48 Fun Facts About Lorde

What is Lorde's real first name?

Ella: born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, she chose a one-word stage name as a teenager out of a fascination with aristocracy.

Which Lorde single spent nine weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100?

Royals: it held the top spot from October into December 2013, keeping Eminem and Rihanna's The Monster waiting at number two.

What was the title of Lorde's debut studio album?

Pure Heroine: she recorded it at Golden Age, her producer's small studio in the suburb of Morningside, where they had also made her first EP.

Which producer worked with Lorde on her early material including The Love Club EP?

Joel Little: the former frontman of pop-punk band Goodnight Nurse, he wrote and produced the EP's five songs with her in about three weeks.

On which platform did Lorde self-release The Love Club EP for free in 2012?

SoundCloud: the free release was downloaded about 60,000 times, which persuaded her label to put the EP on sale the following year.

Which producer co-created Melodrama with Lorde?

Jack Antonoff: she made him her main co-writer, and the pair spent months working in the small studio inside his Brooklyn apartment.

Which 2014 film soundtrack did Lorde curate?

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1: she approached every act on it herself, and Grace Jones, a star of the 1980s, answered the call with a new song.

Lorde's 2021 album Solar Power explored which style?

Indie folk: she swapped synths for acoustic guitars, and later called the divided response to the record really confounding and painful.

What does the cover of Lorde's 2025 album Virgin show?

An X-ray of a pelvis: there is no face on the sleeve, only bones, with a belt buckle and an IUD in plain view.

Lorde was born and raised in which New Zealand city?

Auckland: she grew up in the beach suburbs of its North Shore, and still owned a house in the city at the height of her fame.

What is Lorde's mother Sonja Yelich's profession?

Poet: her second collection, Get Some, imagines the grim life of an American Marine serving in Iraq.

Lorde holds dual citizenship with which European country?

Croatia: her mother's family emigrated from Dalmatia, and she has said she holds its citizenship alongside her New Zealand one.

Lorde's first US number one knocked which Miley Cyrus hit off the top?

Wrecking Ball: it had led the chart for two weeks when the 16-year-old newcomer replaced it in October 2013.

Lorde sang on Magnets, a 2015 single by which British electronic duo?

Disclosure: the Lawrence brothers wrote it with her for their second album, Caracal, and the Observer's review singled out her guest turn.

Winning what at age 12 led to Lorde's first record deal?

School talent show: a recording of her performance found its way to a Universal scout, who signed her to a development deal.

Why did Lorde dance rather than sing at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards?

She had the flu: too ill to sing, she performed a wordless interpretive dance to Homemade Dynamite instead.

Before music, 12-year-old Lorde's school team finished second in the world at what?

A literature quiz: the Kids' Lit Quiz world final took her school team to Johannesburg in 2009, where they competed inside South Africa's Constitutional Court.

How did Lorde fit in recording The Love Club EP?

During her school holidays: she came back on her next break with lyrics for three more songs, and the EP took about three weeks of long studio days.

Lorde's album Melodrama loosely follows the course of a single what?

House party: her first idea was to write the album from the viewpoint of aliens leaving a sealed world, which she scrapped for one night's party.

Lorde was the youngest solo artist to top the Hot 100 since which 1980s singer?

Tiffany: she had built her following in 1987 by singing on a tour of America's shopping malls rather than concert halls.

What did Lorde do with her 2014 Taite Music Prize money?

Split it among the other finalists: she said people were getting sick of her winning things, and that the other nominees needed the $10,000 more.

Which single from her debut album reached the top spot at home?

Team reached number six in the United States.

For a 2013 film soundtrack, Lorde covered which Tears for Fears song?

Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Tears for Fears later took to walking on stage to her version before playing their own.

A baseball photo in which unlikely magazine inspired the title of Lorde's breakthrough hit?

National Geographic: a 1976 issue showed baseball star George Brett signing balls with his team's name across his shirt, and the word stuck with her.

Lorde sang with which band at their 2014 Hall of Fame induction?

Nirvana: she sang All Apologies to close the set, and Dave Grohl said afterwards that she stood for the band's aesthetic in modern pop.

Which Lorde song earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song?

Yellow Flicker Beat: within two months of its release, Kanye West had co-produced a second version with her, issued as Flicker.

At the 2016 Brit Awards, Lorde sang a tribute to which late star, backed by his own touring band?

David Bowie: she sang Life on Mars with his musicians, and his pianist Mike Garson said Bowie had called her the future of music.

Which song was the lead single from Lorde's album Melodrama?

Green Light: NME and the Guardian each named it the best track of 2017, and she said it was about putting herself back together after a first heartbreak.

Which three artists featured on the remix of Lorde's Homemade Dynamite?

Khalid, Post Malone and SZA: each added a verse to the 2017 remix, and Khalid also opened her tour dates that year.

Lorde's debut was the first by a woman to pass 1,000,000 US sales since which album?

It reached the mark in February 2014, five months after release.

Metacritic's tally of 2017 critics' lists ranked Lorde's Melodrama second behind which record?

Damn by Kendrick Lamar: the critics' top two then both lost the Album of the Year Grammy to Bruno Mars's 24K Magic.

Lorde co-wrote and sang backing vocals on Don't Take the Money, a 2017 single by which band?

Bleachers: she wrote it with the band's frontman, and her voice surfaces about two and a half minutes into the song.

Which continent did Lorde visit in early 2019, a trip she turned into a photo book?

Antarctica: she called the trip a great white palate cleanser between albums, and sales of the book, Going South, fund a postgraduate scholarship.

In 2019 Lorde delayed her third album after the death of what?

Her dog: she told fans the loss would push the record back, and she only started going back to the studio that December.

Te Ao Mārama, the Solar Power companion EP, is sung entirely in which language?

All proceeds go to Forest & Bird and Te Hua Kawariki.

For a 2024 Talking Heads tribute album, Lorde covered which song first recorded by Al Green?

Take Me to the River: the album remakes the concert film Stop Making Sense for its 40th anniversary, and the band play this borrowed song in it.

Lorde appeared on a remix of which Charli XCX song in 2024?

Girl, So Confusing: Charli wrote it about their uneasy friendship, and Lorde answered with a verse of her own two weeks after the album came out.

Which song was the lead single from Lorde's album Virgin?

What Was That: she summoned fans to a New York park by text to hear it, police shut the gathering down, and she turned up to perform hours later.

Virgin gave Lorde her first number-one album in which country?

United Kingdom: her first three albums had all fallen short there, and in the same week it entered the American chart at number two.

At which festival did Lorde play Virgin in full in a surprise set on release day?

Glastonbury: she told the packed tent she had not known if she would ever make another record, but that she was back and completely free.

What vocal range does Lorde have?

Contralto: she has said she plays no instrument well, so her voice, rather than a guitar or piano, has to carry her songs.

Which neurological condition shaped how Lorde arranged her album Melodrama?

Chromesthesia: she sees colours when she hears sounds, and says she keeps reworking a song until its colours look right to her.

Why did Lorde add an e to the word Lord for her stage name?

To make it more feminine: she took Lord from a lifelong fascination with aristocracy and old-money families.

Which animated show parodied Lorde in the 2014 episodes The Cissy and Rehash?

South Park: its running joke is that Lorde is secretly Randy Marsh, one of the children's dads, and she called being its subject weird and cool.

Lorde sang on the 2015 charity single Team Ball Player Thing, which cheered on New Zealand's team at which sport's World Cup?

Rugby: a supergroup of famous New Zealanders recorded it to back the All Blacks' World Cup campaign, and it raised money for research into Batten disease.

Which two singers sang backing vocals on Lorde's 2021 single Solar Power?

Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo: she called them her god-tier vocalist friends, yet they sang their parts remotely and she said she had still never met either in person.

What did Lorde sell in place of a CD of her 2021 album Solar Power?

A Music Box: wanting an environmentally kind alternative, she matched a CD's size, shape and price so it could sit beside CDs in shops, with a download card where the disc would be.

Which Paul Simon album was a major inspiration for Lorde's Melodrama?

Graceland: she described it as enlightenment after love lost, and a sample of Paul Simon talking about his favourite tape opens the Loveless half of Hard Feelings/Loveless.