Lorde reflects on a decade of ‘Pure Heroine’: “Every week was the most exciting week of my whole life”
Lorde has reflected on her debut album ‘Pure Heroine’, which was released 10 years ago this week on September 27, 2013.
In a newsletter mailout, the New Zealand singer-songwriter described ‘Pure Heroine’ as a “sweet album”, and that she has “deep respect for the vision of the little one making it”.
“It felt like I pulled everything off by the skin of my teeth,” she wrote. “Every week was the most exciting week of my whole life, I was so tired and still didn’t have a winter coat and took everyone clamouring for a piece of me completely for granted. I had zero cultural context, had no idea if an interview or TV show was huge or small, and so breezed through it all truly not giving a fuck.”
She described touring in support of ‘Pure Heroine’, where she met many fans for the first time, as her “favourite part” of the album cycle. “[There were] hours and hours of hugs after the show,” she recalled. “[That’s] where it started to feel real for me.”
‘Pure Heroine’ was both co-written and produced by Joel Little, a former pop-punk musician from the band Goodnight Nurse that later forged a career as a pop songwriter – largely due to the success of ‘Pure Heroine’. Lorde made special mention of Little in her newsletter, who she claimed always treated her as an equal in spite of her young age.
“When you’re a teenager, you’re particularly sensitive to adults being condescending to you, not respecting the specific and finely tuned skills you have because of the ones you don’t,” she wrote. “From the first day meeting Joel, I knew that he would never give me that feeling.”
The album went on to become one of the highest-selling albums of 2013 – going to number one in Australia, Croatia and her native New Zealand, as well as peaking within the top five in the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada and Norway. It also went eight times platinum in New Zealand, four times platinum in Australia and three times platinum in the US.
Four singles were released from the album: ‘Royals’, ‘Tennis Court’, ‘Team’ and ‘Glory and Gore’. Both ‘Royals’ and ‘Tennis Court’ topped the New Zealand singles chart, with the former also topping the Billboard Hot 100, the UK Singles Chart, the Ireland Singles Chart and the Canadian Hot 100.
On her most recent run of shows in August, Lorde previewed her first new music since the release of her third studio album, 2021’s ‘Solar Power’.
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