LAVA/Republic RecordsLorde has spoken a lot about how her upcoming album Melodrama is a document of her life as a new “adult,” but for her album cover, she specifically wanted to look like a teen.
According to the New Yorker, Lorde hired New York artist Sam McKinnis to paint the cover of Melodrama after meeting him through mutual friends and attending his exhibition “Egyptian Violet.” That exhibit featured McKinnis’ paintings based on photographs of pop culture people and things, including Prince, Laura Dern, Lil Kim, and Snoop Dogg.
McKinnis says he set up a photo shoot in a friend’s New York apartment. When Lorde arrived, she changed into a vintage negligée. “She was just ready for it,” McKinniss says. “She told me, ‘I want to be a teenager in my bedroom after a long night, at daybreak.’” He then painted the album cover from the photos he took.
Because Lorde credited McKinnis as the artist when she Instagrammed the album cover, he is now being bombarded with messages from Lorde fans, who’ve created their own interpretations of the painting, or done their makeup to approximate the image.
Melodrama will be released June 16.
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