Lorde’s 2017 album Melodrama debuted at No. 1 and received widespread critical acclaim. The success would be a dream come true for many artists, but Lorde said the dizzying fame became too much. She stepped back from that version of herself for a time, but ultimately realized she wasn’t being true to herself.

Lorde said she had to step back from fame after ‘Melodrama’

Lorde released her second album, Melodrama, in 2017. It received a nomination for Album of the Year at the Grammys. She began to feel overwhelmed by the exuberant reaction.

“This thing that was my hobby that I did after school is now, like, my employment, and I employ all these other people,” she said on the Therapuss podcast, per People. “It’s gotten too big. Like, I’m a kid.”

She decided to step back, and moved home to New Zealand.

“[I] had this moment of being like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do all of that. I’m going to be this girl who’s sort of off the map and really mysterious and even more distant.’”

She created her next album, Solar Power, while in this “joyful and chill” headspace. Ultimately, though, she didn’t think the person she was when she released Solar Power was her true self.

“I love Solar Power so much, and I truly needed to make it. I wouldn’t be here with another album if I hadn’t made Solar Power, but I think it showed me that you have no choice but to be who you’re supposed to be,” she said, adding, “Me disappearing and being all wafty and on the beach, I was like, ‘Actually, I don’t think this is me.’”

Instead, she thinks she needs to make gut-punching “bangers.”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to vibe out, and it was kind of sad for me ‘cause I love to vibe out,” she said. “That is me to my core. In an alternate universe where I just lived in New Zealand and worked at an organic farm or something, that would be my vibe. But it’s not the life for me, I think, right now.”

Her newest album, Virgin, came out June 27.