New Single from Lorde Addresses Gender Identity

Lorde has sparked some gender-related conversation orbiting her new album. The New Zealand pop star’s latest single from her upcoming album Virgin is titled “Man of the Year,”  and the announcement comes hot on the heels of a deeply honest interview regarding her gender identity with Rolling Stone.

Lorde took to her socials on May 19, announcing her new single with the cover—an intimate shot of the singer with duct tape across her chest—and the caption “Man Of The Year. An offering from really deep inside me. The song I’m proudest of on Virgin. Out next week. Shot by Talia Chetrit.” The single cover appears to reference her recent Met Gala look with Thom Browne, which she said at the time was an Easter egg for a project.

This comes in combination with an admission made during an interview with Rolling Stone in which Lorde revealed that she considers herself to be “in the middle gender-wise.” When asked to clarify, she said that she recently had a conversation with her friend (and the current reigning queen of queer pop), Chappell Roan, in which Roan asked Lorde if she identified with the label of nonbinary. She replied, “I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man,” followed by “I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.”

She says that while working on this project, she practiced what she calls “the ooze”—letting the writing take up every part of your life—and said that “(her) gender got more expansive when (she) gave (her) body more room.” She also says that this album, Virgin, really explores themes of gender broadening and was sparked by her decision to go off of hormonal birth control for the first time since she was 15 years old. She said that doing so made her feel like she had “cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity.”

As her close friend/former frenemy/”Girl, so confusing” co-creator Charli XCX put it during her Coachella set, it’s about to be a Lorde summer in 2025, and we’re here for it, especially when it’s breaking down gender expectations in mainstream music.

Author’s note: This article uses she/her/hers pronouns for Lorde, as she has not yet openly addressed any changes to her preferred pronouns or gender identity at the time of writing.