Starting off with Lorde’s EP, “The Love Club”, Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, who took the name Lorde in 2012 after signing her first music contract, immediately made a name for herself in the pop industry. The EP consisted of songs that resonated with teenagers, with thoughts of growing up, and actually dealing with life, as every teen must do. It consisted of the songs “Bravado”, “Royals”, “Million Dollar Bills”, “Biting Down” and the titular song, “The Love Club”.

“Royals”, the lead single off that initial album, became a major hit around the world, letting Lorde present an entirely different version of what existed as art pop then. She performed this song at the 56th Grammys on January 27, 2013, and performed live for KCRW on August 9, 2013. It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the youngest artist to achieve this accomplishment since Tiffany with her track “Could’ve Been” in 1987. 

“When you’re making your first record, the pressure comes from you and within. if that first record goes on to become really popular you can’t escape whatever has been generated by your first album, you can never start with that clean slate again,” said composer and music director Victoria Kelly. 

When her debut album “Pure Heroine” was released on September 27, 2013, all of the songs on “The Love Club” transferred onto the later released deluxe version of the album. The deluxe version, however, no longer streams on any platforms since its deletion in November 2021. “The Love Club” EP was re-released around that time. Lorde made a streak of tours in 2013-14, using her newfound fame to perform on stages around the world, including Madison Square Garden, Sydney Opera House, and at the London RoundHouse. coveted by most artists and performers, these venues continue to exist as major places to perform. As a teenager performing at these places, it boomed her career farther than a lot of people around at the time. 

Her album “Pure Heroine” gained a generous amount of publicity and peaked her career as a pop artist. But after attention faded from the album, she went into her four-year hibernation until June 16, 2017, when she released her sophomore album, “Melodrama”. 

It started with the release of “Green Light”, a blast-in-your-car record, with loud piano and mellow lyrics. After that, Lorde delivered another single, “Perfect Places”. She stopped there when it came to singles, but both songs received a music video, and it really showed how she as an artist had developed over her hibernation. With the release of “Melodrama”, Lorde got to number one on the Billboard 200 albums, her first time doing so. She became nominated for best album at the 60th annual Grammys awards but did not win. The songs on the album reminisced on the life of a broken person. If “Pure Heroine” summarises everything about teen life, then “Melodrama”  covers the difficulties that a college student endures. 

With the album came different opportunities for Lorde to show off her dance moves, including the Vevo originals she made, offering a different perspective on the hit songs from the album. 

The “Melodrama” World Tour began in England and went across Europe to North America and onto Oceania and Asia, finishing in Latin America. She performed in major venues across the world, with almost all her tours selling out. 

“Melodrama” did succeed as an album in both music and its advertisement, but the sound of Lorde had changed enough for it not to receive praise from a lot of her fans from 2013. At this point, the name Lorde started to decline, and into hibernation, she went.
Her second return started with the release of “Solar Power”. The title song came with a music video on June 11, 2021. Lorde had changed once again, with bright sunny skies and people dancing on the beach. She released other titles before the album release, such as “Mood Ring” and “Stoned at The Nail Salon”. 

With thousands of fans anticipating its release, the album came with sweet-sounding songs and (known to be) sad lyrics. Lorde performed on numerous night shows with songs from this album and past ones and made videos on a New York rooftop. She came out with the single “Fallen Fruit” to foreshadow the Deluxe version of the album released November 5, 2021. She also made another version of the album in the native tongue of New Zealand, Māori. This version featured the songs “Te Ara Tika”, “Te Ao Mārama”, “Mata Kohore”, “Hua Pirau”, and “Hine-i-te-Awatea”. But all this did not impress the Recording Academy, because Lorde does not have a single nomination to her name for the 64th Grammys. But with Lorde her “downfall” was really just self-brought, so she didn’t really care whether or not she had those nominations or more awards. She was living her life, and she attended to her duty as a musician whenever that time came around. If people liked her music, then they did. She didn’t isolate herself from society during her hibernations, she merely existed in her hometown in New Zealand. 

“Lorde vowed to never again reach for the heights of her breakout hit, ‘Royals.’ ‘Can you imagine?’ she said. ‘I’m under no illusion. That was a moonshot,’” said Joe Cascarelli, a reporter for the New York Times. 

With “Solar Power” came a rejuvenation of Lorde’s career, because it cast a new light on not only her development as a person, struggling through hard parts of her life, but somehow finding a way to connect with her fans. 

“Lorde really just made the world for her type of music, and really became a big name. I’ve always enjoyed her music, and hope she keeps on going with her music career,” sophomore Miguel Flores Padilla said.