Lorde facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lorde
|
|
|---|---|
_(52119260286)_(cropped2).jpg)
Lorde in 2022
|
|
| Born |
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor
7 November 1996 Auckland, New Zealand
|
| Citizenship |
|
| Occupation |
|
| Years active | 2009–present |
|
Works
|
|
| Parent(s) |
|
| Awards | Full list |
| Musical career | |
| Genres |
|
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Labels | |
| Signature | |
 |
|
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (born on 7 November 1996), known as Lorde, is a singer and songwriter from New Zealand. She is famous for her unique pop music style. Her songs often have deep and thoughtful lyrics.
Lorde became well-known as a teenager after performing in a talent show. She signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2009. In 2011, she started working with producer Joel Little. Their first project was an extended play (EP) called The Love Club EP. It was first released for free online in 2012. Then, it was officially released in 2013.
The song "Royals" from the EP became a huge hit. It reached number one on music charts in many places. It stayed at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks. The song sold 10 million copies around the world. This made it one of the best-selling singles ever. Her first full album, Pure Heroine, came out in the same year. It was very successful with both critics and listeners. In 2014, Lorde helped create the music for the movie The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
Lorde worked with producer Jack Antonoff on her next album, Melodrama (2017). This album was highly praised by critics. It went straight to number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. Melodrama has been listed as one of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". It also appeared on Pitchfork's list of the "Greatest Albums of the 2010s".
Her album Solar Power (2021) explored indie folk and psychedelic sounds. This album received mixed reactions from critics and fans. For her fourth album, Virgin (2025), Lorde worked with musician Jim-E Stack. She returned to electronic pop music, which was received more positively.
Lorde has won many awards. These include two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and twenty Aotearoa Music Awards. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Time magazine listed her as one of the most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014. Forbes magazine also included her in their "30 Under 30" list in 2014. Besides her own music, she has written songs for other artists. These include Broods and Bleachers.
Contents
Life and Music Journey
Early Life and Discoveries (1996–2008)
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor was born on 7 November 1996. She grew up in Takapuna, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. Her mother, Sonja Yelich, is a poet. Her father, Vic O'Connor, is an engineer. Lorde's mother's family came from Croatia. Her father's family is from Ireland. Her parents got married in 2017 after being together for 30 years. Lorde is a citizen of both New Zealand and Croatia.
Lorde is the second of four children. She has an older sister, Jerry. She also has a younger sister, India, and a younger brother, Angelo. They grew up in the North Shore area of Auckland. When she was five, Lorde joined a drama group. This helped her become good at public speaking. Her mother encouraged her to read many different types of books. Lorde says this helped her with writing song lyrics. She was inspired by books like Feed and authors like J. D. Salinger.
A teacher suggested that Lorde take an intelligence test. The results showed that Lorde, at age six, was a very smart child. She briefly attended a special school for gifted children. However, her mother took her out. She felt it was better for Lorde's social development. Lorde went to Vauxhall School and then Belmont Intermediate School. She won speech competitions in 2006 and 2007.
Starting Her Music Career (2009–2012)
In 2009, Lorde and her team were runners-up in the Kids' Lit Quiz World Finals. This is a global reading competition for students. In May 2009, Lorde and her friend Louis McDonald won their school talent show. In August, they appeared on a radio show. They sang cover songs like "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" by Pixie Lott. Louis McDonald's father sent their recordings to Scott Maclachlan. He was an executive at Universal Music Group (UMG). Maclachlan then signed Lorde to UMG to help her develop her music.
Lorde was also in a school band called Extreme. They placed third in a local band competition in 2009. In 2010, Lorde and McDonald formed a duo called "Ella & Louis". They often performed cover songs live in Auckland. In 2011, UMG hired a vocal coach for Lorde. She had singing lessons twice a week for a year. During this time, Maclachlan tried to find other producers for Lorde. But it was not successful. As she started writing songs, she learned how to "put words together" by reading short fiction.
Lorde performed her own songs for the first time in November 2011. In December, Maclachlan introduced Lorde to Joel Little. He is a songwriter and producer. They recorded five songs for an extended play (EP). They finished these songs in just three weeks. While working on her music, Lorde attended Takapuna Grammar School. She studied there from 2010 to 2013. She decided not to return to school in 2014.
Pure Heroine and Global Success (2013–2015)
When Lorde and Joel Little finished The Love Club EP, Maclachlan thought it was great music. But he worried if it would be popular because Lorde was not well-known yet. In November 2012, Lorde released the EP for free on her SoundCloud account. UMG officially released The Love Club in March 2013. By then, it had been downloaded 60,000 times. This showed that many people were interested in Lorde's music. The EP reached number two in New Zealand and Australia.
"Royals", the EP's main song, made Lorde famous. It was a huge hit and sold over 10 million copies worldwide. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. At 16, Lorde was the youngest artist to have a number-one song in the US since 1987. The song won two Grammy Awards. These were for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. It also won Single of the Year at the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards.
Lorde's first full album, Pure Heroine, came out in September 2013. Critics loved it. The album was praised for showing what it was like to be a teenager in the suburbs. It also talked about problems with mainstream culture. In the United States, the album sold over one million copies by February 2014. This was a big achievement for a female artist's first album. Pure Heroine was nominated for a Grammy Award. It had sold four million copies worldwide by May 2017.
Other songs from the album were also released. "Tennis Court" reached number one in New Zealand. "Team" reached number six in the United States. At the 2014 New Zealand Music Awards, Lorde won six awards. These included Album of the Year for Pure Heroine.
In November 2013, Lorde signed a deal with Songs Music Publishing. This deal was reportedly worth US$2.5 million. It gave the publisher rights to use Lorde's music in movies and ads. Later that month, Lorde sang a cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" for the movie The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Time magazine included her on their list of most influential teenagers in 2013 and 2014. Forbes also put her on their "30 Under 30" list in 2014. She was the youngest person on that list.
.jpg)
In 2014, Lorde performed at many music festivals. These included Lollapalooza in South America and Coachella Festival in California. She then started her international concert tour. During this time, Lorde joined the band Nirvana on stage. She sang "All Apologies" when they were added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nirvana's members chose Lorde because they felt her songs had a similar style to theirs.
Lorde also helped create the music for the 2014 movie The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. She chose the songs for the album. She also recorded four songs for it, including "Yellow Flicker Beat". In 2015, this song was nominated for a Golden Globe award. It also won Single of the Year at the 2015 New Zealand Music Awards. Later that year, she was featured on the song "Magnets" by the duo Disclosure.
Melodrama and New Sounds (2016–2020)
In January 2016, Lorde moved to Ponsonby in Auckland. At the 2016 Brit Awards in February, Lorde performed a tribute to David Bowie. She sang his song "Life on Mars". Bowie's family chose Lorde because he admired her music. Her performance was widely praised. Later that year, Lorde helped write "Heartlines" for the New Zealand duo Broods.
The first song from her second album, Melodrama, was "Green Light". It was released in March 2017 and received great reviews. Many publications called it one of the best songs of the year. It reached number one in New Zealand. Later that month, she helped write and sang background vocals for Bleachers' song "Don't Take the Money".
On Melodrama, Lorde's songwriting became more mature. The lyrics were thoughtful and explored feelings after a relationship ended. The album was released in June 2017. It was highly praised by critics. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. It also topped charts in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It won six awards at the 2017 New Zealand Music Awards. These included Album of the Year and Single of the Year for "Green Light".
_(cropped).jpg)
To promote Melodrama, Lorde went on an international concert tour. The first part of the tour was in Europe in late 2017. She then announced the North American part of the tour for March 2018. In December 2017, Lorde cancelled a concert she had planned in Israel. This happened after discussions online about the political situation there. Lorde said she was not aware of the issues and felt cancelling was the right choice.
On 20 May 2020, Lorde shared that she started working on her third album. This was after her dog, Pearl, passed away. In November 2020, she announced a book called Going South. The book shares photos from her trip to Antarctica in January 2019.
Solar Power and Virgin (2021–Present)
On 25 May 2021, it was announced that Lorde would be a main performer at Primavera Sound's June 2022 festival. This was her first live show in over two years. On 7 June, Lorde posted an image on her website with the words "Solar Power". She also wrote: "Arriving in 2021 ... Patience is a virtue." The song "Solar Power" was released on 10 June. It was the first song from her third album of the same name. The album was released on 20 August 2021. It received mixed reviews. Lorde later said the reaction to the album was "really confusing" and "painful".
Lorde released Te Ao Mārama on 9 September 2021. This EP was a companion to Solar Power. All the songs on the EP are sung in Te Reo Māori, the Māori language. All the money from the album goes to two New Zealand charities. These are Forest & Bird and Te Hua Kawariki. In August 2023, Lorde performed new songs called "Silver Moon" and "Invisible Ink". She sang them at the Boardmasters Festival in England.
In early 2024, Lorde hinted at her fourth album on Instagram. In March, she released a cover of "Take Me to the River". This was for a tribute album to Talking Heads. In June, Lorde worked with Charli XCX on a remix of "Girl, So Confusing". They performed it together at concerts. This remix won the Aotearoa Music Award for Single of the Year. In September, it was confirmed that Lorde had signed with Universal Music Publishing Group.
In April 2025, Lorde shared a music clip on TikTok. It was for "WWT" (short for "What Was That"). This was her first new solo song since Solar Power. Lorde's fourth album, Virgin, was released in June 2025. This album mixed dance-pop and synth-pop. It marked a return to the electronic style of her earlier work. Virgin debuted at number one on charts in many countries. Lorde became the first New Zealand artist to have six songs on the Official Aotearoa Music Charts at the same time. Before the album, two more songs were released: "Man of the Year" and "Hammer". On the day Virgin was released, Lorde performed the whole album at the Glastonbury Festival.
To promote Virgin, Lorde announced her fourth concert tour. It is called the Ultrasound World Tour. She will perform in arenas across North America, Europe, and Oceania.
Artistic Style
Musical Inspirations
Lorde grew up listening to American jazz and soul artists. These included Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, and Etta James. She admired how they expressed their feelings in music. She also listened to her parents' favorite music. These artists included Cat Stevens and Fleetwood Mac.
When making Pure Heroine, Lorde was inspired by electronic music producers. She liked how they used vocals in interesting ways. She also found inspiration in artists who kept their identities a secret at first. She felt that "mystery is more interesting." Other artists who inspired her include Katy Perry, James Blake, and David Bowie.
Lorde's mother, a poet, was her main inspiration for songwriting. Lorde also named several authors as lyrical inspirations. She particularly liked their sentence structures.
When writing her second album, Melodrama, Lorde was inspired by the melodies of many musicians. These included the 1975, Phil Collins, and Rihanna. During recording, she said Frank Ocean's album Blonde inspired her. It made her want to try new song structures. She often listened to Paul Simon's album Graceland. She also found inspiration for Melodrama's story from the short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury.
Music Style and Songwriting
Lorde is known for her unique pop sound and thoughtful songwriting. She once said, "I don't think about staying in my genre lane." Her music is often described as electropop. It also includes elements of art pop, dream pop, and indie pop. Her first album, Pure Heroine, had a simple, hip-hop influenced style. Melodrama was different. It used more piano and big electronic sounds.
Lorde has a contralto vocal range. This means her voice is naturally low. Before Melodrama, Lorde only sang on her records and onstage. She felt her voice needed to be the main focus. PopMatters described Lorde's vocals as "unique and powerfully intriguing." Billboard called her voice "dynamic, smoky and restrained." For the Melodrama World Tour, she started playing a drum pad and xylophone on stage. After her tour, Lorde said she began learning to play the piano.
When writing songs, Lorde often starts with the lyrics. Sometimes, a single word can spark an idea for a song. For her song "Tennis Court," she wrote the music first. On Pure Heroine, her songs were often from the view of someone observing. For Melodrama, she started writing more about her own feelings and experiences. Lorde has a condition called chromesthesia. This means she sees colors when she hears sounds. This influenced how she arranged colors for each song's theme and emotion on the album.
Helping Others
Lorde has supported several good causes. Her song "The Love Club" was on a charity album in 2013. This album helped people in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. In 2015, Lorde recorded "Team Ball Player Thing". This was a charity single with a group called Kiwis Cure Batten. All the money from the song went to research for Batten disease. This is a serious brain disorder.
Later that year, she was on an album called The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II. This album raised money to help preserve Tibetan culture. In 2016, Lorde gave NZ$20,000 to Fuel the Need. This New Zealand charity provides lunches for children who need them. In 2018, she donated NZ$5,000 to Starship Hospital. This money helped buy new equipment for monitoring brain activity. Lorde became a supporter of MusicHelps in November 2018. This charity helps New Zealanders with health issues through music.
Achievements and Awards
Lorde has won many awards for her music. She won four New Zealand Music Awards in 2013. Her song "Royals" won the APRA Silver Scroll Award. It also won two Grammy Awards. These were for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song of the Year. In 2015, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for "Yellow Flicker Beat".
Her second album, Melodrama, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Lorde has also won two Brit Awards for International Female Solo Artist. She has won two Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award, and three World Music Awards. By June 2017, she had sold over five million albums worldwide. She also had 15 million certified single sales in the United States. Billboard ranked Lorde at number 44 on its 2025 list of "Top 100 Women Artists of the 21st Century."
Music Albums
- Pure Heroine (2013)
- Melodrama (2017)
- Solar Power (2021)
- Virgin (2025)
Written Works
- Going South (2021)
Film and TV Appearances
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Saturday Night Live | Herself | Episode: "Scarlett Johansson / Lorde" |
Concert Tours
- Pure Heroine Tour (2013–2014)
- Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018)
- Solar Power Tour (2022–2023)
- Ultrasound World Tour (2025–2026)
See also
In Spanish: Lorde para niños
- List of New Zealand Grammy Award winners and nominees
- List of New Zealand musicians
- List of best-selling singles
