Lorde Talks New Album ‘Melodrama,’ Says It’s Not A ‘Breakup Album’

It’s been nearly four years since Lorde released her debut album “Pure Heroine,” and during that time, the New Zealand singer has done a lot of changing. From dropping out of the public view to breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, James Lowe, today’s Lorde is not the same as the 2013 version.

Coming out of the end of a relationship, one would expect the “Greenlight” singer to record a breakup album, but according to Lorde, her upcoming record, “Melodrama,” is not like that. Speaking with the New York Times, the singer described the project as a “record about being alone. The good parts and the bad parts.”

Working with Jack Antonoff of fun. fame, Lorde began writing a song in 2016 called “Sober” which featured the lyrics “My hips have missed your hips” and “What will we do when we’re sober?” It was those lyrics that led the singer to realize the theme of her next album.

According to Lorde, “Melodrama” will tell the story of a single house party. “With a party, there’s that moment where a great song comes on and you’re ecstatic,” she told the New York Times, “and then there’s that moment later on where you’re alone in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, you don’t think you look good, and you start feeling horrible.”

Following her long hiatus after the release of “Pure Heroine,” Lorde has said she wanted to return with a different sound. The singer picked Antonoff to work with, instead of teaming up with Joel Little who she created her first project with.

“For me it was kind of about processing what I want to say next and I knew it just couldn’t be any old thing,” she told Zane Lowe. “It had to be really special and really singular and it couldn’t sound the same as the old stuff and there was a lot of discovery that went on.”

Lorde’s “Melodrama” will be released June 16.