Well, the heat is off Sabrina Carpenter.
Singer/songwriter Lorde releases her fourth studio album, “Virgin,” on Friday, June 27. While Lorde showed fans the album’s already-revealing cover in advance, social media users were shocked to see the NSFW interior art hidden inside.
The album cover for “Virgin” shows an X-Ray image of a pelvic region, with visible outlines of a zipper, belt buckle and IUD. Some fans already pegged the album’s cover as provocative — but were not prepared for the album art Lorde had yet to reveal.
Fans who got early copies of the album discovered a new picture inside the vinyl. The image, presumably of the same individual shown in the X-Ray, depicts a person wearing clear, plastic shorts, mostly unzipped, with their vulva and pubic hair on full display.
Social media, of course, is having a field day with it.
Many fans presume the image to be one of Lorde herself, immediately dubbing it a picture of her “Lordussy.” Some defended the singer’s choice of image and called out those condemning it as inappropriate. Others report being “jump scared” by the intimate interior art upon opening their albums.
You can see the (safe for work) reactions below.
The “Virgin” discourse follows a similar conversation surrounding Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover for “Man’s Best Friend.” Carpenter’s cover shows the singer/songwriter on her hands and needs with her hair being pulled by an unseen man figure. While many fans came to Carpenter’s defense, some viewed the album art as misogynistic and overly appeasing to the male gaze.
Many defenders noted the double standard applied to women in the arts, an idea Carpenter made fun of this week by releasing an alternate cover for Man’s Best Friend that is “approved by God.”
