Depending on the circles you run in or tweets you read or TikToks you watch, you may have heard whispers upon the release of Lorde’s first single off Virgin that “What Was That” was, for lack of a better phrase, reheating Melodrama’s nachos. “What Was That” and the bulk of the songs on Melodrama make reference to partying and a night gone on too long to still be any good. For all the excitement of Lorde’s pop-up appearance in Washington Square Park and DIY music video, the song mostly serves as a reminder of everything we liked about Lorde up until now. That didn’t stop “What Was That” from charting or scoring a Nicole Kidman Reel, but it left a big question mark as to what the rest of the album might sound like.
What a relief — and thrill — that her second single, “Man of the Year,” is anything but an artistic retread. Or rather, what makes “Man of the Year” so exciting is that it takes all that’s made the last three albums great and funnels it into one whole song. The new track has the economic production of Pure Heroine, the sensual poetry of Melodrama, and the rambling self-awareness of Solar Power. “My babe can’t believe I’ve become someone else / Someone more like myself” she sings in a song dedicated to her “expanding gender.” In a May 29 interview with Australian radio show “Triple j,” Lorde explains the song was born out of attending the GQ Man of the Year Awards and feeling unlike herself in a sexy dress. Lo and behold, she documented such a thing two years ago on Instagram, writing, “Some days I’m a woman, some days I’m a man.”
Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››
In the video, Lorde goes from sitting in an empty room, fully clothed in a T-shirt and jeans, to stripping down shirtless, binding her chest with duct tape before writhing around in dirt. The setting is reminiscent of The New York Earth Room, a permanent installation in Soho that is a room full of, well, soil. There’s an earthy, natural quality to the video that shows Lorde at her most vulnerable and most confident. She’s not fighting who she is but embracing it — that acceptance is as sexy as anything she has done so far. Lorde told “Triple j” that if she has any color association with “Man of the Year,” it’s a milky white or the hue of undyed fabric. “It’s like canvas, something very plain,” she explained, while adding how she wanted a little sun streaming into the song. The brightness of the video reads like clear-eyed optimism rather than the gold-tinged fantasy of Solar Power. In its final seconds, “Man of the Year” grapples with how Lorde hopes to be remembered: “My gold chain, my shoulders, my face in the light,” she lists. That’s all well and good, but it is songs like this that may just be her legacy.
