In her last two eras, Lorde has been known by the collective as a brooding teen millionaire, haunted by fame and melancholy. But  her latest album’s omnipresent maturity and stunning harmonics indicate that she has entered a new era. It’s one of stepping away from the problems of the world and critiquing it from afar, one of layered voices over a campfire harmonizing about climate change. 

It becomes clear, that in “Solar Power,” she has come of age. And I had the privilege of doing so with her, only a few years behind in age. The world received the dooming synths and gory lyrics of “Pure Heroin” when I was a grumpy preteen with a mushy frontal lobe and an affinity for dystopian novels. Later in life, I revisited songs like “400 Lux” and “Swingin’ Party.” 

But the album she wrote at 19 was something different. Perhaps because I heard “Melodrama” as a hell-raising 18-year-old in the most catastrophic year of my life. For Lorde and me, “Melodrama” was an anthem to our synesthesia, and our emotions were so volatile they imposed liability on those who surrounded us. Lorde and I cried in taxis, wore dark lipstick and stared longingly out the windows of English 101. We knew how wild it all was; we were drawn to the dramatics of velvet stage lights and neon karaoke. We were bright asteroids of body glitter running through the tunnels of public transport. 

That’s how I would describe “Melodrama.” The music was our backdrop. I’ll get to “Solar Power” shortly. 

In a sonnet, there is something formally known as the volta. The term describes a moment that marks a profound change in tone. I believe the volta can exist for poets themselves and their bodies of work — a jagged fault line between worlds that audiences must cross along with them. And, this, I think, is why “Solar Power” has garnered critique for its mundanity. This is just what happens when sad artists become happy. 

Photos of Lorde performing in Central Park with a wedding-day smile and a floor-length dress the color of sunflowers circulated the internet. It was the way Miley Cyrus’ “Malibu” did when she ditched “Bangerz” for a sunny makeover a few years ago. It’s the same thing that happened when Tyler, the Creator stopped being so angry and Ezra Koenig quit pining for the ivy league (off-brand, perhaps). Lorde has shown a new side of herself, and it is up to fans to decide if they like it. 

Now, “Solar Power” may lack the doomed and cathartic theatrics of the Lorde discography in a fashion interpreted as the bubbly background music of a Samsung commercial. The album is about detachment, or the attempt of it, as she unloads her luggage and escapes to a brighter, sunnier location. This does not mean that she detaches completely, but only that she doesn’t want to be involved anymore. She sings about the teen terrors, but this time, in the past tense. She makes multiple references to not answering phone calls. 

And I can enjoy “Solar Power” personally, as I’ve also happened to enter another, sunnier era of life. Lorde and I have grown up a little bit. Our wild memories are now broken habits, our tumultuous romances inspiration. We have curly hair and listen while folding our laundry in sunlit apartments. 

“Melodrama” was about hunger for power, glory and romance. “Solar Power” is about fulfillment. Critics have been quick to dismiss the messages in ”Solar Power,” as they are not as jam-packed with grief and excitement as her previous gallery. But nothing feels more boring than newfound self-respect. 

And she does cover the important ground. There is the loss of her beloved dog, Pearl, in abrupt but gut-wrenching “Big Star.” A milestone overlooked has been the release of her very first love song, a simple, no-gimmicks ode to her partner Justin Warren, in “The Man with the Axe.” It’s a new glimpse of genuineness I’m not sure existed in her other albums. 

“Mood Ring,” along with its glossy video, has puzzled audiences and sparked debates on its validity as satire. The video, which includes showy yoga poses, a bleach-blonde Lorde and the highly-demanded color sage green features a series of performative wellness actions. The lyrics “Let’s fly somewhere Eastern, they’ll have what I need” layered over a flamboyant Sitar scale. The song is a confirmed critique on the cultural commodification and appropriation under the guise of wellness in a society numb to its own feelings (hence, “I can’t feel a thing/ I keep looking at my Mood Ring”).

However, some argue that this satire is ineffective because Lorde and her target audience are too close to the demographic being questioned, as mainstream-influenced white women. Therefore, she might capitalize both off the audience that thinks she’s serious, and the audience that thinks she’s not. I’m not sure how I feel about this. 

Many times in the album, she does reference superficiality. Certainly, she has not lost the grandeur of her writing. Within lyrics, supermodels dance around a pharaoh’s tomb at the Met Gala. She forgets how to breathe in front of the Norweigan Royal family, a panic attack she confirmed to Genius that really happened. It’s almost a return to “Royals.” She dreamt of becoming part of it all. Then, in “Melodrama,” she did.  And now, she opts for a windswept island far away from it. 

Musically, the album is not as tumultuous, layered or fierce as her previous albums. Her vocals are softer. She may have grown out of some vocal angst the way most of us do in our early 20’s. There is a bouncy undertone that some have compared to 2000s Natasha Benningfield. There are still ballads. There are still sonnets. And there is still grief. She has just learned how to not let it consume her. 

There are still minor chords, but now there are flutes. Layered voices are less frequent and more oceanic. She introduces, for the first time, woodland instruments that sound like tall grass blowing in the wind. There are even ironic steel drums at a point. Beats come in later songs so that you will listen to her message. A favorite song of mine is “Domino’s.” A recording can be found of her singing on a Brooklyn rooftop about watching her ex plant flowers with his new girlfriend. It’s obvious that she cared once, but, perhaps, not as much anymore. 

The bias in my review lies in the affinity and likeness I have felt towards Lorde since the beginning. So, yes, “Solar Power” is uninteresting, unless you’ve been paying attention the whole time. It’s important for people and fans and artists everywhere to avoid the harmful narrative that art is better when you are unhappy. The duality of “Solar Power” lies in the fact that her teenage poetry is still a backdrop, now painted over with something new. 

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