Entertainment

Stop What You're Doing and Listen to Lorde's Album

by Rachel Simon

Well, there goes the rest of our day. Pure Heroine, the debut album from 16-year-old New Zealand sensation Lorde, is available to stream online, a full week before its release in stores. We'd already known that Lorde was hugely talented, thanks to hit singles "Royals," "Tennis Court," and the recently released "Team," but the full album proves that she's a full-blown powerhouse. It's an incredibly impressive debut, made even more astonishing when you remember that Lorde is just 16. Only the lyrics, which frequently deal with adolescence, give that fact away, because the vocals are powerful and mature enough to be mistaken for someone twice the singer's age.

Pure Heroine opens with fan favorite "Tennis Court," and includes songs listeners may recognize from The Love Club EP, including "Royals." It's the new songs, though, that cement Lorde as an artist to watch.

There's "400 Lux," a tale of a low-key but emotionally charged relationship ("We're hollow like the bottles that we drink/you drape your wrists over the steering wheel/pulses can drive from here"); "Ribs," a wise-beyond-her-years look at maturity ("The drink you spilled all over me/lover's spit left on repeat/my mom and dad let me stay home/it drives you crazy, getting old"); "Buzzcut Season," haunting and original ("I remember when your head caught flame/it kissed your scalp and caressed your brain"); "Still Sane," a gorgeous look at the singer's sudden rise to fame ("Only bad people live to see their likeness in stone/what does that make me?") Every song off the album is strong enough to be a single, and together, they make for one perfect debut.

Stream "Pure Heroine" below: