‘Mood Ring’: Lorde Goes Blonde
Image Courtesy: Vogue
Recently, Lorde dropped her single Mood Ring. The dazed person singing in the spa-like video isn’t a representative of Lorde, but it’s her blonde, nameless alter ego, whose character is obsessed with today’s pseudo wellness/spirituality culture.
At the beginning of the video there is a cautionary statement reading, “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear,” this appears before a platinum-haired Lorde opens her eyes and begins to sing about the woes of connecting to one’s feelings in the modern age. The airy, guitar-led track both lightly mocks the promotion of a phony holistic lifestyle and sympathizes with people who find comfort in that same lifestyle.
Soon after Mood Ring premiered, the singer sent out an email bulletin to her mailing list subscribers and elaborated saying, “It goes without saying I feel tons of empathy for this character.” She went on to say, “It was never my intention to fully flame her, although I don’t let her off the hook. We’re living through wild times, and it’s tough to begrudge anyone the methods they employ to feel sane, questionable though they may be.”
Image courtesy: That Grape Juice
Lorde’s Solar Power is set to release on 20th August. Fifteen minutes before Mood Ring premiered on YouTube; the singer hosted a live stream and answered questions about the upcoming album. During the live stream which was attended by more than 25,000 fans, she prepared them for the slightly silly portrayal of modern spirituality that they were about to see. She said, “I sort of underwent something of a transformation for this video because the song is satirical. I was writing from the perspective of a character who is not me, although I have at times shared some of her traits. She’s very cool, I love her vibes.”
According to reports from Billboard, during the live stream, Lorde also answered fan questions about the new song and album, saying “Mood Ring” strikes her sound-to-color synesthesia as being a light lilac color, and revealing that “Oceanic Feeling” — the last song she wrote for the record — is probably her favorite track off Solar Power. She also showed her new sticker collection, which she plans on keeping in her bag and doling out to fans she meets in public.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia
The New Zealand-born artist also talked in more detail about the meaning behind “Mood Ring,” explaining it’s in part a “metaphor for the magical thinking we employ at times to feel well.” She said she sometimes catches herself doing things like “bending” her horoscope to fit what she needs to be told in the moment, an example of how she relates to the temptation to buy into spirituality.
“When making this album I did a deep-dive into ’60s, Flower Child culture,” said the singer. “One thing that occurred to me as a major parallel between that time and our time is our wellness culture and our culture of spirituality, pseudo-spirituality, wellness, pseudo-wellness. Things like eating a macro-biotic vegan diet or burning sage, keeping crystals, reading tarot cards or your horoscope. These were all things that they were dabbling in back then, and that me and my girlfriends are dabbling in today.”
Watch Mood Ring here:
-Aditi
