Capital beat

As I wandered down towards Wellington's waterfront, a southerly at my back, the Most Interesting New Zealander played in my earbuds.

- Russell Brown

Lorde's fourth album, Virgin, is a confronting, visceral, clever, catchy 34 minutes. She has located her late 20-something feelings in her body and expressed them through a highly treated musical collage.

At a time when an AI-generated band has attracted a million listens to its generic slop on Spotify, Virgin feels like the opposite of what Al would come up with.

Somehow, this dense, provocative work has debuted at No 1 in the album charts of the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, and reached the top five in multiple other markets.Virgin may well change pop music the way her first album, Pure Heroine, did 12 years ago.