The music industry is ripe with pop stars. Britney, Ariana, Taylor - they've all inched their way to the top of the pop game with record breaking sales accompanying each album release. But it's not everyday that you see an artist that really stands out from the pop scene crowd and to become the unexpected, breakthrough star.
This was the lucky case of Lorde, the New Zealand singer who's hit debut single Royals was practically the only song that played on the radio back in the summer of 2013. Now, she's carved her own lane for herself as in the art pop genre as one of most listened to singers in the game.
A Protégé is Born
Lorde was born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor on November 7th, 1996 in Auckland, New Zealand. Some people may not be aware that her mother is acclaimed poet Sonja Yelich. Sonja went to great lengths to make sure her daughter was the brightest she could be. The lyrical singer's prowess that's garnered her the massive success she has to day can certainly be acquainted to the knowledge and culture passed onto her by her gifted mother.
"I guess my mum influenced my lyrical style by always buying me books. She’d give me a mixture of kid and adult books too, there weren’t really any books I wasn’t allowed to read. I remember reading Feed by M.T. Anderson when I was six, and her giving me Salinger and Carver at a young age, and Janet Frame really young too," the singer recalls in an interview with Black Magazine, "We’d always discuss what I had read, which helped me form this really strong understanding of what I did and didn’t like about the ways different writers used words."
Her mother quickly found that she was a gifted child with exemplary intelligence. She spent a while at a school for the gifted. Though her mother pulled her out shorty after enrolling to put her in regular education system. During her formative years, she participated in speech and literature competitions. Though her true passion was, of course, music.
It didn't take long for Lorde to begin her career as a musician. At the ripe age of only thirteen, she was signed to Universal Music Group after her father sent the record label a tape of her singing at a talent show.
"All I had was ‘the voice,’ I wasn’t looking for anything more," she tells Music Connection, "Universal just caught me at a very, very young age."
The Song That Started It All
UMG's executive producer Scott Maclachlan teamed the young singer with songwriter and former Goodnight Nurse front man Joel Little. They hit off right away and started churning out songs in Little's Auckland studio, Golden Age Studio. They spent three weeks working on their debut EP, Love Club.
"We just got along really well, even outside of music, just chatting about stuff. It took us a couple of sessions before we even wrote a song really. We’d start ideas, but again it’s that thing of building a relationship so you feel comfortable to put your ideas forward," Little recalled in an interview with NZ Musician.
When they were ready to release the Love Club EP, Maclachlan was a bit skeptical about how well it would do. But his worries were quickly put to rest when the album was released in 2013 with rave reviews and thousands of downloads. The EP was a massive success, reaching the number 1 spot in New Zealand and Australia. Lorde's star quality was becoming increasingly apparent as she became the youngest singer to reach the #1 of Billboard's Hot 100 since the 1980's, according to TIME.
"It was such an era in my life," Lorde reflects in an interview with Triple J, "I was 16 to 18, which is such a pivotal time in everyone’s lives and mine was going to the Grammys, seeing all this crazy stuff, and the world being at my feet in this really exciting way. That will always be indelibly planted in my memory.
Royals went on to hold the number one spot for nine consecutive weeks and gained Lorde her first Grammy. Her seemingly overnight success lead her to signing a publishing deal with Sony Entertainment that same year. The deal was worth $2.5 million!
Not a One Hit Wonder
After Royals, Lorde went on to continue her journey towards stardom. She began collaborating with Fun's Jack Antonoff to create her second album Melodrama. Much like her debut album, Melodrama was an instant success. It granted the singer with a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. She wrote the album in the halfway point between her teenage years and her impending adulthood. The music showcased her growing maturity as an artist, as well as a person.
This year, she released a memoir entitled Going South which chronicles her long awaited trip to Antarctica. She's also raring up to release her highly anticipated third album, Solar Power, which will be available on August 20th.
Sources: Black Magazine, NZ Musician, TIME, Triple J