On Tuesday, August 17th, the song and video for Lorde’s third Solar Power single, “Mood Ring,” was released. The visual has the pop star presenting as her blonde, nameless alter ego. This character is obsessed with today’s pseudo wellness/spirituality culture.
“It goes without saying I feel tons of empathy for this character,” she elaborated in an email bulletin sent to her mailing list subscribers right after “Mood Ring” premiered. “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.”
“When making this album I did a deep-dive into ’60s, Flower Child culture,” she explained further in a press release statement. “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.”
The video opens with a written cautionary statement reading, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear,” 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.
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.
Watch blonde Lorde’s sardonic “Mood Ring” music video here. The video is #21 on YouTube’s trending list and has over 1.5 million views.
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Photo Credit: Christian Bertrand / Shutterstock.com