Man of the Year (Lorde song)

"Man of the Year" is a song by New Zealand singer and songwriter Lorde. It was released on 29 May 2025 through Universal and Republic Records as the second single from her fourth studio album Virgin (2025). Written and produced by Lorde and Jim-E Stack, the song was announced by the singer on social media on 20 May 2025.^[3]

Lyrically, "Man of the Year" deals with gender identity and self-discovery, and was written when Lorde was exploring her gender expression after attending a GQ party in November 2023.^[4][5] Its accompanying music video, where the singer tapes her naked chest and dances in a loft filled with soil, was noted by critics as symbolising themes of bodily autonomy, self-expression and gender fluidity.^[6][7]

Lorde announced the release of her new single "Man of the Year" through a teaser clip posted on Instagram, revealing it would arrive on 29 May 2025, alongside a music video.^[8] Serving as the second single from her upcoming album Virgin, the track follows April's lead single "What Was That".^[9] Prior to the song's release, Lorde shared that the song explores themes related to her evolving sense of gender identity, which she began to better understand after discontinuing the use of oral contraceptives.^[10]

In an interview with Australian radio show Triple J, Lorde shared that she began writing the song with Jim-E Stack the day after she attended a GQ 'Men of the Year' party in November 2023.^[11] Before writing "Man of the Year", Lorde was sitting on her living room floor, "trying to visualize a version of herself that was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment." What she envisioned was herself in men's jeans, wearing only a gold chain and duct tape on her chest—an image she said felt raw and impermanent.^[12] The cover art for the single depicts Lorde wearing blue jeans, topless with her chest taped down by silver duct tape.^[13] The day prior to the song's release, Lorde staged a pop-up event in Auckland, New Zealand, in which she played the song for fans in a YMCA bathroom.^[14]

Vulture's Fran Hoepfner praised the track, and called it "anything but an artistic retread" that "takes all that's made the last three albums great and funnels it into one whole song".^[15] In a mixed review, Walden Green of Pitchfork wrote that the song "doesn't have peaks or valleys; it goes up and up and up and then it's gone," and compared it to Lorde's "Green Light" and Frank Ocean's "Solo" which was covered by Lorde on the Melodrama World Tour.^[16]

A music video for the song was released alongside the track, directed by Grant Singer, which features Lorde dancing to the song with duct tape across her chest and dancing in sand in an empty loft.^[18] Writing for ARTnews, Tessa Solomon stated that "the tape becomes a means of liberation as she leaps, crawls, and cavorts through the dirt pile in a mad modern dance."^[17] Critics interpreted the video's setting as being an homage to the permanent art installation The New York Earth Room, an apartment filled with soil by artist Walter De Maria.^[17][15]

Adapted from Tidal.^[19]

• Lorde – composition, production, vocals
• Jim-E Stack – composition, production, engineering, bass guitar, drum programming, keyboards, synthesizer
• Koby Berman – additional engineering
• Tom Elmhirst – mixing
• Chris Gehringer – mastering
• Dev Hynes – bass guitar, cello
• Bailey Kislak – additional engineering
• Jack Manning – additional engineering
• Will Quinnell – mastering
• Eli Teplin – keyboards, piano