Bow your heads and on your knees: Lorde is back.
After nearly four years of near-silence since 2021’s Solar Power — save for a Charli XCX collaboration — the New Zealand art-pop visionary has announced her return with “What Was That,” a tantalizing new single set for a worldwide premiere on April 24 at 12 midnight Eastern Time (12 noon Philippine time). True to her form, Lorde didn’t opt for a flashy social media rollout. Instead, she teased the track via her elusive newsletter, a move that sent her devoted fanbase into a frenzy.
But the real spectacle came when Lorde staged a guerrilla-style preview at Washington Square Park in New York, standing atop a platform in a white long sleeve, black bra, and blue jeans as giant speakers blasted the track to a hyped-up crowd. The moment was pure Lorde: spontaneous, intimate, and just rebellious enough to feel like a shared secret between artist and fans. As she danced and belted out the hook “Well baby, what was that?” it was clear that her signature blend of poetic introspection and sly pop sensibility hadn’t gone anywhere. The fact that authorities shut it down only added to the mystique.
Sonically, the snippet suggests a departure from Solar Power’s sun-bleached folk. There’s a synth-driven pulse here, something closer to the nocturnal thrum of Melodrama, but with a newfound house inflection. It’s a savvy pivot to where the house music’s emotional transparency suits Lorde’s lyrical sharpness, and the genre’s physicality could reignite the dancefloor intimacy she mastered on “Green Light.” Her recent Coachella Weekend 1 cameo alongside Charli XCX now reads as a clue to her new era, not a coincidence.
Timing the global release for lunchtime in Manila is a small but telling grace note. While other artists treat international audiences as afterthoughts, Lorde has always acknowledged her global listeners as equals which is a rarity in an industry obsessed with U.S. and U.K. charts.
The real question isn’t just “What Was That?” but what comes next.
