lorde鈥檚 choice of album cover, too, is meaningful: Heji Shin, the photographer who X-rayed her pelvis, is perhaps best known for her raw images of crowning newborns. Documents of the grotesque and generative potential of the human body, they can also be read as metaphors for the bloody labor of creativity.
Now 28, Lorde can鈥檛 be neatly mapped on the continuum of girlhood to womanhood to motherhood. This is the consequence of being known as a perennial wunderkind, a sage since 16, and now also a sort of mother to her dozens of musical descendants. (She calls her fans her 鈥渒ids,鈥 too.) She gets at this state of multitude on 鈥淕RWM,鈥 declaring herself 鈥渁 grown woman in a baby tee鈥濃攁n objectively dumb lyric that she鈥檚 just confident enough to pull off. The production here, as on much of the record, is minimal鈥攁 rattling beat and some synth stabs, adding muscle but not bulk and pushing Lorde鈥檚 voice and words to the foreground.
It鈥檚 long been her writing that telegraphs Lorde鈥檚 capital-A artistry. Where someone like Charli XCX is keen to move culture, and Addison Rae is keen to put on a good show, Lorde is happy to sweat it out in the Notes app. The music鈥檚 job, it seems here, is mostly to not get in her way. 鈥淪hapeshifter鈥 is a high mark, a lovely bit of text painting that starts with a skeletal garage beat, shaded in gradually until it hits you with a full bleed of color. This song moves; it mirrors the state of constant flux that Lorde is singing about. Virgin could stand to have more of that synergy鈥攑roduction touches that are as freaky and unpredictable as the person at their center. Instead, there鈥檚 the glitchy vocal fragments and oddball samples that we鈥檝e heard before. There鈥檚 so much negative space, it feels almost like a tease, because it implies everything that could fill it.
But that ecstatic sense of possibility鈥攐f being many things at once, of following your impulses in all directions, all the time鈥攊s the animating force of Virgin. Some would be cowed by the enormity of the prospect. Not Lorde: 鈥淚 swim in waters that would drown so many other bitches,鈥 she crows on 鈥淚f She Could See Me Now.鈥 It鈥檚 not hard to see why she鈥檚 drawn to another stop on the Lorde tour of New York: Walter De Maria鈥檚 Earth Room (1977), a Soho loft filled with nothing but 250 cubic yards of dirt. Lorde recreated it in her video for 鈥淢an of the Year,鈥 where she binds her chest with duct tape and thrashes about in the soil, tapped into some elemental lifeforce. The original installation has been there for nearly 50 years; nothing grows. The whole thing is pregnant with possibility, blissfully abstract, ripe for interpretation. It feels like a portal to anywhere you want to go.