by Marc Shapiro
Songs CEO Matt Pincus quickly fell in line and there began a persistent courtship of the soon-to-be seventeen year old. It seemed that a member of Songs had become a part of Lorde’s touring company, with a representative being present at every live performance that year, getting to know Lorde and Maclachlan and pointing out the advantages of signing with them. It did not hurt their chances that some of Lorde’s favourite songwriters and producers, including the Weekend and Diplo were signed to Songs and she had, prior to the announcement, already been in informal talks about possible collaborations with several of Songs’ clients.
It was around this time that Lorde casually acknowledged to The Guardian that she had been tinkering with collaborating with others for some time. And while she would not name names, she gave some insight into just how these collaborations had been working.
‘Someone sends me a beat or they say they’ve got a hook and I’m doing all the verses. But I’m travelling so much at the moment there’s no time to get in the room with anyone.’
The Guardian conversation took place shortly after Lorde returned to New Zealand. She was about to appear at the Vodaphone Music Awards show and was relishing the idea of being home for a while. But she acknowledged that the travelling she had done in the past year, the places she had been and the people she had met had definitely influenced the way she now writes.
Speculation was now at fever pitch that when the Grammy nominations were announced on December 6, that Lorde would be represented in a number of categories. She was. The singer/songwriter received nomination nods for Song of the Year for ‘Royals’, Record of the Year for ‘Royals’, Best Pop Solo Performance for ‘Royals’ and Best Pop Vocal Album for Pure Heroine.
Observers of the pop music scene were not surprised at the number of nominations Lorde received. Perhaps, more importantly, they were encouraged that, after a drought in which manufactured and vapid pop singers/teen idols were capturing the lion’s share of the spotlight and far too many awards, the Grammy judges were suddenly getting behind a pop singer and songwriter of wit, intelligence and depth.
Lorde readily acknowledged her appreciation while deftly sidestepping the notion that she was galloping in on a figurative white horse to save popular music from its own worst tendencies.
Lorde had received an early Christmas present. She was now officially being recognised as a comer and a full-fledged star. How much better it could get for the seventeen-year-old remained to be seen.
BY EARLY DECEMBER,
WHAT WAS NEXT BE CAME
APPARENT WHEN LORDE
ANNOUNCED HER 2014
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR.
The fifteen-city tour, at least at this point, was conspicuous by the fact that there was no Los Angeles show scheduled and that much of the tour was settled in the Midwest and the East. The tour, scheduled to run March 3–26 included stops in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Seattle and Oakland.
Why she had chosen to pretty much ignore her early strongholds was brought into question by many tour journalists, who speculated that a first tour would go to areas where her popularity was already established. However those who make their living by digging deeper may have wisely felt that an initial tour should break new ground. They also figured that token stops in places like Los Angeles would ‘magically’ be added to the tour schedule.
Lorde had worked hard and, with the Grammys and her first full-blown US tour coming, she announced that she was taking a five-week break from performing and all but the most mandatory promotion. Pure and simple, Lorde needed a rest.
Many observers felt the break would also push back the timetable on any new music. But as a Christmas gift to her fans, it was announced that an ‘extended version’ of Pure Heroine, which would include the original songs plus a generous six-track sampling from The Love Club EP, would be released.
Lorde was also active on the charity front during this time. When Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, causing untold death and destruction, a compilation charity album entitled Songs for the Philippines was quickly assembled with all the proceeds targeted for Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts. The album, which featured songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, U2, Justin Timberlake and countless others, contained Lorde’s ‘The Love Club’.
While Lorde was quick to show her philanthropy for a worldwide cause, she had not forgotten her hometown roots. When the Devonport Community Garden Center had a shortfall in donations, Lorde and several other New Zealand notables painted a series of garden gnomes that would be auctioned off. Lorde was particularly happy that, in this small way, she could give back to the place that had meant so much to her.
Lorde also decided that it was time to begin weaning her fans off the early singles and surprised the world on December 13 when she released a tantalising new single on iTunes.
‘No Better’, as befitting its creator, was slightly out of left field. The song was reportedly one of several that had been left off Pure Heroine and, in announcing its release, Lorde stated that the song would not appear on another album. By now wise to the way of subtle promotion, Lorde’s matter-of-fact approach to releasing ‘No Better’ led to immediate response, untold number of downloads and, almost after the fact, another hit single.
More and more, Lorde’s impact on the US was being felt, even by such august publications as Time. The singer was named by the publication in its year-end list, The 16 Most Influential Teens of 2013.
By mid-December, Lorde was reaping the benefits of the Grammy nominations. The downside was that her plate was full and getting fuller by the second. Unfortunately this meant that Lorde would have to cut back on commitments she had already made.
The first and, to many, the most galling, was the announcement that she was backing out of an appearance at the Auckland Laneway Festival to concentrate on preparations for the upcoming Grammys. The promoters of the Laneway Festival issued a statement that they understood but, to many of her New Zealand fans, there was a grumbling that Lorde had suddenly gotten too big and was casting aside the audience who had been with her from the beginning.
The singer must have felt a bit of a backlash brewing and so quickly announced that she would perform a special hometown show at the festival site after the Grammy awards, in which those who had bought the original festival tickets would get in free. Lorde saved face in that instance but the consensus was that the continued pull of larger markets, especially America, would continue to force a juggling act.
Early into the New Year, Lorde was literally a star, which was putting a real strain on an often and near manic desire for privacy. The expected adulation from her growing legion of fans was something she was grateful for and readily acknowledged.
But she had come to detest the intrusion of the paparazzi and the tabloid press that had become a daily part of her life. It was midway through January, brought on by an incident in which Lorde and her family were nearly knocked down by swarming paparazzi, that Lorde would make her discomfort public with a series of tweets that were reported by numerous outlets including The Huffington Post.
‘I’m beginning to get used to my image as a public commodity,’ she tweeted. ‘And the fact that I’m beginning to get used to it frightens me. There is a difference between the attention of fans, which I love, and the constant often lecherous gaze that I’m subjected to in this industry. I know that success comes with a price tag. It just sucks when you see that in your tiny home country where you previously felt safe.’
Lorde would receive direct support for her battles with the press from former Crowded House member and New Zealand native Neil Finn, who suggested in a conversation with The Guardian that Lorde might be better off leaving the country.
‘Those news teams are idiots,’ he said. ‘New Zealand had been quite a good environment for her because people had not been super celebrity-oriented and they pretty much leave you alone. But now it’s reached critic
al mass. I think she might be better off moving to New York or some place where there would be less bother about it.’
Although Lorde continued to make New Zealand her home base, she did concede in a Vanity Fair interview that the increased attention has caused her to make some modifications in her everyday life. ‘I feel like I catch public transport slightly less than I did before. Which is kind of nice. But I still do take it quite a bit.’
Not all the rumours and innuendo surrounding Lorde on her climb to the top were serious business. One of the more recurring was the notion that Lorde could not possibly be so talented and famous and really be only seventeen years old. Much gossip and internet support for this theory fell on the fact that Lorde dressed and looked much older than her reported age.
While wildly absurd, this story hung around long enough for somebody to finally take steps to dispute it. That somebody was the website The Hairpin, which performed due journalistic diligence by sending off for a copy of Lorde’s birth certificate. Sure enough, the document indicated that Lorde was indeed seventeen. Even though the story quickly disappeared, the singer had no problem dredging it up upon meeting a Vanity Fair reporter in New York and having a good laugh at the idiocy of it all.
‘HI. I’M ELLA AND I’M ACTUALLY
FORTY-FIVE,’ SHE LAUGHED.
LORDE MAY HAVE BEEN THE
BIGGEST STAR ON THE PLANET,
BUT UNTIL SHE LEFT HOME TO
RETURN TO THE US, SHE WAS
STILL ELLA. WHICH MEANT
CLEANING UP HER ROOM
BEFORE SHE LEFT THE HOUSE.
It was not long before Lorde was once again winging her way back to the US for a final round of preparation and promotion for her upcoming appearance at the Grammys. And rather than the white-knuckle ride her first ever long-distance plane ride had been, this flight from New Zealand to Los Angeles was one big party. Lorde’s entourage included her parents, siblings, her musical partner Joel Little and manager Maclachlan. The good spirits, cheer and all around excitement was palpable.
However, it was also most likely a time of deep contemplation for the seventeen-year-old singer. In every sense of the word, she had arrived. She was established in a highly competitive pop music world. And the glory was that she had done it her way. Four Grammy nominations had been the icing on the cake. Grammy wins would be that extra emotional layer.
Like most teenagers, she was also having her doubts and insecurities. Many looked on the singer’s success at such a young age as all good. But Lorde was only seventeen. Was this as good as it would get? Would it get better? Or would she finally turn out to be yet another short chapter and quickly flame out?
She was quick to tell The Music prior to her Grammy ride that she was already beginning to feel uneasy about the ‘role model’ tag that was being attached to her and that people should not be surprised when ‘I’m going to fuck some stuff up at some point because that’s a natural part of becoming an adult.’
In that same interview, Lorde would also take a revisionist look at her trademark song ‘Royals’ and stated that it was not her best song. ‘I understand why it worked and why it was kind of a hit. But these melodies are not quite as good as something I would have written now and I definitely would not have written the lyric this way if I had written it now.’
Lorde’s family was enjoying the total Hollywood experience. To their way of thinking, the Grammys was the end of a joyous yearlong ride as they experienced fame, fortune and celebrity right along with their daughter. Lorde’s mother, Sonja, was both in awe and anxious in describing the days leading up to the actual ceremony in a conversation with radio station The Edge.
‘We’re relieved and proud. It was almost like a panic in the days leading up to the ceremony. Lorde’s siblings have been blown away by it all.’
Lorde tried really hard to be nonchalant about the Grammys and what awards might do to her already skyrocketing career but, in conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, all pretence of seriousness had gone out the window and she could barely contain the giggly child inside.
‘It has been quite weird. I never saw myself as a Top 40 princess. I do not want to get my hopes up in any way. But I would be pretty psyched to win a Grammy. I’m excited for everything that will go along with the day, seeing a bunch of my friends, dressing up, performing, will be really fun. It sounds like the prom on ’roids or something.’
Lorde’s plane touched down at LAX in Los Angeles the week of January 20. The singer was greeted at the airport by hundreds of fans, screaming, taking pictures and, for the few lucky ones, capturing a moment with their idol and an autograph. To those with a sense of history, it was Beatlemania revisited. For those with a sense of ‘right now’, it was pure pop pandemonium.
The next few days flew by in a whirlwind of activity. There were the endless round of pre-Grammy interviews with a large run of gossipy questions about dates, her boyfriend, what she was going to be wearing on that special night and what she thought were her chances of walking off with a Grammy or four. By degrees Lorde seemed less about the music and more about having a good time, especially when she mixed and mingled with assorted peers and celebrities during a pre-Grammy party. But at the end of the day, Lorde was nothing if not in control.
Of particular note was the fact that Lorde had been selected to sing her song ‘Royals’ live on stage during the many musical highlights of the show. Granted, her musicians and she had played ‘Royals’ live so many times that there really was no need for anything beyond a sound check. But the reality was that the Grammys were very much about television and that it would most likely be that she would have to perform a somewhat truncated version of the song to accommodate awards presentations and commercials in order to keep the show on schedule.
‘I’m planning all of it,’ she said of her live performance to Vanity Fair. ‘Obviously I care about what I’m doing. We’ve done an alternative version of the music track and the visuals are really strong, simple and beautiful.’
But as keyboard player MacDonald noted in an NZ Musician interview, the logistics of the show were not making it easy. ‘When we arrived for the sound check, we discovered that we would be playing on a stage in the middle of the arena and that there would be a delay coming out of the front house speakers. They also would not let us use our own monitor system. It made it pretty hard but we got there in the end.’
When not in the pre-Grammy fishbowl, the singer was also hard at work, finalising her makeup and wardrobe for that night. Lorde was not leaving anything to chance or to those assigned to help her who did not know her well enough to have a worthy opinion.
Through it all, the young woman managed to find a way to please the local fans who had been there for her but did not have the cachet of celebrity. On fairly short notice, Lorde pulled together a live performance at the hip and very compact Soho House. The performance, a mixture of her hits and some less heard songs, was a very informal present to the fans, as well as a somewhat blatant pitch for everybody to watch the Grammys and put the singer at ease for her big night three days later.
But despite her best efforts, Lorde was most certainly a bundle of nerves and excitement as she and her musicians checked into the Staples Center for a sound check some hours before the show. From those on the scene as her limo dropped her off later that day, any nerves had effectively been masked by an air of excitement and a bright smile.
Although the Grammys would showcase a literal who’s who of stars, Lorde’s appearance was being touted as the one everybody was looking forward to. It was the performance that would be seen simultaneously by millions around the world.
Lorde knew this would be a big deal. What the audience did not know was that Lorde had a couple of visual surprises up her sleeve. She was well known for her long, extremely curly hair and a propensity for dressing very goth and all in black. The vision she presented as she walked out on the Grammy stage was of a fairly conservative, by Lorde standards, black-and-white pantsuit a
nd long straight hair. But there was no mistaking that ‘look’ as she morphed out of the real world and into the depth and emotion of ‘Royals’. There was a strength in her performance, a statement that only a true individual could make. Lorde smiled and thanked the audience before going off stage to thunderous applause.
THE SMILE ON HER FACE SAID IT
ALL. LORDE WAS ON CLOUD NINE.
The only thing that could make the evening more memorable would happen later in the Grammy show when it was announced that the singer had captured Grammy awards for Best Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for the song ‘Royals’.
In both instances Lorde gave appropriate and heartfelt speeches, thanked all the right people on her ‘team’ and thanked the countless fans for their support. But it would remain for this child of the internet age to personally thank the millions when she tweeted sometime during the show. ‘I am so thankful for the attention my work has received tonight and this year.’
If there was a warm and fuzzy element to the evening it was the fact that Lorde’s parents were on hand to proudly watch their daughter take an all-important step in music and sharing all the glitz and glamour of the night. Victor and Sonja happily acknowledged that it was all very new and exciting to them to Radio New Zealand.
‘As a mum, when I sat there, I was in shock. I was absolutely in shock.’
Victor echoed his wife’s sentiments. ‘You feel a bit dumbfounded when you hear your daughter’s name called out amongst such company. We were both shocked but also thrilled.’
In the excitement and celebration of the moment, Sonja matter-of-factly dropped a bombshell of sorts when she said that her daughter’s Grammy victories had pretty much been her diploma for her chosen career. ‘Clearly she is not going to be going back to school,’ she reported. ‘Ella’s chosen a career that stimulates her intelligence.’
