By Jessica Wedemeyer
9:02am PDT, Jun 13, 2017
Lorde is back! The New Zealand-born singer-songwriter's sophomore album, "Melodrama," arrives on June 16, 2017. In anticipation of the 20-year-old's new music, Wonderwall.com rounded up the top 15 things about her that you probably don't know but should. Keep reading for the inside scoop on the "Royals" hitmaker…
RELATED: 17 albums to expect in 2017
No. 1: Her recent breakup inspired "Melodrama"
Lorde and James Lowe (pictured) reportedly parted ways in late 2015 after three years together. "After your heart is broken, music enters you on a new level," the singer told The New York Times Magazine in 2017. She refused to call "Melodrama" a breakup album, though, saying instead that it's "a record about being alone. The good parts and the bad parts." It's also a concept album about a house party: "With a party, there's that moment where a great song comes on and you're ecstatic," she said, "and then there's that moment later on where you're alone in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, you don't think you look good, and you start feeling horrible."
RELATED: Music's comeback kids
No. 2: Her interest in the aristocracy inspired her stage name
Lorde's real name is Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor. "It's a bit boring: Ella Yelich-O'Connor," she told Rolling Stone in 2017. "Can you imagine them shouting it at a festival? It just made sense to me to elevate it." According to VH1, the singer-songwriter looked through books for aristocratic titles she could call herself. "I love the sound of the word and how it looks, but I also like how it's a little arrogant," she told them.
RELATED: The strangest conspiracy theories about celebrities
No. 3: She knows you think her dance moves are weird, but she doesn't care
"I know when i'm onstage, i don't think about how it looks, i just concentrate on really feeling what i hear. but i totally know i look like gollum [from 'Lord of the Rings'] when i perform, so it's cool," Lorde wrote during an Ask Me Anything session on reddit. After people criticized her early 2017 appearance on "Saturday Night Live," the singer wrote on Facebook, "one day i will do a normal dance choreographed by a nice person and i will look more like your other favourite performers but we have not yet reached that day."
No. 4: She wants to go back to school some day
"I think that moment's going to come where I'm like, 'Okay, let's listen to someone else talk about what it means to be a human being,'" Lorde told Rolling Stone in 2017. (The singer-songwriter suspended her education to pursue her career.)
No. 5: Her parents JUST got married
Lorde's parents — poet Sonja Yelich (pictured) and civil engineer Vic O'Connor — tied the knot in May 2017 after three decades and four children (including the singer) together. They got engaged during a visit to Niagara Falls in 2014.
No. 6: She has synesthesia
Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon experienced by a small percentage of the population for whom stimulating one sense triggers another. Lorde's condition causes her to experience music differently: She can literally see songs as colors and textures. "From the moment I start something, I can see the finished song, even if it's far-off and foggy," she told The New York Times Magazine in 2017. "It's about getting the actual thing to sound like what I've been seeing." She also addressed her synesthesia during a Tumblr Q&A in 2015. Wrote the singer-songwriter: "when i'm writing, if a song's colours are too oppressive or ugly sometimes i won't want to work on it- when we first started 'Tennis Court' we just had that pad playing the chords, and it was the worst textured tan colour, like really dated, and it made me feel sick, and then we figured out that pre chorus and i started the lyric and the song changed to all these incredible greens overnight!!!"
No. 7: She truly believes that one person's trash is another's treasure
Lorde loves vintage clothes and thrift shopping — and has said that her favorite thing to do is "trawl the inorganics." As part of a reuse and recycle initiative in New Zealand, people leave unwanted inorganic personal items on the curb for others to take for free. "It stays on the street for a few days and then it's collected and put into a landfill somewhere," she told The Telegraph in 2014. "But people drive around and go through other people's household rubbish. And, honestly, I've gotten amazing furniture, shoes, hats, jackets… I did this three weeks ago!"
No. 8: She has diverse tastes in movies
Lorde said during an Ask Me Anything session on reddit that her three favorite movies are "Fight Club," 1971's "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" and the 2011 drama "Take Shelter," in which Michael Shannon stars opposite Jessica Chastain as a man who believes he's having premonitions of the impending apocalypse.
No. 9: She's outdoorsy
"I'm surrounded by the beach [in New Zealand], so I love to fish and to dive and to swim," Lorde told Billboard in 2013. "I walk a lot, and I bike around. I hang out at the beach, really, and muck around." (Well, color us surprised!)
No. 10: She made history
In 2013, Lorde became the first solo artist from New Zealand to have a No. 1 hit in America when her debut single, "Royals," topped the Billboard charts. The then-16-year-old singer also became the youngest artist to hit No. 1 in more than a quarter-century. (Singer Tiffany topped the charts in 1987 with "I Think We're Alone Now" when she was also 16.)
No. 11: She was already a star when she took her first plane ride
Lorde had never flown before when she boarded a flight from her native New Zealand to Australia to replace Frank Ocean during the 2013 Splendour in the Grass music festival. Though her single "Royals" had only debuted a month earlier, she'd already gained international attention and a loyal fanbase for her breakout hit.
No. 12: It took her just half an hour to write her biggest hit
"I was just at my house, and I wrote it before I went to the studio," Lorde told Billboard in 2013 of her breakout hit, "Royals." "I wrote it in like half an hour — the lyrics, anyway. I wrote all the lyrics and took them to the studio and my producer was like, 'Yeah, this is cool.' We worked on that and on two other songs on the EP in a week, and just did a little bit every day."
No. 13: She's been a professional musician since she was just 12
Lorde wasn't even a teenager yet when her manager, Scott Maclachlan, discovered her after watching a video of her performing during a local talent show. According to Billboard, the singer was 12 when he signed her as a solo artist to a development deal with Universal Music Group. He let her develop as an artist for three years before he helped her release her debut studio album, 2013's "Pure Heroine." "I just let her get on with it, and she just kept on improving," Scott told Billboard.
No. 14: She's really, really good at flying under the radar
"Nobody recognizes me," Lorde told The New York Times Magazine in 2017. The singer-songwriter, who moved to New York City to record her "Melodrama" album, often takes the subway and frequents local diners. "When Lorde does spot someone spotting her … her move is to smile, place a finger to her lips and mouth a conspiratorial shh. Her thinking is that this gesture, warm and direct in its appeal, will pre-empt any further encounter," wrote the Times reporter who profiled her.
No. 15: She's not the only member of her family with talent
Lorde's little sister, India Yelich-O'Connor, is an aspiring singer, model and actress. She recently moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment and has posed for Teen Vogue, Nylon and Remix magazines. India also made headlines when a cover of A Great Big World's "Say Something" that she recorded for fun went viral. (Lorde also has an older sister, Jerry, and a younger brother, Angelo.)
