RETRO REVIEW: Lorde - Solar Power
A head-scratching summer bummer from a luminary resisting her abilities.
I’ve been writing reviews of music for several years now, and as I get back into writing regularly, I thought I could repost some of my favorite reviews I’ve written here. With Lorde finally releasing new music last week (review of that here), I thought it fitting to look back at the massive disappointment that was Solar Power, her third LP released in 2021. You can find the original review on my AOTY account here.
When you start your career with the universally praised "Royals", you're going to turn heads. Follow that up with a generation-defining album about the trials and tribulations of young adulthood (Melodrama), you're rightfully going to be called a young luminary. But Lorde doesn't want that title. Listening to Solar Power, you can hear her rejection of being anyone's savior right on the opening track. She's just like us, with complex feelings about her adulthood and her past & future relationships. This new version of Lorde is obviously the one she's proud to be, but after a listen to SP, it's clear that her new self pales in comparison to that of the luminary.
Working again with Jack Antonoff surprisingly does Lorde no favors. The two brought together vivid scene after vivid scene on Melodrama, but the stripped-back, simple approach leaves the instrumentals being just that. It's purposefully straightforward, and unpurposefully bland. The title track remains a highlight, but it's followed by an unpleasant slog of tracks that fail to register at all. "Stoned at the Nail Salon" reminds me of better-done existential indie music, while "The Man with the Axe" sounds similarly familiar yet lesser than ever. Short duds like "Dominoes" and "Leader of a New Regime" come and go like a fart in the wind. Only when you reach "Mood Ring" do you find salvation of sound, and it's followed by perhaps the most adventurous song on SP, "Oceanic Feeling". They're not enough to save the instrumental side from being a forgettable affair.
(Side note: I don't totally blame Antonoff like many publications are doing now. Sometimes the strong female artist just doesn't have it, and it leaves less for the two to work with. Lana's last record was the same way IMO)
When the sonic side of an album is this uninteresting, it's up to the singer to find a reason for us to keep listening, and Lorde does a valiant if not totally successful job here. Her usual poetry is more generalized this time to her life since Melodrama, finding her way through different boys, different cities and different mental states. She's ready to let free on "Solar Power", confused as to her place in the world on "Mood Ring", and ready to stop leading her fans on "The Path". Her ruminations on her family and future families on "Oceanic Feeling", coupled with the more layered instrumental, make it a fantastic way to end the record. But when it comes to her thoughts on love and her relationships that cover the majority of the record, it falls short of Melodrama's detailed storytelling. Talk of drugs and nights together are a dime a dozen among songs like these, leaving Lorde as one of the people instead of one leading the way.
For all my complaints about it, Solar Power is a competent record. Lorde had an idea in mind, and she set out to make it and did. It's just that the ideas she had didn't have the legs to take her as far as previously before. Perhaps I should've lowered my expectations, but when you drop a masterpiece like Melodrama, the expectations are rightfully high. Sadly Solar Power is a summer bummer, a mild tasting appetizer that is exactly what it wants to be and is worse for it.
Verdict: 5.7/10
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