After going more than four years without a project, Lorde returned last summer with her third album Solar Power. The project was a departure from the sound that many expected from her, but with it being almost a half-decade since they received 2017’s Melodrama, it’s no surprise that Lorde decided to switch things up. However, as Lorde tells it, that change isn’t permanent. Saturday night, during the third and final night of her residency at London’s Roundhouse, Lorde thanked fans for their support over the last decade and also revealed that she’s been “thinking about bangers.”
“It’s so interesting to me how writing a big, bright pop song has been the thing that’s defined my life,” she said according to NME. “This thing I started trying to do when I was 14-years-old because I would turn on the radio and love that feeling, what it did to me. It became like an addiction, I just wanted to keep trying to construct the perfect thing that would hit you in the heart emotionally, over three-and-a-half minutes.” She continued:
“But I never thought a pop song would be the thing that changed my life. I was informed today that it’s the nine-year anniversary of ‘Royals’ coming out. I remember sitting in my parent’s kitchen, pressing upload on Soundcloud. I was in my school uniform.
And nine years ago, you started to change my life. And you told me I wasn’t crazy for being obsessed with pre-chorus melodies and hooks. That actually, it was a worthwhile endeavor for me
Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to share in those moments with you because, in my opinion, a banger is not created until the audience participates. You can write a good pop song but you are the ones that turn it into that thing that we all know to be a banger.”
Lorde went on to say that while big pop songs are “the guiding force in my life, the north star to which I move towards, it’s not always the season. You don’t always have the banger in you.” She continued, “We’ve had a really difficult, painful, lonely few years and artists take that, and they process it and they make something that’s maybe quieter, or more private,” which seemingly referenced her Solar Power album.
“But the banger will always be on the horizon,” she concluded. “I want to say thank you for being so welcoming and wonderful on this tour. I’m getting nearer to that zone again, where all I’m going to write is those sort of songs for us all to dance to, and to feel in our hearts. Thanks for changing my life.”