Grab your headphones and your existential dread—Lorde has returned from her moody music cave to bless us with new sad girl bangers!
At the strike of midnight (yes, like Cinderella but with more eyeliner and fewer pumpkins), 28-year-old Grammy magnet and indie pop’s unofficial spiritual guide, Lorde, dropped her shiny new track “What Was That”—and honestly, WE DON’T KNOW, but we love it.
The song kicks off like a teenage fever dream you barely remember but still blame for your emotional damage. She sings, “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up,” which is, you know, definitely not about a backyard BBQ. Then it gets even more chaotic-romantic with: “We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that?” Ma’am. That was dehydration. Please hydrate.
She goes full dramatic goddess with “This is the best cigarette of my life,” which is just SO Lorde. She could make coughing on nicotine sound poetic. “Indio haze, we’re in a sandstorm,” she continues, presumably while standing in a wind machine looking fierce and vaguely haunted.
The whole thing feels like watching an A24 film while journaling your heartbreak under moonlight. And we’re OBSESSED.
And don’t worry, she didn’t just drop audio vibes—she also blessed us with a music video filmed around New York City. Yes, the city that never sleeps got even more insomnia when Lorde strolled through in her mystical energy, looking like a whimsical urban ghost with a record deal.
This new track is her first solo bop since Solar Power (a.k.a. her barefoot sunshine era) back in 2021, and it’s leading the charge into her next album—aka the fourth chapter in our collective emotional unraveling.
So go listen, cry in the shower, text your ex, delete the text, and scream into the void.
WHAT WAS THAT? That, my friend, was Lorde. And she’s not just back—she’s serving feels with a side of poetic trauma. 💔✨
