“The Ultimate Nude”
Lorde’s new album cover features her IUD
“Lorde Summer” is approaching, at least according to all the cool hot sexy girls in NYC. A few weeks ago, Charlie XCX brought Lorde out as a surprise guest for weekend 1 of Coachella, hot off the heels of a TikTok Lorde posted with a snippet of her new song What Was That. I personally witnessed Charlie XCX’s weekend 2 performance, which ended in brightly lit screens on the Coachella main stage proclaiming the end of “Brat Summer” and the beginning of “Lorde Summer.”
I was 13 when Pure Heroine was released, and that album is forever immortalized in my mind as the soundtrack we screamed at our middle school dances and assemblies. Especially Royals. The harmonies she sings in the chorus along with the lyrics “baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule” made me and my friends feel like musical prodigies when we would sing them together. As a teenage girl in the 2010s, it was impossible NOT to be a fan of Lorde. She was one of very few musical artists names I would have even recognized at that age. Melodrama a few years later solidified her in my permanent rotation. Lorde feels like an artist that I’ve known my whole life. Her music has been there since the day I started to form my own preferences and playlists.
This new album of hers, however, has still captured my intrigue and excitement in a way I’ve never felt with her before. Pure Heroine was inescapable. It played in every H&M and grocery store. Melodrama played through me my first high school crush and the subsequent break up. Her music was always just there. Solar Power was when I drifted from her, as she was largely drowned out by the sound of Red (Taylor’s Version). But this new album feels like I’ve found her music for the first ever once again, just like it felt when I was 13. It’s been 12 years and both of us- me and Lorde- are in our mid 20’s now. Both of us have gone through years full of both success and failure, self discovery, and changes in gender identity. And somehow, throughout it all, we’ve ended up in the same place. Though only one song has been released so far, I KNOW this new album is going to hit for me.
Let’s talk aesthetics.
the album is titled “Virgin” and the cover is a X-Ray photograph of Lorde’s pelvis. The first things you notice are the zipper, belt buckle, and button which are unusual to see in an x-ray since you usually need to remove anything metal from your body before taking an x-ray for medical purposes. So the placement of the belt and zipper immediately strike me as extremely intentional. What you might not notice upon first inspection is the tiny T-shaped object located just to the right of the zipper. If you don’t know what it is, you might assume it’s just part of the blue background. However, as the “birth control girl” on TikTok, I’m trained for this exact scenario. I, and many other girls, know this T-shaped object to be an IUD. In combination with the album’s title, the zipper, belt, and buckle, I find the inclusion of the IUD very interesting. In my opinion, it’s the main focus of the cover, despite it not being the first thing you notice.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition of nudity and modesty. Lorde herself called it “the ultimate nude” in a recent interview. A nude, and yet she is fully clothed- belt and all. She has 4 layers of protection- the belt, the button, the zipper, and finally, the IUD. However, an IUD is notably NOT protection against sex. It’s protection against PREGNANCY for sexually actively individuals. Of course, an IUD can also be used solely for the purpose of managing hormones and periods. My IUD has made my periods MUCH less painful and I love it for that. Still, I don’t think that’s the message Lorde is conveying with the placement of her IUD on her album cover. I think it’s a direct contradiction to the title of the album, “Virgin.” Lorde is not a Virgin. Actually, I think once we get the full album it will become clear that the message and imagery of “Virgin” is going to align more with the idea of a “born again virgin.” And I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be sex SPECIFICALLY that she’s a born again virgin for. I think it’s going to be more of the concept of self, fame, her career, and possibly drug addiction. She’s reborn with a new identity, a new gender expression, and a new relationship with her fans and her fame.
But it’s more than that.
In today’s world, there are SO many conversations surrounding birth control, pregnancy, and a woman’s role in a traditional family. In the US, our current administration has launched countless attacks on a women’s access to birth control. Just last month, budget cuts made by Trump ended access to contraception for millions of women. There is also a growing movement of women online telling young girls to get off their birth control and instead use more traditional methods of pregnancy prevention.
“It’s these women influencers—not doctors and actual experts—who have more recently been pushing video after video promoting unreliable methods of ‘natural birth control’ and getting millions of views, Fortune reported in September. Videos with the search term ‘rhythm method’ combine for nearly a billion views. Fertility awareness methods, or FAM, have increasingly become a trendy TikTok challenge akin to bleaching your eyebrows, premised on the supposed danger of birth control.” - Kylie Chung for Jezebel
Here’s what I have to say to that- we know exactly how well those traditional methods worked. Tracking your periods and ovulation cycle is a good thing, but it’s not a foolproof method of preventing pregnancy. Millions of women- ESPECIALLY young girls- don’t even have a regular enough period to track. Birth control is an incredible modern invention. It’s not perfect. I wish it was better. Studies have come out recently exposing just how little research has been done surrounding women’s health in general. I hope that in the very near future, methods of birth control that don’t have a million negative side effects will be available. For now, though, birth control has done so much good for women. A women’s right to choose whether or not she wants to be on birth control for WHATEVER reason that may be- because she doesn’t want to have a baby, because she wants to control her period, or because she has other health issues birth control can help manage- needs to be protected.
Lorde’s album cover is, essentially, a vulnerable celebrity endorsement for birth control.
Here’s a TikTok video I posted on the day of the reveal that sums up my thoughts nicely (and has almost 900k views, signally that others must feel the same):
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I am so excited to hear more of Lorde’s new album. I have high hopes for the general feel and vibe of the music, and i know for certain the production quality will not disappoint either. It already feels like a positive cultural moment, judging by Lorde’s NYC meetup that not only looked like tons of fun, but also ended up being the music video for the new song and resulted in tons of viral moments posted to TikTok:
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I’m anxiously awaiting the album, I personally am hoping for one or two songs long the same honest and vulnerable vibe of Charlie XCX’s I Think About It All The Time, a song discussing Charlie’s thoughts regarding motherhood and childbirth. I hope that this album creates more conversations around birth control, sex, pregnancy, and gender. I’m ready for Lorde summer!!
I love the way you blended the fun and the music and the aesthetic analysis with the seriousness of the political climate in the US around contraception. Very well done 🥰