This is the perfect moment to bring back once again the Unsung Artist column. After featuring artists such as The Weeknd, Ryan Leslie and Michael Kiwanuka, just to name a few, there comes a time when you find a gem in music and you need to let people know about this artist.
The artist for this column is Lorde, hailing from Auckland, New Zealand.
We could definitely call her a young folk, at only 16 years old, with an amazing voice and two great songs, “Royals” and “Tennis Major” from her EP The Love Club, this young artist was signed to Universal at age 12, and some even call her “the next Lana Del Rey”. While I’d much rather not give her the next Lana Del Rey name, because that would imply that she is really bad live, and turns out that Lorde is great live, according to a YouTube live performance which is much, much better than Lana’s SNL fiasco. If there is something that Lorde shares with Del Rey, is the fact that she also has that melancholic tone in her music, and Del Rey better watch out because she’s got some major competition.
Born Ella Yelich-O’Connor, Lorde has the voice, songwriting and stage presence for any young artist that wants to break into the pop mainstream, and believe me when I say that she is ready.
While most new artists have to resort to the same rock star mentality of trashing places, blowing up with the money that they probably don’t have yet, Lorde recognizes this and how unrelatable this feels to most of the listeners who do not have the same luxuries as they do. She actually wrote the song inspired by Jay Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne, and let’s be honest, that album is the epitome of boastful. I applaud Lorde for being witty enough to come up with the song “Royals” which I’m currently obsessed with:
But everybody’s like cristal, maybach, diamonds on your time piece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.
We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair.
And we’ll never be royals..
It don’t run in our blood,
that kind of lux just ain’t for us.
Advertisement
Just like The Weeknd, another of our featured Unsung Artists, Lorde is also taking the whole issue of pictures and interviews very private. If you remember, at the beginning of his career, The Weeknd was rarely interviewed or photographed. In an age where pretty much everything is online, Lorde is taking matters into her own hands and deciding what pictures of herself will ultimately end up on the internet. I believe this stance from up and coming artists gives them the power to people focus only on their music rather than on pictures.
For the time being, Lorde can try for as long as she can to keep everything private, but I don’t think that will be for much longer with her debut album and a tour in the US and Europe due later this year, things will only get better for this great young artist and I cannot wait for everyone to know about her.
Listen to Lorde and tell me which of her songs do you like the most, when becomes this huge star, remember we talked about here at TheYoungFolks.com :)
Advertisement
Advertisement