On "Stoned at the Nail Salon", Lorde turns inward and reflects on growing older (and not in the angsty teen sense anymore), settling down, and questioning if she has made the right decisions in life - all at the ripe age of 24, a little less than a decade since she launched to fame as a precocious teenager. But in 2021, Lorde is the only artist doing what she’s doing and doing it so well: “Solar Power” soared to the top of the charts despite having no extended social media rollout, definitively ending the four-year drought since “Melodrama” and lifting Lorde to the forefront of the pop industry once again. Does “Solar Power” sound like something that only Lorde could have made, like “Royals” or the cult classic “Ribs”? Not really - the song radiates the psychedelic dance-rock vibe spearheaded by Primal Scream and directly references one of its sonic parallels, Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ,” in the line “can I kick it? Yeah, I can” (originated by A Tribe Called Quest). Drums precede the explosive outro, a fanfare of bubbly xylophones, celebratory trumpets, and even New Zealand cicadas. In contrast to the sentimental, perceptive lyrics in her previous albums that propelled her to fame, she serves cheeky lines like “can you reach me? No, you can’t” and “I’m kinda like a prettier Jesus.” The song gradually builds, with wavy undercurrents and echoes recalling secret beach caves, as well as beautiful mermaid-like background vocals contributed by Clairo and Phoebe Bridgers. This time, however, there’s not much to read into (the music video is another story… let’s just say it’s more “Midsommar” than “Watermelon Sugar”). She sings, quite literally, about how she hates the winter - not exactly the lyrics fans were expecting from her after she hinted that the album was inspired by her 2019 trip to Antarctica. The album’s title track opens with a scratchy, pulsing acoustic guitar rhythm followed by Lorde’s unmistakable voice, a combination neither fans nor Lorde herself could have foreseen even a few years ago (in a recent interview with The Guardian, she joked that she “would have rather died than have an acoustic guitar” on her triple platinum debut album, “Pure Heroine”). While the peachy cover art doesn’t capture all aspects of the complex album, it certainly generated buzz and signalled a temporal and contextual shift from the “holy sick divine nights” of “Melodrama.” As Lorde, whose real name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor, stated in an interview with The Irish Times, she “ the reinvention.” In November 2019, she informed fans that she “ some time to see the good again” after the devastating loss of her dog, and up until the leak of the controversial “Solar Power” album artwork in June, there was no confirmation of new Lorde music in 2021. The waiting game was also a guessing game: Lorde wiped her all social media accounts - instead communicating directly with fans through infrequent email newsletters - and literally went off the grid when she ventured to Antarctica in February 2019 to learn about the climate crisis firsthand. That longing was reciprocated by Lorde fans, who have waited four years since the release of Lorde’s critically acclaimed sophomore album “Melodrama” for new music from the 24-year-old musician. In a live stream preceding the premiere of the second promotional single off her new album “Solar Power,” Lorde answered the question on everyone’s mind: “Why do you take such a long break from music ?” She said simply, “Because I have things to do,” before clarifying - “Because I need to really miss it when I come back.”