First, a matter of business. The new Lorde album, Virgin, will be released on June 27. The record follows her trend of releasing new work. Since her debut in 2013, every four years the performer has released a new album. Every record she has released so far has appeared in the top five of Billboard's album chart.
How good is the new one? We can expect great things because when has the icon from New Zealand let us down? She also doesn't seem to rest on previous work. She tests us as any great musical artist should. But let's be honest, Lorde's new video is definitely NSFW.
Not that she strains to be overly sexual. She simply takes her top off and straps her breasts with duct tape. There is never any nudity, but it's enough of a tease to upset bosses and conservatives everywhere. The oddness is that she is simply showing her body and dancing around in the (literal) dirt.
Lorde bares nearly all (body and soul) in latest video
The new single is called "Man of the Year." It's about whatever you want it to be, though Lorde likely means for us to interpret it as self-acceptance. She has been open, especially in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, about her gender identity questions. Most times, she is a woman, except for those days when she sees herself as a man.
This is the kind of confusing honesty we would expect from her. The confusing part is important. We all have questions about different things, even when we don't always have the answers. Maybe we never find them.
"Man of the Year," like many Lorde tracks, is about being OK with asking the questions. We don't have to know the answers, though our quest to find them might be ongoing.
And yes, while she bears half of her body in the video, she bears all of her soul. That is what the great musical artists do. We want to know the inside more than the outside. After the release of the latest single, we can bet that the new album is going to be terrific, even if we don't always get the information we think we need.