Lorde
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
48 free Lorde trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Lorde was 16 when Royals spent nine weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the youngest artist to top the US chart since Tiffany in 1987. The song started on a free SoundCloud EP recorded in three weeks with Joel Little in Auckland, and within a year she had a Song of the Year Grammy, a Hunger Games soundtrack to curate and an invitation to sing with Nirvana at their Hall of Fame induction. These 48 questions follow her from Takapuna to Glastonbury: her real name, her poet mother and Croatian roots, the talent show with Louis McDonald, Pure Heroine and Tennis Court, the Jack Antonoff years of Melodrama and Green Light, the indie-folk turn of Solar Power and its Te Reo Maori companion EP, and the 2025 comeback Virgin with Jim-E Stack. There are also questions on the Bowie tribute at the Brits, the South Park parodies, the Antarctica photo book and why her stage name has an e on the end. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a pop-music quiz night.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Lorde's real first name?
Ella
Ella: born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, she chose a one-word stage name as a teenager out of a fascination with aristocracy.
Q 02Which Lorde single spent nine weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100?
Royals
Royals: it held the top spot from October into December 2013, keeping Eminem and Rihanna's The Monster waiting at number two.
Q 03What was the title of Lorde's debut studio album?
Pure Heroine
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.
Q 04Which producer worked with Lorde on her early material including The Love Club EP?
Joel Little
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.
Q 05On which platform did Lorde self-release The Love Club EP for free in 2012?
SoundCloud
SoundCloud: the free release was downloaded about 60,000 times, which persuaded her label to put the EP on sale the following year.
Q 06Which producer co-created Melodrama with Lorde?
Jack Antonoff
Jack Antonoff: she made him her main co-writer, and the pair spent months working in the small studio inside his Brooklyn apartment.
Q 07Which 2014 film soundtrack did Lorde curate?
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
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.
Q 08Lorde's 2021 album Solar Power explored which style?
Indie folk
Indie folk: she swapped synths for acoustic guitars, and later called the divided response to the record really confounding and painful.
Q 09What does the cover of Lorde's 2025 album Virgin show?
An X-ray of a pelvis
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.
Q 10Lorde was born and raised in which New Zealand city?
Auckland
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.
Q 11What is Lorde's mother Sonja Yelich's profession?
Poet
Poet: her second collection, Get Some, imagines the grim life of an American Marine serving in Iraq.
Q 12Lorde holds dual citizenship with which European country?
Croatia
Croatia: her mother's family emigrated from Dalmatia, and she has said she holds its citizenship alongside her New Zealand one.
Q 13Lorde's first US number one knocked which Miley Cyrus hit off the top?
Wrecking Ball
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?
Q 21What did Lorde do with her 2014 Taite Music Prize money?
Split it among the other finalists
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.
Q 22Which single from her debut album reached the top spot at home?
Tennis Court
Team reached number six in the United States.
Q 23For a 2013 film soundtrack, Lorde covered which Tears for Fears song?
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Tears for Fears later took to walking on stage to her version before playing their own.
Disclosure
Disclosure: the Lawrence brothers wrote it with her for their second album, Caracal, and the Observer's review singled out her guest turn.
Q 15Winning what at age 12 led to Lorde's first record deal?
School talent show
School talent show: a recording of her performance found its way to a Universal scout, who signed her to a development deal.
Q 16Why did Lorde dance rather than sing at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards?
She had the flu
She had the flu: too ill to sing, she performed a wordless interpretive dance to Homemade Dynamite instead.
Q 17Before music, 12-year-old Lorde's school team finished second in the world at what?
A literature quiz
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.
Q 18How did Lorde fit in recording The Love Club EP?
During her school holidays
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.
Q 19Lorde's album Melodrama loosely follows the course of a single what?
House party
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.
Q 20Lorde was the youngest solo artist to top the Hot 100 since which 1980s singer?
Tiffany
Tiffany: she had built her following in 1987 by singing on a tour of America's shopping malls rather than concert halls.
Q 24A baseball photo in which unlikely magazine inspired the title of Lorde's breakthrough hit?
National Geographic
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.
Q 25Lorde sang with which band at their 2014 Hall of Fame induction?
Nirvana
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.
Q 26Which Lorde song earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song?
Yellow Flicker Beat
Yellow Flicker Beat: within two months of its release, Kanye West had co-produced a second version with her, issued as Flicker.
Q 27At the 2016 Brit Awards, Lorde sang a tribute to which late star, backed by his own touring band?
David Bowie
David Bowie: she sang Life on Mars with his musicians, and his pianist Mike Garson said Bowie had called her the future of music.
Q 28Which song was the lead single from Lorde's album Melodrama?
Green Light
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.
Q 29Which three artists featured on the remix of Lorde's Homemade Dynamite?
Khalid, Post Malone and SZA
Khalid, Post Malone and SZA: each added a verse to the 2017 remix, and Khalid also opened her tour dates that year.
Q 30Lorde's debut was the first by a woman to pass 1,000,000 US sales since which album?
Adele's 19
It reached the mark in February 2014, five months after release.