A year after we entered global isolation due to COVID, Ella Yelich-O’Connor resurfaced to tell us she’d stopped taking calls. On 2021’s polarizing Solar Power, she threw her cellular device in the ocean, began healing under the sun’s UV rays, and started reckoning with herself as the one of the world’s most beloved pop stars after two critically acclaimed albums. “Teen millionaire having nightmares from the camera flash/ Now I’m alone on a windswept island,” she sang on “The Path,” over dreamy guitar plucks and flute flutters. Though she might’ve looked like “a prettier Jesus” with endless disciples, (the) Lorde was questioning the mythology built around her: “If you’re looking for a savior, well that’s not me.”
