Lorde says Charli XCX influenced her upcoming album: “‘BRAT’ coming out really gave me a kick in a lot of ways”

Lorde has spoken about how collaborating with Charli XCX influenced her upcoming album, ‘Virgin’.

• READ MORE: Lorde’s ‘What Was That’ takes us back to the dancefloor for another emotional, electric journey

The New Zealand singer will drop her highly-anticipated record on June 27 via Republic, where it will be her latest album since 2021’s ‘Solar Power’. So far, Lorde has shared the nostalgic lead single ‘What Was That‘ in April.

Now, Lorde has opened up about her surprise remix collaboration with Charli XCX on her song ‘Girl, so confusing’, telling BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders that the song did inspire ‘Virgin’.

“‘BRAT’ coming out really gave me a kick in a lot of ways,” she told Saunders. “It forced me to further define what I was doing because Charli had so masterfully defined everything about ‘BRAT’ and I knew that what I was doing was very distinct to that.

“When a peer throws the gauntlet down like that, you’re like ‘OK, yeah, we’ve gotta pick it up’. I’ve spoken to a lot of peers who’ve all had the same feelings. It’s very sick and I’m so grateful to her.”

Lorde went on to say that she had been writing “in this very naked way”, and the ‘Girl, so confusing’ remix encouraged her to continue in this direction. “‘BRAT’ came out and she was doing that from the other side of the coin almost and doing the remix together and meeting her in that place of rugged vulnerability and cracking open the thing,” she said. “People responded really well to that – I was like ‘OK, cool, this is a good thing to be doing’.”

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The ‘Girl, so confusing’ remix first came around when Charli admitted Lorde served as partial inspiration for the original lyrics, admitting she was “super jealous” of her song ‘Royals’ and its success.

This jealousy is what inspired the song’s pre-chorus: “People say we’re alike / They say we’ve got the same hair / We talk about making music / But I don’t know if it’s honest”.

A few weeks after the release of ‘Brat’, Charli unveiled a new version of the track, this time featuring Lorde. The track would feature a memorable verse from Lorde, who opened with: “Well, honestly, I was speechless / When I woke up to your voice note / You told me how you’d been feeling / Let’s work it out on the remix”. 

Charli would go on to say the remix was actually Lorde’s idea, recalling: “The day before the record came out, I left her a voice note. [Lorde] replied straight away and was like, ‘Oh, my God, I had no idea you felt this way. I’m so sorry.’ And then was like, ‘You know, maybe I should be on a version of the song.’ I didn’t even ask her. She brought it up.

“So much of this rollout was planned, but sometimes it was not,” she concluded. “Lorde’s remix of ‘Girl, so confusing’ is a perfect example. That wasn’t planned. It took three days total.”

In response, Lorde called working with Charli “such a huge honour”, adding: “I love that we truly did work it out on the remix. There’s something very brat about that, something very meta and modern. Only Charli could make that happen.”

In other news, watch Gracie Abrams cover Lorde’s ‘Liability’ in Auckland.

The post Lorde says Charli XCX influenced her upcoming album: “‘BRAT’ coming out really gave me a kick in a lot of ways” appeared first on NME.