Lorde Celebrates ‘Virgin’ Anniversary by Releasing 49 ‘X-Ray’ Demos

To commemorate the first anniversary of her album Virgin, Lorde has released nearly 50 demos from the project alongside a deeply personal reflection on the record’s creation.

“While tidying up on Sunday night, I realized it has been almost a year since Virgin was released,” Lorde shared in a newsletter to her fans.

“I felt the need to mark the occasion. To be honest, I have struggled to find the right way to discuss Virgin since its debut. I thought I was used to the process of marketing and commodifying my emotions, but sharing this album felt uniquely vulnerable and exposing. I found myself retreating—interviewing poorly, struggling to write, and staying quiet. I think I needed that silence. It makes sense that such visceral work would resist being captured by words, but enough time has passed that I want to try again.”

In her message, Lorde opened up about the personal turbulence she faced during the Virgin era, including a breakup, an eating disorder, and a diagnosis of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). “I focused on singing to myself the way I needed to hear it,” she explained. “Slowly, I began to apply music and language to the stories I had been afraid to tell. Purging them through song made me feel lighter. Living within these tracks had an almost incantatory effect; I could feel myself changing.”

On her official website, Lorde has launched a new “XRAYS” section. Alongside photographs, sketches, and various notes from the Virgin era, she has shared 49 “skeletons”—early demo versions of songs that eventually became part of the album. While Lorde previously mentioned that some of her favorite tracks from that period did not make the final cut, those specific songs were not included in this demo collection.

“Last year, we experimented with the idea of making an album composed of these ‘skeleton’ versions—polished composites of different iterations,” Lorde wrote. “But this past Sunday, I realized that true ‘X-rays’ of Virgin should be more authentic, more humorous, and more revealing of the imperfections and tilts within the music.”

“Creating an album is an absurd undertaking,” she continued. “The level of self-absorption and conviction required can make you difficult to be around. You become completely submerged in your own world, perpetually on the brink of a breakthrough. For a long time, the work feels flawed; you have to endure that sense of wrongness to eventually find your way out. While the discomfort and monotony can be hard to navigate, creating Virgin was a profound gift every single day.”

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