walking upstream…
Lorde
Ella Yelich-O'Connor emerged from Auckland, New Zealand as Lorde, rewriting teenage pop stardom on her own minimalist terms: 2013's Pure Heroine paired a deadpan, low alto voice with spare, bass-heavy electropop production and lyrics that picked apart celebrity excess from the outside looking in. Melodrama (2017) opened that sound into widescreen synth-pop drama, and she's kept restlessly reinventing across Solar Power (2021) and Virgin (2025). Across every era she's remained an unusually hands-on songwriter-producer voice inside a genre built on committees.
the sound in question
2017
Green LightLorde
walk the tributaries ↓
Bon Iver2010s · Indie folk / Folk / Experimental
Lorde has said her first-ever concert, at 13, was Bon Iver's self-titled second album tour, calling it 'such a major spiritual experience,' and she lists Justin Vernon among her formative influences; he later co-produced an early draft of a Virgin track with her (a version she ultimately reworked). His hushed, texture-first vocal approach and hazy, spacious production map onto her own quieter, atmosphere-over-hooks instincts.
listen: upstream & heresource: Dazed — Lorde on Virgin, Justin Vernon, and Bon Iver ↗
2011
HoloceneBon Iver
2017
LiabilityLorde
listen forPut Bon Iver's 'Holocene' next to Lorde's 'Liability' — both strip an aching melody down to close-mic'd vocal, sparse piano, and negative space, trusting silence to carry as much weight as the notes.
Kanye West2000s · Hip-hop / Conscious hip-hop
Lorde has named Kanye West among her direct inspirations, and by her own account she wrote Pure Heroine after a stretch of listening heavily to rap and pop that traded in opulence — she's said 'the rapper to whom I most relate is Kanye West,' admiring how singularly he pursues his own vision. Royals grew directly out of that listening, answering the genre's luxury signifiers with a flat, deadpan rejection of them.
listen: upstream & here
2010
PowerKanye West
2013
RoyalsLorde
listen forPlay Kanye's maximalist, siren-blaring 'Power' against Lorde's 'Royals' — same total self-assurance and declarative hook-writing, but Lorde strips away every ounce of the orchestration and opulence Kanye piles on.
Robyn2010s · Electropop / Dance-pop / Synth-pop
Lorde kept a framed photo of Robyn in the studio while making Melodrama, and coverage of the album has repeatedly pointed to the Swedish pop auteur's emotionally naked dance-floor songwriting — crying while dancing, heartbreak set to a beat — as a direct template for Melodrama's arc; Robyn's own Wikipedia legacy entry names Lorde among artists she influenced.
listen: upstream & here
2010
Dancing On My OwnRobyn
2017
SupercutLorde
listen forSet Robyn's 'Dancing On My Own' against Lorde's 'Supercut' — both are propulsive, synth-driven pop songs about replaying a relationship in your head, using the rush of the beat to carry lyrics that are actually about being alone with the memory.