Presumably a question asked by someone walking by Washington Square Park a few weeks ago…

[Video]
[7.00]

Claire Davidson: Melodrama has already been rightly canonized as one of the definitive albums of the 2010s, so it makes sense that she would eventually return to that creative well — even more so, given that, due to that album’s contrast with the sleepy Solar Power, the length of time between “What Was That” and Lorde’s previous releases feels even longer than it is. Unfortunately, “What Was That” feels more like a B-side from Melodrama than an innovation on its source material, working with the same palette of icy, pummeling synth beats without ever allowing for a cathartic collision of those sonic elements. I suppose that ambivalence is somewhat intentional, given that the song’s primary emotion is one of confusion, as Lorde attempts to process a long-term relationship that, while clearly meaningful to her, remains difficult to define due to its sudden bursts of startling intimacy. Perhaps that, too, explains the overwritten chorus, where she magnifies scenes from that romance with disruptively specific detail, all in service of revelations that feels underpowered by comparison. Why take the time to mention exactly how you phrased an observation about a cigarette just to make a fairly standard analogy between love and addiction? This is the folly of attempting to recapture the spark of an album made by a teenager eight years after the fact: every decision that differs from the original article reads as conspicuously controlled, anathema to the spirit of reckless hedonism that made Melodrama so enthralling.
[6]

Alfred Soto: She may have listened to Taylor Swift for how to organize the breathless recollection of an MDMA rush (including the awesomeness of that first cigarette), but the savviness — savvy because inevitable — with which it leaps towards melodrama recalls the “Green Light” era — but just enough. 
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: My thesis since Melodrama at least has been that Lorde’s music is better the worse it is. She’s at her best on songs like this — her first-draft-ish lyrics spilling over the bars they belong in, her voice threatening to overwhelm Jim-E Stack’s threadbare production. Everything sounds cheap and ephemeral, regardless of whether it actually was; I thought that there was something wrong with the mix when I first heard the chorus, but as I’ve played this again and again that blown-out quality becomes more and more charming. Lorde has always been one of our most obviously pathetic singer-songwriters, and here she’s flailing and bewildered, drawing us into her world with a soothingly lived-in chaos.  
[9]

Leah Isobel: I have to put it to record that I do not particularly care for Melodrama — it’s too self-conscious, every gesture over-scrutinized and intellectualized into absolute lifelessness. It made perfect sense to me that Lorde would follow that album with Solar Power, a whispered “fuck you” to expectations and fans; in retrospect, that album might have done its job too well, because now Lorde simply can’t win. “What Was That” is a clear pander to the Melodrama audience of city-dwelling girls and evil gay guys, and yet the response has been remarkably muted, even annoyed. “How dare you give us what we want,” they say. “Give us what we don’t know we need!” It’s extra-funny because, to my ears, this is the best Lorde single since “Green Light.” The refined, concise dramatic structure here provides pop momentum without fuss, showing rather than telling us that Lorde Has Gotten Older. But the past has weight, and her performance — spiky, rhythmic, sleek — articulates that weight. She smartly underplays the line “I try to let whatever has to pass through me / Pass through,” before getting crushed by memories again: the intellect wiped out by the emotions it tries to contain. Lorde, straight-A pop student and Voice Of A Generation (eyeroll), finally allows herself the possibility of failure; I wouldn’t say she lets herself take it, but progress is progress.
[7]

Al Varela: I feel as if Lorde’s music is very dependent on where she currently is in her life. Right now she’s finding herself reinvigorated after a rough period of self-doubt and body dysphoria, and you can hear a more spirited and excited person that wasn’t there during Solar Power. She’s excited to get back into making pop music, and it’s resulted in a pretty good song! Not a great one, admittedly. The production has momentum, but not the release of emotion that made the best of Melodrama so special. I kept waiting for the song to explode and it never does. It’s a good song at its core, but it needs a push to live up to its potential. Hopefully that can happen with subsequent singles. 
[7]

Jel Bugle: I think watching some plants grow in the garden would be much more fulfilling than taking MDMA in the garden, but don’t ask me, what do I know of exciting and famous lifestyles? I’m always here to give advice though. Anyway, this song is not that good, and it was just there, and I didn’t really like it that much
[5]

Mark Sinker: I’ve somehow ended up consistently missing out on how Lorde actually sounds, the routine her of her —  maybe because she arrived and has stayed so pre-festooned with discourse that I’m always “hmmm later for this, I’m sure it’s important but I’ll need to schedule a free day for it.” As a result, catching up quick is all sidetracking rabbit holes, like being distracted for an hour by the 2018 PowerPoint where she wrecked Hillary’s presidential bid (key page here, as I assume all but me already knew). Anyway, I like the way she sings “in the city”; it reminds me of my youth in the early ’80s, and so do these softly tapping synth-sounds. In fact the whole song ditto ditto kinda, though perhaps my friends’ youth more than mine maybe. And this makes me think of them and be sad about some of them. I will never be that age again and they will never be any age again.  
[7]

Ian Mathers: A friend of mine once said, “The moment of truth is a lie.” He was being funny. I keep looking for it. I’ve had a few. But you can’t explain it. It’s deeply moving, and yet then when it’s over, you’re back in the street again, saying, what the hell happened? What the hell happened? What was that flash of light? I want it again.
[9]

Nortey Dowuona: A wistful gasp of relevance.
[7]