Tagged: Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor
THE WEEKENDER
If you wanna cut to the chase with some quick and solid pointers to get you in the know, our new weekly guide The Weeekender has got you covered! In here, we’ll give you a rundown in what happened in the music world this week and give you our favourite tracks of the week.
The 27th ARIA Awards 2013 occurred this time last week, with fairly expected nominees and winners. If you follow this blog at all, you’ll have noticed our slight obsession with all things Flume, and so we’re happy that he cleaned four awards out of his eight nominations including Best Dance Release, Best Producer, Breakthrough Artist and Producer of the Year. That’s gotta be good for the ego. Tame Impala deservedly took out the big one, Album of the Year with Lonerism, as well as Best Group and Best Rock Album. Find the full list of nominees and winners here.
After looking back at 2013, we can look to the future of music with the BBC Sound of 2014 longlist being released this week as well. This list was compiled by 170 industry trend setters with each of them choosing their top three favourite rising artists, so generally it’s a fairly spot on assessment of the year ahead. We reviewed Sam Smith this week, but other artists that made it onto the list include Chance The Rapper, Sampha, FKA Twigs, George Ezra, Banks, Royal Blood and Say Lou Lou – full list here.
It’s clearly been a big week – Grammy nominations also came out! We’ll run you through the finer details soon but for now all you need is to get yourselves ready for full crazy day of music and drinking – both the Grammy’s and Triple J’s Hottest 100 will be held on Australia Day 2014. We’re excited.
THE SETLIST:
The best new music of late? Look no further than The Weekender Setlist.
Lorde – Pure Heroine
I am forever envious of artists with considerably more talent and success than I could ever possibly have. Especially when they are considerably younger than me.
16-year-old Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor, better known by her performance name, ‘Lorde’, is no exception. She released her highly anticipated debut album Pure Heroine, just two weeks ago, after the huge success of singles “Royals” and “Tennis Court”. Unless you live under a rock, it is pretty unlikely that you have not heard of her. “Royals” plays on the radio non-stop. And by non-stop, I mean that several stations play it frequently, and often, simultaneously. Not that I am complaining!
Pure Heroine is just as powerful. There are no filler songs here. Each song on this 10-track album is fresh, tough and unaffected. Lorde’s voice is a strange mix between ethereal and lazy. Her sound is very layered and echoey, but her soft rapping counters her femininity, and gives her a sense of laid-back cool.This rhythmic and hypnotic sound is laced with lyrics about luxe lifestyles and disconnect.
“When it comes to the lyrics, I write about my friends and my life a lot – the strange social situations and the uneasiness of being my age. There’s a lot of me thinking about loneliness, and fake friends and real friends,” Lorde said, in a VEVO interview.
Lorde sings with the wisdom of someone who has lived a long, fabulous and reckless life. Has she? Who knows? But her music is potent and evidence of an artist who understands the lifestyle better than the people who are living it.
The Breakdown:
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
Latest album: Pure Heroine, released 27 September 2013.
Sounds like: Lana Del Rey meets Birdy.
Say what? Ella Yelich-O’Connor’s performance name was inspired by aristocratic titles. “I liked the word phonetically, originally, and then just threw an ‘e’ on the end to make it a little bit feminine,” she said, in a VEVO interview.
ART FELICIS 