Lorde has seemingly teased her long-awaited fourth album in a new Instagram post. Photo / Instagram @lorde
Lorde has seemingly teased her long-awaited fourth album in a new Instagram post. Photo / Instagram @lorde
Kiwi musician Lorde hasn’t released an album in over three years, but a cryptic new Instagram post has fans theorising that her long-awaited fourth record may not be too far away.
The 27-year-old pop star – real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor – hasn’t released a record since Solar Power in 2021, but just months after releasing her first single in three years, it appears the star is teasing her long-awaited fourth album.
Taking to Instagram last night, the two-time Grammy winner shared a series of images of herself leaning over a balcony in a black dress, along with a cryptic caption.
“Use the existing tools wherever possible,” the Ribs singer wrote, followed by multiple symbols, including a copyright logo and three different L figures.
“If the tools do not exist you are spiritually obliged to create them,” she wrote, and completed her post with more cryptic symbols, that appeared to include a tarot card, the number 27, multiple stars, a shark, a rabbit and an Egyptian figure.
Fans were quick to take to the comment section with theories on what the post could mean, with many agreeing it could be a reference to her upcoming album.
“She saw my story asking for new music,” one person joked. “L4 Confirmed!” another wrote.
Referencing the second picture of Lorde spitting off a balcony, followed by the third photo of a pressed pill with the word “spit” on it, others theorised it could be a clue to the name of the record or a single. “So l4 or lead single is called spit ... question mark”.
Fans are speculating Lorde's long-awaited fourth album, or a single off it, could be called 'spit'. Photo / Instagram @lorde
“L4????? SPIT????” one wrote. “New single? Split?” a separate fan added.
Elsewhere in the post, Lorde shared an image of a group of books, including Playboy by Constance Debre, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield, and Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux.
The star also shared multiple images on her Story showing an extract from Haley Nahman’s writings on Substack.
Lorde shared images on her Instagram story as well. Photo / Instagram @lorde
Lorde wrote: “I got a lot from this piece by @halemur from her excellent newsletter, on the complexity of real vs virtual political demonstration, and celebrity political involvement.”
It’s unclear if the singer was merely showing her appreciation for the piece or whether she has taken inspiration from it for her music catalogue.
It comes after Lorde released a cover of Talking Heads’ version of Take Me to the River in March as part of the tribute recording of Stop Making Sense, a live album released by the American new wave band in 1984.
In the note, Lorde says she connected with the Talking Heads song in 2008 after her mum showed her a YouTube clip of the band performing on a TV show. The star admitted the video resonated with her at a time of her life that was swarmed with “discomfort” and an ambition to “express” herself.
“I don’t understand what I’m feeling,” she writes. “But I do understand the band in the grainy video live with the same strangeness that I do.
Lorde shot to fame in 2013 with the release of her debut album, Pure Heroine. Photo / AP
The singer recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary of her debut album, Pure Heroine. The 2013 record not only put her on the map with the hit single Royals but also won her two Grammy awards at the young age of 17.
In the years since she shot to stardom reaching international and critical acclaim, the Auckland local has gone on to release her second album, Melodrama, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, while her third album divided fans and critics despite reaching number one in Australia and New Zealand and high charting positions around the world.
In 2022, just one year after its release, the singer said at first she found the response to Solar Power “painful” and confessed she “learned a lot” during the process of creating the album and over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
