Lorde Finishing New Album: "Best I've Written in My Life"

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As she celebrates her 20th birthday Monday, Lorde is in New York finishing her sophomore album.

The singer around midnight gave fans an update in a letter marking her exit from teenaged life, something she's been "obsessed with" for most of her life, she admitted. "Even when I was little, I knew that teenagers sparkled," she wrote. "I knew they knew something children didn’t know, and adults ended up forgetting."

In the extended note, she mentioned the album has been largely informed by her transition into adulthood and her decision to withdraw from public life for much of the past year. "I turned inwards ... so I could learn more about who I was, and so I could let this new project show itself to me," she said.

Describing her year off the grid as an emotional and "colossal" one, Lorde said she for the first time "felt this intimate, empire-sized inner power ... then I wrote a record about it." Explaining her debut Pure Heroine as "enshrining our teenage glory," she said the upcoming album is "about what comes next."

"I want you to see the album cover, pore over the lyrics (the best I’ve written in my life), touch the merch, experience the live show. I can hardly stop myself from typing out the [album] name," she exclaimed, before cautioning she still needs some time to wrap up the record. "The big day is not tomorrow, or even next month realistically, but soon." 

Pure Heroine arrived in 2013. And it appears she may have been sitting on her new album title since back in December, when she tweeted on New Year's Eve that she had "whispered the album name to my mum."