Lorde, the enigmatic pop powerhouse from New Zealand, is making headlines again—this time not just for her music, but for a creative resurgence that promises to break old patterns and thrill fans worldwide. On December 17, 2025, Lorde announced she’s already working on new material, vowing that the agonizingly long waits between her albums are a thing of the past. This pledge comes just as she wraps up the American leg of her ambitious ‘Ultrasound’ world tour, a run that’s been as much about self-confrontation as it’s been about celebration.
For those who’ve followed Lorde since her 2013 debut Pure Heroine, the news is a welcome shift. Her last album, Virgin, landed in June 2024, four years after its predecessor—a gap she’s now determined not to repeat. According to Variety, Lorde told fans she has “thrown the gauntlet down,” promising, “the next wait will not be another four years.” She described herself as “creatively insatiable,” making it clear she’s not taking a break anytime soon.
This burst of productivity isn’t happening in a vacuum. The ‘Ultrasound’ tour, which recently drew 20,000 fans to a basketball arena in Philadelphia, has been both a showcase for Virgin and a crucible for Lorde’s evolving artistry. The tour’s staging is stripped-down, almost anti-spectacle, with a single screen stretched across the back of the stage and dancers whose movements are sometimes more tongue-in-cheek than grandiose. The band is largely invisible, allowing Lorde’s presence—and her message—to take center stage. As The Atlantic observed, the presentation feels “more like a work of conceptual theater than a pop concert.”
But it’s not just the visuals that have shifted. Lorde’s performances on this tour have been raw, vulnerable, and at times, almost confrontational. During “Broken Glass,” she pulls at her belt, reenacting the painful rituals of body scrutiny that once dominated her life. At other moments, she removes her jeans and T-shirt, standing before the audience in only a tank top and boy shorts, her midsection filmed and projected across the stage. It’s a bold gesture, one that transforms her past struggles with body image into a form of communal catharsis. The belly she once fixated on shrinking becomes, in her words and actions, a symbol of survival and acceptance.
Virgin itself is a fearless document. The album finds Lorde, now 29, grappling with gender identity, an eating disorder, and the end of a seven-year relationship with a much older music executive. Mirror imagery recurs throughout the record, but instead of offering clarity, these mirrors distort—reflecting not just her physical appearance, but the fractured sense of self that comes with fame. On “What Was That,” she covers up mirrors in a futile attempt to see herself as she really is. By “Broken Glass,” she’s lashing out at her own image, singing, “I wanna punch the mirror, to make her see that this won’t last.”
These themes aren’t just confined to the studio. In concert, Lorde’s willingness to bare her soul—and, at times, her body—has become a hallmark of the ‘Ultrasound’ experience. She often introduces the song “Liability,” a rare treat from her 2017 album Melodrama, with an unscripted monologue. These speeches, as noted by The Atlantic, are strikingly different from night to night, ranging from reflections on body acceptance (“right down to the acne scars on her face”) to expressions of gratitude for being able to perform in large venues again. At times, she shares anecdotes about local bookstores or muses about the anxieties of living in an uncertain world. “She never knew if she’d be able to play venues this size again,” one concertgoer recalled, “and she talks about how lucky we are to have this moment, together, in this place.”
This unfiltered approach stands in stark contrast to the carefully choreographed spontaneity of many pop spectacles. While artists like Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen have mastered the art of scripted “surprise” moments, Lorde’s monologues feel genuinely in-the-moment—“reports from a work still very much in progress.” She seems as thrilled to be on stage as her fans are to see her, often breaking into a grin as if to say, “Can you even believe this?”
The ‘Ultrasound’ tour, which concludes its American run at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on December 23 and 24, has been more than just a series of concerts. It’s been a living art project, one that blurs the line between performer and audience, spectacle and introspection. The tour’s minimalist aesthetic draws inspiration from conceptual theater—one reviewer compared it to Kip Williams’ adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the protagonist’s obsession with his own image leads to his undoing. Yet, instead of being destroyed by her reflection, Lorde confronts it head-on, using her platform to explore the complexities of self-perception in the age of hypervisibility.
Industry insiders are watching closely. Lorde’s commitment to a faster creative cycle signals a new chapter, one that could redefine her place in modern pop. She remains a defining voice, her music resonating with a generation that sees its own struggles reflected in her lyrics. The promise of more frequent releases is music to the ears of fans who have waited—sometimes impatiently—for each new installment.
As Lorde herself hinted when teasing Virgin, this latest phase is “the sound of my rebirth.” But she’s quick to acknowledge that rebirth is an ongoing process, not a single event. “I try to let whatever has to pass through me pass through,” she sings. It might be too much, but it won’t ever be enough—a sentiment that captures both the restlessness of her creativity and the hunger of her audience.
With her ‘Ultrasound’ tour nearly complete and new music already in the works, Lorde stands at the threshold of yet another transformation. For an artist who’s always treated her career as an evolving art project, the future looks as unpredictable—and as thrilling—as ever.
