Lorde's third studio album, Solar Power, is a whisper instead of a scream, asking you to listen carefully and offering nothing if you don't. It is a sensitive, introspective and pastel-colored album, best exemplified in songs like “Stoned at the Nail Salon”, “Fallen Fruit” and “Big Star”. These soft lines serve to remind us of the magic and intensity of our younger days. The softness we hear is simply growth.
The album's title track, “Solar Power”, is a quick break from the other songs on the album. Lorde harmonizes with herself in stacked and crackling vocal lines, while fantasizing about being a pop star in a post-apocalyptic world. This reflective track is the “landslide” of Solar Power, never going out of style because of its identifiable feeling that time is running away. Lorde wrote this song completely alone and it was the first song she wrote for the album.
In it, she critiques celebrity culture in songs like “The Path” and “California”, as well as wellness culture. She portrays herself as “out of the modern celebrity space”, satirizing those who swear by “natural healing methods”. However, this satire isn't present enough to make it clear right away. The song has a windy and psychedelic quality that is perfectly matched for summer trips and trips to the beach.
It also has an optimistic outlook, while lacking the urgency of Lorde's best songs. The prevalence of mode in solar energy reveals Lorde completely free from the prevailing pop approaches of the day, emphasizing her preferred status as an industry outsider marching to the beat of her own drum. The song could be seen as taking these tropes seriously or satirically, depending on how you interpret it. It could be seen as a commentary on Western perspectives of welfare practices without understanding the cultural background or simply as an ode to Lorde's native landscape and natural world.
No matter how you interpret it, “Solar Power” is an ambiguous song that makes you feel embraced and understood before you even understand it - an effect that has always been present in Lorde's best songs.
