Lorde may not be 17 yet, but she has made headlines this week as the artist to dethrone Miley Cyrus’ short reign on the Hot 100 chart. Her song “Royals” beat Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” this week and many are making note of the subject for Lorde’s hit.
“Wrecking Ball” had held the top spot on the chart for just two weeks before “Royals” reached the summit, notes Billboard. The track jumped from No. 3 to No. 1. Nielsen BDS data notes that it reached No. 4 on the Radio Songs list and also earned a second week at the top of the Digital Songs chart with 294,000 downloads.
While the New Zealand-born Lorde isn’t the youngest person to reach the top of the Hot 100 chart, she’s the youngest woman to do it in over two decades. Singer Tiffany had a hit with “I Think We're Alone Now” in November 1987 when she was 16. Lorde celebrates her birthday on Nov. 16, when she will turn 17.
According to Bloomberg, “Royals” has been out since March. Lorde, whose real name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor, wrote the track as a response to all the gold and greed rappers and pop stars had been singing about in recent years.
“Around the middle of last year I started listening to a lot of rap, like Nicki Minaj and Drake, as well as pop singers like Lana Del Rey,” she told Interview magazine, notes Bloomberg. “They all sing about such opulence, stuff that just didn't relate to me—or anyone that I knew. I began thinking, ‘How are we listening to this? It's completely irrelevant.’”
Here’s “Royals”:
image: NBC