CULTURE

Primavera Sound 2022 Will Be The Year Of Our Lorde

Lorde is headlining the stage at the famed Barcelona music festival.


Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images.

Music festival lineup announcements always come with a degree of fanfare — especially when we’ve been starved of live music for over a year — but one headlining name is standing out on the Primavera Sound 2022 lineup. Lorde, our Kiwi gothic pop witchling, is slated to perform on the second weekend of the Barcelona-based fest. That, of course, can’t help but raise the question: does she have new music on the way?

This will be Lorde’s first return to the stage in two years after she went into a semi-hiatus prior to the pandemic. She teased new music in 2020, and while that cursed year came and went, 2022 looks like it will be the year of our Lorde. In the meanwhile, she took a trip to Antarctica and compiled photographs and musings from the visit into a book called Going South. Like many of us, she also mourned a loss — her beloved dog Pearl passed away in late 2019.

In addition, she also found time to revive her infamous onion rings-reviewing Instagram account, @onionringsworldwide.

Her last album, Melodrama, was released in 2017. At the 2018 Grammys, she protested the lack of recognition given to female musicians by the Recording Academy and wore a red Valentino tulle gown with one of artist Jenny Holzer’s Inflammatory Essays embroidered onto the back of her dress while she drank out of a flask. And while Melodrama was nominated for Album of the Year, she was not allowed to perform solo. With this kind of treatment from the music industry powers-that-be, it’s no wonder why she chose to stay out of the spotlight for the past couple of years.

The full Primavera lineup can be viewed here — fair warning, you’ll need fighter pilot vision to read it — and includes Megan Thee Stallion, Tame Impala, Dua Lipa, Beach House, and Kim Gordon, among many others. Lorde has not publicly remarked on the announcement, though W has reached out to her representation for comment.