Lorde Shared An Encouraging Text About Album Sales That Taylor Swift Sent Her Following ‘Melodrama’

Today (June 16) is the sixth anniversary of Lorde’s sophomore album Melodrama. It was the highly anticipated follow-up to her instant-classic, colossal debut Pure Heroine that put her on the map.

The “Royals” singer is reflecting on the release by posting on her Instagram Story. She shared an encouraging text that Taylor Swift sent her. Unfortunately, it’s cropped so that only parts of the message can be read: “you will always be imagined in my mind in a rowboat with Annie Lennox floating down a river of cool cerebral ethereal dreams but don’t-f*ck-with-me vibes all around you,” it says. “And I don’t think first week record sales singularly define a legacy.” Lorde wrote over the screenshot: “Taylor was very kind and not wrong.”

While Melodrama debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, it actually had a worse first week than its predecessor, Pure Heroine: The former moved 109,000 equivalent album units while the latter had 129,000.

Lorde’s third album Solar Power, however, received the most backlash. She acknowledged it last year, writing in a newsletter, “It’s been a year since I announced the release of Solar Power. I can honestly say it has been the year with the highest highs and lowest lows I think I’ve ever experienced. It took people awhile to get the album — I still get emails every day from people who are just coming around to it now! — and that response was really confounding and at times painful to sit with at first. I learnt a ton about myself and how I’m perceived by making and releasing this album, and I feel significantly more connected and alive in my art practice and life than pretty much ever before. Sounds dry but it’s true!!!”