Album Rating: 2.5

“Not a fan of the beats at all (guess why)”



they implement post-80s drum sounds?

Album Rating: 4.5

unfavorable reviews by stereogum and the independent, and a p4k pan is incoming (they dissed all three singles). not looking good folks

Album Rating: 3.5

this is the end of post-80s drum sounds in popular music

Album Rating: 4.5

at least whatever staffer reviews the album won't be harassed by lorde stans, they'll be too busy swarming the other publications

Album Rating: 5.0

damn, hard not to take a first listen to the whole thing with lowered expectations

Album Rating: 5.0

Well also a poor review from me usually comes with an optimistic spin, so unless it's truly terrible we're probably looking at a 3+ from one of my favorite pop artists

Album Rating: 4.5

Unless it’s Jordi, in which case there’s literally no optimism. lol

Album Rating: 5.0

ok, some other reviews are also out that are not quite panning it - the guardian is even positive

Album Rating: 5.0

If Solar Power came out 2 years ago, everybody would have ate it up. Shame.

Album Rating: 3.5

all aboard the lazyass whatabout train

next up: if amy winehouse was born in the early 20s, who would have married frank sinartra first?

choo *cough* choo o o o

Album Rating: 2.5

“There are plenty of lovely melodies, but it noticeably declines to deal in the primary currency of latterday pop, the banger, in favour of understatement. Bucking another current pop trend, it’s an album clearly designed to be listened to in full, rather than a collection of tracks from which to select additions to a playlist. It’s an approach that, at its worst, yields songs that sound undernourished – Fallen Fruit and Dominoes – but elsewhere it delivers, albeit gently." - The Guardian



that reads like a “my boss told me I have to give a positive review but it’s not that good” 4/5 to me

Album Rating: 3.5

A line like that should be delivered with tongue firmly in cheek, but it’s unclear throughout Solar Power how much Lorde is in on the joke, so to speak — whether she’s buying into Goop-era wellness or sending it up. There’s a reason why so many speculated that the “Solar Power” music video was an initiation into some sort of cult, and Lorde herself explicitly said that the similarly cultish video for “Mood Ring” is meant to be satirical. But it doesn’t scan as satire, no matter how much she insists that it is. Satire only works when you’re not completely emulating what you’re satirizing — the language of self-help is already so over-the-top that there’s just not much further you can push it. The reason why a movie like Midsommar works is because it all eventually turns into a hellish nightmare. But “Solar Power” and “Mood Ring” seem destined for placement on yoga playlists, which is fine if that’s the market one wants to tap into, but when a satire can just pass for the real thing it has effectively failed in its intention.



this is an oof



The album’s sound is breezy and sun-kissed — it’s filled with echoey acoustic guitars and burbling percussion and the warm background hum of the environment around her. It’s mellow and laidback, sometimes too laidback to really register. There are indeed a lot of the same touches producer Jack Antonoff has applied to albums by Lana Del Rey and Clairo in recent months — hisses and warbles and Wurlitzers and a general shaggy casualness. There’s a persistent background choir made up of Phoebe Bridgers, Clairo, and fellow Kiwis Marlon Williams and James Milne. Drums come courtesy of the legendary studio musician Matt Chamberlain.



and this is "my editor told me this paragraph was getting a little too close to behaviour Lorde publicly mischaracterised as sexist so I turned it into a sassy credits list"



nice one stereogum. still vaguely looking forward to hearing the album tbh

Album Rating: 4.0

the new album is almost guaranteed to be awful

Album Rating: 2.5

can’t be sexist to Lorde and Matt Chamberlain at the same time. well played

Album Rating: 4.5

"If Solar Power came out 2 years ago, everybody would have ate it up. Shame."



lol wtf is this bs take

Album Rating: 3.5

pop music is built on the attitudes of the time so if people don't like it that is THEIR fault for being in the wrong time. stupid people not listening to this 2 years in the past as they damn well should have

Mood Ring is so so awful lol

Album Rating: 2.5

no way Mood Ring can be worse than Pitchfork’s review of it

Album Rating: 3.5

The prose was rapturous, romantic in a way that seemed almost unhinged, to the point that I seriously contemplated whether it had been ghostwritten by Caroline Calloway

based and hilariously accurate reference

Album Rating: 2.5

fine but it literally says nothing about the actual music except for saying it sounds like something you’d listen to before having fat free yogurt for breakfast and that’s an RYM-tier sentiment if I’ve ever heard one