Lorde has shared that attending the GQ ‘Man Of The Year’ awards in 2023 played a part in her ongoing journey exploring gender.
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Lorde released her new song, ‘Man Of The Year’ – taken from her highly anticipated album ‘Virgin’ – late last month (May 30), alongside a deeply personal music video that sees her take off her top and bind her chest with duct tape.
The New Zealand singer has been frank about her gender becoming “more expansive”, and previous told Rolling Stone that the opening line of album’s first track on – which reads “Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man” – reflects her current headspace in terms of gender fluidity.
She explained that Chappell Roan had asked her about it, saying: “She was like, ‘So, are you non binary now?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.’ 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 also said that ‘Man of the Year’, “was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment.” The song was partially inspired by her experience of trying on a pair of men’s jeans and showing a picture of it producer Jim-E Stack: “He was like, ‘I want to see the you that’s in this picture represented in the music.’ This was before I had any sense of my gender broadening at all.”
She has since expanded on the creation of the song, recently telling Triple J that attending the GQ party two years ago triggered a gender revelation for her. “I had been feeling this expansiveness of gender happening for a while, and this was my first event that I’d been to in a while,” she said.
“I wore kind of like a ‘hot girl’ dress,” she added. The ‘Royals’ singer wore a form-fitting emerald green gown to the event, and later shared a story on Instagram telling fans: “Some days I’m a woman, some days I’m a man.”
“I felt so not like myself,” she continued. “And it was a really cool marker, especially being at this event that was celebrating all these cool guys, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m one of those guys, like, sometimes, when I wanna be. And I was like, ‘Whoa, I don’t think the hot-girl dress is the right device for this moment.’”
The next day, Lorde says she and producer Stack were in the studio “kind of hung over”, when she told him she wanted to pen a song about “how I’m the Man of the Year for me”.
Lorde via Instagram Stories:
“Some days I’m a woman, some days I’m a man”
(She attended GQ’s Men of the Year party) pic.twitter.com/JfK1xWhN7b
— Lorde Updates 🧬⛓️ (@LordeUpdatesBR) November 17, 2023
The release of the song and its accompanying video have seen Rahim Redcar (formerly known as Christine & The Queens) accuse the singer of copying work “without crediting me as an inspiration”.
Shortly after the video’s release, Redcar took to his Instagram story to react to it, writing: “To Lorde: I guess you’re welcome lol. So weird to see such constant elements of my work being digested and put forward without ever being credited as an inspiration.”
This may be in reference to the artist’s 2022 tour, in which he also used tape to cover his chest. “Erasure of my talent somehow happened because of my strange path? Do you think? What else was I supposed to do? Lie?.”
Meanwhile, Lorde also recently announced that she will be hitting the road again this year for some headline tour dates across the UK, Europe and North America in celebration of the album. These kick off in September in Austin, Texas, and run through to December, where the tour wraps up with a final stop in Stockholm. Majority of the shows are sold out.
Special guests for the shows include The Japanese House, Nilüfer Yanya, Chanel Beads, Empress Of and Oklou, as well as Blood Orange – with Devonte Hynes featuring on the album – and co-producer Jim-E Stack. Visit here for North American tickets and more information, and here for any remaining tickets and details for UK and European dates.
In the run-up to the album release and subsequent tour, Lorde has been sharing details about things that may have impacted her sound. These include candid discussions about her time overcoming eating struggles, and how the upcoming shows may be her “masterpiece”.
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