Listen to pre-fame Lorde sing with her friends’ hardcore inspired band
Ella Yelich O’Connor, otherwise known as Lorde, burst into the mainstream in 2013 with her single ‘Royals’, taken from her debut album Pure Heroine. At just 16, Lorde topped the charts and won two Grammys for her performance on the track.
Pure Heroine was also a huge success, becoming one of the top-selling albums of 2014. Exploring themes of teenage disillusionment and angst whilst critiquing consumerism, fame, and popular culture, the album clearly resonated with listeners, finding huge popularity amongst adolescents on sites such as Tumblr.
Following Pure Heroine, Lorde released Melodrama in 2017 and Solar Power in 2021. Throughout her musical career, the musician has experimented with a wide variety of styles, ranging from minimal electro-pop inspired by James Blake to psychedelic pop and indie folk.
It’s clear that Lorde’s music taste is incredibly varied. She has stated that she grew up listening to jazz and soul musicians such as Etta James, Otis Redding and Billie Holliday, as well as classic folk and rock artists such as Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young. However, during the production of Pure Heroine, Lorde was largely inspired by electronic musicians such as Grimes and Sleigh Bells.
Before O’Connor became Lorde, she channelled her influences -particularly the more alternative ones – into other musical endeavours. O’Connor was a guest vocalist on two tracks by a duo named And They Were Masked, who released an album in 2012 on Bandcamp called Characters.
According to And They Were Masked’s Facebook page, the band were influenced by PJ Harvey, Massive Attack, Fugazi, Mars Volta, Bloc Party, Battles, At the Drive-In, Dirty Three and more. The band haven’t been active since 2015, however, in 2014, they posted a statement about Lorde’s short-lived involvement with the band, saying, “We invited a number of musicians to perform with us on the tracks who all did amazing work.”
Although Lorde didn’t have much to do with the project, the rarely-heard tracks are still an interesting insight into the music the pop sensation was making only a year before she blew up with ‘Royals’. In fact, around the time that Lorde featured on And They Were Masked’s album, she was in the process of working on her first EP, The Love Club, which she self-released during the beginning of 2013.
Listen to ‘Piece of Mind’ below to hear pre-fame Lorde:
