The long-awaited return of Lorde has perhaps caused the phenomenon that naturally occurs when too much anticipation builds up: disappointment with the eventual product. There’s nothing “wrong,” per se, with her new single (except for the video’s unapologetic whiteness—in both group composition and cultish activities performed). But it’s not exactly, well, anything worthy of Melodrama. Called “Solar Power,” it conjures easy comparisons to the ultimate white person’s kryptonite, “Big Yellow Taxi”—but not even the Joni Mitchell version so much as the Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton one.
Lorde gets right to the point about her seasonal depression (this is sort of like her anti-version of “Summertime Sadness”) with, “I hate the winter/Can’t stand the cold/I tend to cancel all the plans.” But when the sun comes out, so does her snatch (as the cover art for Solar Power indicates), and she feels free and at one with nature again now that it won’t see fit to freeze her tits off—just sear them instead. But because “the album is a celebration of the natural world, an attempt at immortalizing the deep, transcendent feelings I have when I’m outdoors,” it only makes sense that Lorde would punctuate her video with some decidedly cult-like, “pagan” flair. The kind usually reserved for Esalen and other coastal California outposts (…or the plot of Midsommar). Lorde, after all, divided her time for the recording of the album between the Golden State and New Zealand, so perhaps she couldn’t evade the former’s influence.
Because of the “commune” (read: again, cult) feel of it, there are moments when the video also echoes Katy Perry’s concept for 2019’s “Never Really Over.” But Lorde renders it less overt by styling the aesthetic as something straight from a Madewell commercial (this one, for example). And because “life’s just beachy” in her world, we’re supposed to excuse the worshipful devotion element. Of course, there are worse things to worship than nature, but that’s how it starts. Obsession over one innocent thing can lead to obsession with a detrimental one (just ask the Jonestown people)—and also, all obsession is ultimately injurious… like the sun.
And yes, it feels odd for someone so fair-skinned to champion the magic of the sun when it is, in fact, a soul-sucking cancer inflicter. And one has to wonder how much sunscreen she must have slathered on before trying to glamorize the beach like this. Scampering around the other white folk who are engaging in yoga poses here and passing a horn that Lorde refuses to “blow” there. Rather than taking it, she skitters off again instead, embodying the lyric, “But when the heat comes, something takes a hold.” True, and it makes many insane with rage rather than blissfully happy. Particularly those who don’t have access to a private beach for their frolicking.
The cult mentality of the song—both in visual and auditory format—is reiterated when Lorde declares, “Lead the boys and girls onto the beaches/Come one, come all, I’ll tell you my secrets/I’m kinda like a prettier Jesus.” Oh shit, luckily for Lorde, she doesn’t live in John Lennon’s time, when a comment like that would get her cancelled. And oh, the Jesus parallel definitely fits within the context of this song, since he still unwittingly leads the most illustrious cult of all: Christianity.
Continuing to talk in the kind of way that would get Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets to say, “Sound crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here,” Lorde persists in describing the motivations behind her new music as follows: “In times of heartache, grief, deep love, or confusion, I look to the natural world for answers. I’ve learnt to breathe out, and tune in. This is what came through.” Side note: MARINA does it better.
She added: “I want this album to be your summer companion, the one you pump on the drive to the beach. The one that lingers on your skin like a tan as the months get cooler again.” One wonders, however, if she’s hearing the same music (gift of synesthesia or not)—‘cause this isn’t exactly a summer bop for anyone except the kind of person who has a house in the Hamptons.
But, in any case, don’t be surprised if it becomes the go-to song played for Christian summer camp.
