Having only just recently celebrated her twenty-first birthday, the New Zealand singer Lorde has not only won several dozens of iconic awards and nominations but is also a two-time Grammy winner. She performed “About a Girl” for the Nirvana opening ceremony in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, oversaw the soundtrack for the blockbuster film “The Hunger Games,” her wax figure adorns Madame Tussaud’s in Hollywood and the young singer has made it as a character in the “South Park” TV series. All in all, Lorde has become an international phenomenon. While performing at Glastonbury in the summer of 2017, Lorde opened with her militant hit “Homemade Dynamite” and ended the show with the dance track “Green Light”, the main hits from her fresh new album “Melodrama”. Her latest album was recognized by “NME” magazine as the album of the year and was nominated for yet another Grammy in 2018.
Be it on the stage or in the studio, Lorde does not play any musical instruments but chooses to focus on her voice. She writes all her own lyrics and composes the songs herself. Transparent and at times minimalistic arrangements leave centre stage for her hypnotic vocals and exceptionally wide pitch range. “Royals”, “Perfect Places” and “Yellow Flicker Beat”… all of her hits are not simply your average pop songs but instead they are audio jewels in which voice and words come together to create multidimensionality. According to David Bowie, listening to her music “felt like listening to tomorrow.”
Lorde often criticizes mass pop culture even though she, herself, takes inspiration from Grimes, Tom Yorke, The Weekend and Nicky Minage as well as thanks Kendrick Lamar for using “cheeky intonations” in his work. However, Lorde’s “ideal album” is Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumorous”, which was a gift from her parents (engineer Vic O’Connor and poetess Sonya Jelic).
Born Ella Maria Jelic-O’Connor, in her youth, she was fascinated by the aristocracy. This inspired her stage name, adding the letter “e” to the too masculine “Lord”. Making her stage debut in local talent shows, at twelve she already attracted the attention of music industry recruiters and by fourteen she became independent enough to write and sing her own songs. She celebrated her 16th birthday by uploading the debut EP “The Love Club” to the cloud for free download. When the number of downloads exceeded 60,000, it was reissued in March 2013 for sale. The mini-album was a hit in Australia and New Zealand, and the single “Royals”, released later on, topped the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for nine weeks. This made Lorde the youngest debut artist since 1987 to stay at the top of the US chart.
The two Grammys that followed this simply confirmed the existence of another star-studded teenager. Lorde managed to change the landscape of popular music, staying away from stereotypical production tricks. Even fans of the singer admitted that her work is a weighty argument against accusations of “deadlock”, “superficiality” and “insolvency” that is often the case on the modern pop scene.
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