This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Jeanny Sánchez Gómez. Find them on Instagram at @jeanny_sanchez. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.

The fun thing about being a Lorde fan is that even when she disappears, she’s never truly gone. Whether she’s collaborating with other artists or keeping fans updated via her newsletter, she’s always in the background. Releasing music every few years, her peripheral presence makes fans go crazy as she teases new music. With her latest project announcement, here are some Lorde album predictions. 

Despite the teases and rumors swirling around about a fourth album, fans really had nothing to go on to guess what the next album would bring. She has build such an aura of mystery around her and even though fans anticipate an album release every four years, the only certainty we have is that her sound will definitely have changed from her last project. 

The hints started back in 2024. One day, fans noticed that her social media accounts had been wiped clean, and we all know that these social media blackouts almost always mean the start of a new era. Fans were left anticipating hearing anything from the singer, and again, one day we get a brief one-second sample of music on her Instagram stories along with pictures of studio sessions. 

The mystery and anticipation just keep building.

Amid her hints and silent album promotion, we get her collaboration with Charli XCX on “Girl, So Confusing” in 2024. Working it out with Charli on the remix that was dropped, that was the first that we heard more than snippets from Lorde in a long time. With this collaboration, there were some conspiracies that her new album would embrace more of a Charli sound, as fans never know what to expect, and that Lorde releasing EDM can never be too far-fetched. 

But it wasn’t until April 2025 that we finally got something solid from Lorde. April 9th, 2025, we get a new random TikTok account that people aren’t fully believing is actually her account until a video is posted of the singer strolling through the iconic Washington Park in New York City, while we got the first tease of her first single “What Was That.” With the lyrics, “Since I was 17, I gave you everything / Now we wake from a dream, well baby, what was that? / What was that?” fans were sucked into this new world.

Calling it the “second coming of Christ”, many fans, myself included, were so happy to be out of this drought. The thing that has to be appreciated the most about the way Lorde handles her album drops is that it is always subtle. Especially these past two years were I feel like many artists make such a spectacle out of album releases that are so fun to watch, Lorde’s approach to doing it almost quietly works perfectly for the persona she has built over the years. 

Once the lead single dropped, fans dissected the song front and back, trying to figure out the direction of the new sound. Many pointed out similarities that the song has with her sound on Melodrama from 2017. A big portion of her fans are excited for a return to the heaviness and metallic clashes that made Melodrama what it is, especially after the more acoustic Solar Power that followed in 2021. 

Now, one of the many things that Lorde fans appreciate about her music is her lyricism. Using some unforgettable metaphors and painting pictures of whatever situation she is going through, some fans thought the newest single was lackluster in the songwriting department. Many fans argue that, because of her powerful lyrics, the simplistic and straightforward lyrics were a hint that this album might be a lot more raw than her previous ones. No longer hiding behind her words, this era might bring fans into her world more than ever before. 

So far, though, the biggest surprise has been how far in advance she is releasing singles for the album when she has previously released singles and albums almost back-to-back. For Solar Power, the single and album announcements were released the same day through her newsletter to fans. Is this signaling the seriousness and vulnerability of the new album?

In this week’s Rolling Stone cover story, we were able to get some insight into the singer’s journey that resulted in Virgin, set to release in June 27. When the album title dropped, many theorized that the album was going to be full of new beginnings and reclaiming power, identity, and independence. 

“Virgin, her first album in four years, is raw, wild, and sublime. But it came after a series of personal changes and revelations — from a breakup to an eating disorder to an expanding gender identity. Now, she’s ready to talk about all of it” with a confirmation on what fans theorized, it only adds to the excitement of what she can have in store for the next era. 

She goes on to explain that “There are songs she forebodingly describes as ‘rugged,’  vulnerable, and messy, fitting for an artist who’s unlearning the conditioning that taught her to be digestible and ‘good’.”  While many of the rumours and predictions have started to be confirmed since Lorde stepped back into the spotlight, there is still so much that we don’t know. 

Musically, many can agree that Lorde is a game-changer any time she drops new music, with many younger singers like Gracie Abrahms and Olivia Rodrigo crediting her as in fluence in their music So, while yes the sound may sound similar to what we have already heard on Melodrama, I think the single was chosen to ease her fans back into her world, just for their view of her to be shaken up once we get the full project. Stating that “There’s going to be a lot of people who don’t think I’m a good girl any more,” releasing “What Was That” as her lead single feels like it’s not only a goodbye to the relationship she sings about, but the relationship that fans have had with her up to this point. 

With prediction after prediction on what we will get on Virgin, the last thing I’ll mention is that maybe we will finally move on from Brat summer and find ourselves under Lorde’s influence instead.