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Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde ( ), is a New Zealand singer and songwriter. She is known for her unconventional style of pop music and introspective songwriting, and has been referred to as the "Queen of Alternative".Multiple sources:
Lorde first gained recognition as a teenager during a talent show performance. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009 and began collaborating with producer Joel Little in 2011. Their first effort, an extended play (EP) titled The Love Club EP, was self-released in 2012 for free download on SoundCloud before it was commercially released in 2013. The EP's single, "Royals", topped charts in multiple regions and spent nine weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It sold 10 million units worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. Her debut studio album Pure Heroine was released that same year to critical and commercial success. The following year, Lorde curated for the 2014 film .
Lorde collaborated with producer Jack Antonoff for her second studio album Melodrama (2017), which received widespread critical acclaim and debuted atop the US Billboard 200. The album has since been ranked in Rolling Stone
Lorde's accolades include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, twenty Aotearoa Music Awards, and a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. She appeared in Times list of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30. In addition to her solo work, she has co-written songs for other artists, including Broods and Bleachers. , Lorde had sold over five million albums worldwide.
Lorde is the second of four children: she has an elder sister Jerry, a younger sister India, and a younger brother Angelo. They were raised in Auckland's North Shore suburbs of Devonport and Bayswater. At age five, she joined a drama group and developed public speaking skills. Her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence. More specifically, she cites the young adult dystopian novel Feed (2002) by M. T. Anderson as well as authors J. D. Salinger, Raymond Carver and Janet Frame for influencing her songwriting.
After a suggestion from a school instructor, her mother had her take the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities to determine her intelligence. The results concluded that Lorde, age six, was a gifted child. She was briefly enrolled at George Parkyn Centre, a gifted education organisation. Sonja unenrolled her, however, citing social development concerns. As a child, Lorde attended Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School. While attending Vauxhall, she placed third and first respectively in the North Shore Primary Schools' Speech competition, a national contest, in 2006 and 2007.
Lorde performed her original songs for the first time at the Victoria Theatre in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter, record producer, and former Goodnight Nurse lead singer. The pair recorded five songs for an extended play (EP) at Little's Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland, and finished within three weeks. While working on her music career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013, completing Year 12. She later chose not to return in 2014 to attend Year 13.
Lorde's debut studio album Pure Heroine containing the single "Royals" was released in September 2013 to critical acclaim; it appeared on several year-end best album lists. The album received considerable attention for its portrayal of suburban teenage disillusionment and critiques of mainstream culture.
In the United States, the album sold over one million copies in February 2014, becoming the first debut album by a female artist since Adele's 2008 album 19 to achieve the feat. Pure Heroine earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album and had sold four million copies worldwide as of May 2017. Three other singles were released from the album: "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand, while "Team" charted at number six in the United States, and "Glory and Gore" was released exclusively to US radio. At the 2014 New Zealand Music Awards, Lorde won six awards: Album of the Year and Best Pop Album for Pure Heroine, Single of the Year for "Team", Highest Selling New Zealand Single for "Royals", Best Female Solo Artist, and the International Achievement Award.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a publishing deal with Songs Music Publishing, worth a reported US$2.5 million, after a bidding war between companies, including Sony Music Entertainment and her label UMG. The agreement gave the publisher the right to license Lorde's music for films and advertising. Later that month, Lorde was featured on the for the 2013 film , performing a cover of Tears for Fears' 1985 song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Time included her on their lists of the most influential teenagers in the world in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also placed her on their 2014 edition of 30 Under 30; she was the youngest individual to be featured. Billboard featured her on their 21 Under 21 list in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
In the first half of 2014, Lorde performed at several music festivals, including the Laneway Festival in Sydney, the three South American editions of Lollapalooza—Chile, Argentina, Brazil—and the Coachella Festival in California. She subsequently embarked on an international concert tour, commencing in North America in early 2014. Amidst her solo activities, Lorde joined the surviving members of Nirvana to perform "All Apologies" during the band's induction ceremony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014. Band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl explained that they selected Lorde because her songs represented "Nirvana aesthetics" for their perceptive lyrics. Lorde also curated the accompanying for the 2014 film , overseeing the collation of the album's content as well as recording four tracks, including its lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, the track earned Lorde a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song, and won Single of the Year at the 2015 New Zealand Music Awards, marking her third consecutive win in the category. Later that year, she was featured on British electronic duo Disclosure's song "Magnets" off their 2015 album Caracal.
The lead single from her second studio album Melodrama, "Green Light", was released in March 2017 to critical acclaim; several publications ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists.
It achieved moderate commercial success, reaching number one in New Zealand, number four in Australia and number nine in Canada.
Later that month, she co-wrote and provided background vocals for American indie pop band Bleachers's song "Don't Take the Money", taken from their 2017 record Gone Now.
On Melodrama, Lorde's songwriting showed signs of maturity with introspective, post-breakup lyrics. The album was released in June 2017 to widespread critical acclaim; Metacritic placed it second on their list of the best-received records of 2017 based on inclusions in publications' year-end lists, behind Kendrick Lamar's Damn. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, giving Lorde her first number-one album on the chart, and on record charts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
It earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th ceremony, and won six awards at the 2017 New Zealand Music Awards, including Album of the Year, Single of the Year for "Green Light", Best Solo Artist, Best Pop Artist, the People's Choice Award, and the International Achievement Award. Two other singles from the album were released: "Perfect Places" and a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" featuring Khalid, Post Malone and SZA.
To promote Melodrama, Lorde embarked on an international concert tour, the first leg of which took place in Europe in late 2017, featuring Khalid as the supporting act. She later announced the North American leg, held in March 2018, with Run the Jewels, Mitski and Tove Styrke as opening acts. A political controversy occurred in December 2017 when Lorde cancelled her scheduled June 2018 concert in Israel following an online campaign by Palestinian solidarity activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. While Lorde did not explicitly indicate her reasons for the cancellation, she admitted that she had been unaware of the political turmoil there and "the right decision at this time is to cancel". Pro-Palestine groups welcomed her decision, while pro-Israel groups were critical of the cancellation. Billboard included Lorde on their 2017 edition of 21 Under 21, while Forbes included her in their 30 Under 30 Asia list.
On 25 May 2021, Lorde was announced as a headlining act for Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival, her first live show performance in over two years. On 7 June, Lorde posted an image on her website with the caption "Solar Power", along with the message: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." "Solar Power" was released on 10 June, as the lead single from her third studio album of the same name, which was released on 20 August to mixed reviews. Lorde later described the response to the record as "really confounding," and "painful". "Stoned at the Nail Salon" and "Mood Ring" were released as the album's second and third singles on 21 July and 17 August, respectively.
Lorde released Te Ao Mārama on 9 September 2021 as a companion piece to Solar Power. The EP is sung entirely in Te Reo Māori, and was translated by Hana Mereraiha. Other translators included Sir Tīmoti Kāretu and Hēmi Kelly. The project was led by Hinewehi Mohi. All proceeds from the album are going towards two New Zealand-based charities: Forest & Bird and Te Hua Kawariki. In August 2023, Lorde debuted the songs "Silver Moon" and "Invisible Ink" during her concert at the Boardmasters Festival in Cornwall, England.
In April 2025, Lorde cleared her Instagram feed and posted a snippet of new music onto TikTok, which was subsequently labelled "WWT", short for "What Was That". On 22 April, Lorde played the track in full to a crowd at Washington Square Park, New York City, following a planned pop-up event that was shut down by the NYPD. On 24 April, "What Was That" was released along with its music video; the track presents a synth-pop style reminiscent of Melodrama (2017). On 30 April, Lorde announced that her fourth studio album, Virgin, would be released on 27 June 2025. She revealed on 8 May that she would support the album with the Ultrasound World Tour, set to begin in September 2025. The album's second single, "Man of the Year", and its accompanying music video, were released on 29 May. On the same day, Lorde attended the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards, where she received the award for Single of the Year for the "Girl, So Confusing" remix. On 18 June, Lorde announced via social media that the third single from Virgin would be "Hammer". On June 20, 2025, Lorde released "Hammer."
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Lyrically, Lorde cited her mother, a poet, as the primary influence for her songwriting. She also named several authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Wells Tower, Tobias Wolff, Claire Vaye Watkins, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and T. S. Eliot as lyrical inspirations, particularly noting their sentence structures.
When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde took inspiration from the melodic styles of a variety of musicians, including the 1975–especially their song "Somebody Else", Phil Collins, Don Henley, Rihanna, Florence and the Machine, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Robyn. During the recording process, she stated that Frank Ocean's 2016 album Blonde inspired her to eschew "traditional song structures." She frequently listened to Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland while riding subways in New York City and on taxi rides on the way home from parties in her hometown of Auckland. She cited the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as inspiration for much of Melodramas story, relating it to her own realities she faced.
Lorde possesses a contralto vocal range. Before Melodrama, Lorde only sang and did not play musical instruments on her records or onstage, saying, "My voice needs to have the focus. My vocal-scape is really important".
PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing", while Billboard characterised her voice as "dynamic, smoky and restrained". For the Melodrama World Tour, however, she played a drum pad sampler, and xylophone onstage in some performances. Shortly after finishing her tour, Lorde said she had started learning to play the piano. Vice noted that her songs incorporated the mixolydian mode, a melodic structure used in "blues-based and alternative rock" music, which set her songs apart from those in pop music for not fitting a common major chord or minor chord chord.
Regarding her songwriting process, Lorde explained that the foundation to her songs began with the lyrics, which could sometimes stem from a singular word meant to summarise a specific idea she had tried to identify. For "Tennis Court", Lorde wrote the music before lyrics. She stated that the songwriting on Pure Heroine developed from the perspective of an observer. Similarly, in an interview with NME, Lorde acknowledged that she used words of inclusion throughout her debut album, while her follow-up Melodrama presented a shift to first-person narrative, employing more introspective lyrics inspired by Lorde's personal struggles post-breakup and viewpoints on post-teenage maturity. Lorde's neurological condition chromesthesia influenced her songwriting on the album; it led her to arrange colours according to each song's theme and emotion.
Critical reception of Lorde is generally positive, with praise concentrated on her maturity both musically and lyrically. The New York Times called her "the pop prodigy" who was not conformed to boundaries and always sought experimentation. Billboard recognised Lorde as a spokesperson for a "female rock resurgence" by introducing her works to rock and alternative radio, which had seen a traditional male dominance. The publication also named her the "New Queen of Alternative" in a 2013 cover story. Journalist Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic towards Lorde's styles, labelling the singer as "a pop property" that was indistinguishable from other mainstream artists.
Lorde's critiques of mainstream culture on Pure Heroine earned her the title "the voice of her generation", a label she dismissed, saying that "young people have never needed a specialised spokesperson". Jon Caramanica, writing for The New York Times, credited Lorde for bringing forth a "wave of female rebellion" to mainstream audiences that embraced an "anti-pop" sentiment. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Rolling Stone and NPR credited her debut studio album Pure Heroine as the foundation of that transformation.
Several analysts also noted Lorde's influence on the music trends of the 2010s,
and have credited the singer with paving the way for the current generation of alternative-leaning pop artists.
She placed at number 12 on NPR's 2018 readers poll of the most influential female musicians of the 21st century. Her work has influenced various artists, including Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Conan Gray, and Troye Sivan.
Her onstage persona, particularly her signature unchoreographed dancing, has polarised audiences. Her detractors have described her dance moves as "awkward" in comparison to other stage performers.
The Fader expressed that she should be celebrated for her dancing as it is "more freeform and spontaneous" than structured choreography and "speaks an entirely different expressive language". The publication further elaborated that her "stage presence is more impactful than the average pop performance". Lorde was parodied in the South Park episodes "The Cissy" and "Rehash", broadcast in October and December 2014, respectively.
During the buildup to, and during the rollout of Lorde's fourth album Virgin, her gender identity was speculated on, following a shifting in her dress sense, as well as posts on social media. Lorde later told Emma Chamberlain in an interview at the 2025 Met Gala that she felt "like a man and a woman", and later revealed to Rolling Stone that Chappell Roan had asked if she was non-binary. In the same interview, she self-described as a "cis, white woman" in context of discussing her privilege on the topic of trans rights.
| +List of television appearances ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes | ||
| 2017 | Saturday Night Live | Herself | Episode: "Scarlett Johansson / Lorde" |
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