“Mood Ring” by Lorde

"Mood Ring" arrived in August 2021 as the third single from Solar Power, Lorde's third album, where it sits as the eleventh track. She wrote and produced it with Jack Antonoff, who handles nearly everything in the room: acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keyboards and drums, with Matt Chamberlain also on the kit. Phoebe Bridgers, Clairo, James Milne and Marlon Williams drift in on backing vocals, and Spike Stent mixed it.

The subject is wellness culture. While making the album Lorde went deep into the flower-child dream of dropping out and starting over on a commune, and she saw the same hunger in today's boom in spirituality and self-care, the genuine and the pseudo alike. She built a light, breezy song around that thought, and trailed its release by posting a mood ring chart on her website.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.