Lorde shares 49 Virgin demos via X-RAYS project

On June 26, the anniversary of her Virgin album (a Friday), Lorde shares 49 Virgin demos via X-RAYS project. The X-RAYS project was created close to that date, with the idea born only a week before the anniversary. X-RAYS is available exclusively on her website and comprises nearly a hundred files that include the 49 demos plus never-before-seen photos and notes taken on her phone. The demos reveal alternative versions of tracks from the original Virgin album, including ‘Man of the Year,’ ‘Hammer,’ and ‘Current Affairs.’

The Virgin cover is an X-ray of Lorde’s pelvis, while the X-RAYS cover presents her during a medical appointment with her shirt lifted to reveal the X-ray. X-RAYS offers a behind-the-scenes look at the album’s creation. The music video for the first single ‘What Was That’ was filmed the night before its release on an iPhone and edited overnight. Lorde is starting a festival tour this summer with stops at Nuits de Fourvières in Lyon and Rock en Seine in Paris.

The X-RAYS project by Lorde features 49 demos, which are part of a larger collection of nearly a hundred files. These files include not only the demos but also never-before-seen photos and personal notes taken by Lorde on her phone. This project is available exclusively on her official website, giving fans unique access to content that was previously unseen.

The X-RAYS project offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creation process of her Virgin album, unveiling alternative versions of some of its tracks. Through this project, Lorde provides her audience with intimate insights into her artistic process and the evolution of her work, adding a personal touch to the Virgin album’s legacy.

The 49 demos shared as part of the X-RAYS project present alternative versions of tracks from the original Virgin album, with multiple recordings and variations included in the set. Specific songs that appear among these alternative versions include “Man of the Year,” “Hammer,” and “Current Affairs,” each represented by at least one demo recording. The demos are delivered within the X-RAYS collection as audio files alongside other items in the release, and they document different arrangements, takes, or states of the songs as collected for the project. The compilation of demos is confined to the X-RAYS release and is identified by its enumeration of forty-nine distinct demo files within that framework.

The 49-demo collection is embedded within a larger X-RAYS package that comprises nearly a hundred files in total, which additionally contains never-before-seen photographs and notes taken on Lorde’s phone. X-RAYS is made available exclusively on Lorde’s official website and groups the demos, images, and notes together under a single project presentation. The materials in the X-RAYS package are presented as archival or behind-the-scenes items related to the Virgin album, with the demos specifically noted as alternative or early versions of the album tracks. The release context for these demos is the X-RAYS project, which organizes the audio files alongside the other included documents and images.

The Virgin album cover is an X-ray image of Lorde’s pelvis, presented as the primary artwork for the Virgin album. The X-RAYS cover depicts Lorde during a medical appointment, showing her with her shirt lifted to reveal the X-ray image visible in the photograph. The two images are used as the official cover images for their respective releases, with the Virgin album displaying the X-ray itself and X-RAYS showing the X-ray within the appointment photograph. Both covers feature the X-ray motif in different visual formats as part of the album and project presentation.

The music video for the single “What Was That” was filmed on an iPhone the night before its release and was edited overnight ahead of publication. The video is identified as the first single related to the X-RAYS project and was released as part of the project’s rollout.

The recording and post-production timeline for the video was presented in the project’s accompanying information, which noted the rapid turnaround from filming to editing. The video was released alongside other X-RAYS materials that include 49 demos and nearly a hundred files of photos and notes.

The project materials were made available exclusively on Lorde’s official website.

Lorde shares 49 Virgin demos via X-RAYS project appears in the article as a focused release presenting forty-nine demo recordings from the Virgin era, identified within the X-RAYS package. The X-RAYS project is described as being available exclusively on Lorde’s official website and as comprising nearly a hundred files that pair those demos with never-before-seen photographs and notes taken on her phone.

The article notes that Lorde is starting a summer festival tour with scheduled stops at Nuits de Fourvières in Lyon and Rock en Seine in Paris, positioning the release alongside her forthcoming live appearances.

A quoted passage included in the article highlights the project’s artistic authenticity and frames the release as an instance of creative sharing, presenting that view as part of the coverage of X-RAYS.