User:De88/sandbox

Background
After concluding the North American leg of the Melodrama World Tour in May 2018, Lorde cleared out all her social media, leaving only three Instagram pictures and two tweets visible on her accounts. In November 2018, Lorde revealed in an email sent to fans via her newsletter subscription that she started learning how to play the piano and was outlining ideas for her forthcoming record. A year later, however, Lorde disclosed that she was indefinitely postponing work on her album due to the death of her dog Pearl after he suffered two cardiac arrests.

In March 2020, Australian radio station Triple J revealed the ranking spot of her 2013 song "Royals" on their Hottest 100 of the Decade contest. Lorde called in from the office of her New Zealand record label and revealed that “bits and pieces” of her upcoming album were "starting to take a very exciting shape". Two months later, the singer announced via her subscription newsletter that she was finishing Solar Power, still untitled at the time, and that she kept in communication with American producer Jack Antonoff, who assisted in the songwriting and production of her previous record. In July 2020, American producer Malay, who co-produced three songs on her last album, revealed to Reverb that he flew frequently to New Zealand to work with Lorde before the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike their production sessions on Melodrama, Malay and the singer "started from zero", which he described as "really unique and fun".

Music and lyrics
During a Beats 1 interview with New Zealand radio DJ Zane Lowe in November 2017, Lorde expressed her desire to improve her production and engineering skills within the following two years, and write and produce an entire record by herself within the next five years.