A surprise New York park performance and a synth-fueled confessional track see the New Zealand singer reclaiming her mystique and mapping out a daring new chapter.
On an unusually warm spring night in downtown Manhattan, Lorde decided to make the city her stage. Instead of a traditional press blitz, the 28-year-old star reappeared unannounced in Washington Square Park, climbing onto a makeshift platform to debut her new song “What Was That.” The impromptu Tuesday night performance drew a throng of fans – thousands crowded under the park’s arch – and even an attempted police shutdown couldn’t stop her from giving a sneak peek of her first original single in four years. In the age of meticulously planned album rollouts, Lorde’s off-the-cuff comeback felt like a breath of fresh air. One artist, no fancy staging, just a sea of phone lights and a chorus of fans singing along in real time welcoming back a long-lost friend.
Where had she been?
Lorde’s last album, Solar Power (2021), saw the New Zealand singer pivot hard from the neon-lit angst of 2017’s Melodrama to sun-kissed acoustic serenity. Trading synths and stormy emotions for folky, laid-back vibes, Solar Power painted Lorde as a blissed-out nomad basking in the daylight. It was a sonic 180 that left some fans and critics divided – more mellow daydream than pop spectacle, with The Line of Best Fit even calling it “somewhat of a swing and a miss”. Lorde herself later admitted to People Magazine the lukewarm reaction was “confounding and at times painful” as she recalibrated her artistry. Ever the enigma, she largely stepped out of the spotlight afterward, shunning social media and communicating in sporadic emails like a pop star in exile. Yet even in absence, her legend loomed – the cult following built on Pure Heroine’s teenage detachment and Melodrama’s fluorescent heartbreak only grew more fervent with time. Hints of a stir began to surface in 2024 – a cryptic Instagram bio tweak here, a surprise Charli XCX remix there, even a Coachella cameo. All signs pointed to a restless creative itch.
Now that chapter has arrived with “What Was That.” The track itself is a sleek, synth-pop cut that sounds like summer in the city, miles removed from Solar Power’s languid strums. Co-produced with indie-pop mavens Jim-E Stack and Dan Nigro, “What Was That” pairs a propulsive electronic beat with Lorde’s signature see-saw of tenderness and fury. One moment she’s reminiscing about “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up / We kissed for hours straight”– painting a scene of reckless youthful euphoria – and the next she’s sobered up, asking the titular question like a wide-eyed morning-after epiphany. She delivers plainly evocative lines (“Do you know you’re still with me when I’m out with my friends?”) in a voice that swings from atmospheric croon to raw, cracked-open belting. If Solar Power was the carefree daylight, this single is the 3 A.M. city streetlamp . Its accompanying DIY-style music video underscores that vibe – we see Lorde in motion across New York’s gray sidewalks, rain-slicked and dressed down in a simple white shirt and jeans, stomping and cycling her way to that very park performance. No elaborate storyline, no high-concept artifice; just an artist literally on the move, documenting a journey back to herself.
What’s striking is how open Lorde has become about the life fueling her art. In a candid all-caps dispatch posted to her website, she rattled off the personal tumult behind “What Was That”: “LATE 2023. BACK IN NEW YORK. DEEP BREAKUP. STOPPING BIRTH CONTROL. EVERY MEAL A BATTLE. FLASHBACKS AND WAVES. FEELING GRIEF’S VORTEX… OPENING MY MOUTH AND RECORDING WHAT FELL OUT.”The picture it paints is of an artist in flux, heartbroken, physically off-kilter, haunted by memories, and channeling that chaos directly into song. Longtime listeners will recognize this as classic Lorde, the pop wunderkind who always alchemized adolescent confusion into art. But there’s a new layer of grit here that comes with age and experience. The result, as she boldly declared, is “the sound of my rebirth”.
In the broader pop landscape, where reinventions are often mere costume changes, Lorde is doing something rare by bringing her audience along on a genuine coming-of-age journey, scars and all. “What Was That” pointedly asks its titular question not just of a past relationship but perhaps of an entire chapter of youth that burned bright and burnt out. Culturally, the narrative around her return has taken on a celebratory fervor. At Coachella just days ago, her friend Charli XCX hyped “Lorde summer 2025!” onstage. The girl who once shunned “posturing in neon lights” is now a woman confident enough to plunge into the crowd, literally and metaphorically. Her public persona – once a symbol of aloof, almost monastic detachment – is evolving into something warmer and more transparent. She’s fostering a kind of communal intimacy with her fanbase, be it through a one-night-only park show or poetic breadcrumbs left online.
Where does it all lead?
There’s talk of a fourth album on the way, and if the emotional adrenaline and synth-rich palette of this single are any clue, we’re in for an exhilarating ride. Lorde has always been a master of the dramatic exit and re-entry, so by anchoring her comeback in a free public performance, she’s turned her narrative into something alive and happening in the moment, a story being written in real time on city streets and in the collective memory of those who showed up or tuned in. The sharp, savvy Lorde of 2025 is embracing the messiness of life and art, wearing it like a badge of honor. As she dances “alone in a sea” of fans in that final shot of the video, it’s difficult not to feel a tingle of excitement for her next moves. Lorde is back, she’s baring her soul, and she’s making sure we’re all listening.
