“There’s been this dynamic for the last 10 to 12 years—and then further back—of wanting so badly to be loved, and to get this approval, and to be the favorite,” Ella Yelich-O’Connor told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in 2025. She’s talking in part about becoming an overnight pop star at age 16. That happened on the strength of “Royals,” her 2013 debut single as Lorde and a massive hit that influenced years of pop music. Not bad for a teen from suburban Aotearoa New Zealand, whose combination of vocal brooding, lyrical frankness, and skeletal electro-pop powered the same year’s Pure Heroine, later included on Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums list. Yelich-O’Connor next found strength in different kinds of isolation on 2017’s world-weary, often diaristic Melodrama. Yet, there was room for celebration too, as when lead single “Green Light” hit a sudden surge of self-empowerment. Yelich-O’Connor overhauled her vibe and image alike for 2021’s Solar Power. Now, she was strutting in the sun on the album cover and taking cues from both Laurel Canyon and Primal Scream on the breezy, baggy title track. Yet, her lyrical acuity remained unmistakable as she mused on the passage of time (“Mood Ring”) and the fading of beauty (“Stoned at the Nail Salon”). She reinvented herself again on 2025’s Virgin. Now a seasoned New Yorker approaching 30, she meditates on going off birth control and her potential motherhood. Yelich-O’Connor also looks back to the early days of her career on the gripping album closer, “David,” recalling people’s underestimation of her debut album and how she simply did as she was told at the time. With that in mind, it’s refreshing to watch her prioritize her creative freedom with each new era.