Lorde’s journey from Auckland, New Zealand to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks is just one, important leg in the singer’s success story.
There’s much more in the memory banks, which the Kiwi star cracks open for a new curated station, through a collaboration with Sonos.
Available now for no cost on Sonos Radio, Lorde takes a stroll down memory lane for SOLARSYSTYM, and recounts some of the starting points in music career, from her school bus CDs, emptying her piggy-bank for Drake’s “Take Care,” and the inspiration of such songs as ABBA’s “S.O.S”.
The new station is a soundtrack to everything Lorde, “covering zits, trying to feel my feelings, or now at 25. It’s a crazy collection,” she explains in a statement.
To celebrate the station launch, Lorde will share a special “Radio Hour” episode next Wednesday, May 18, during which she’ll chat with host Elia Einhorn on her influences and how her relationship with the natural world has been “a perspective shifter, mood booster, and equalizer in my life.”
Lorde’s music career has been stuffed with highlights, from a months-long reign at No. 1 in the U.S. with “Royals”, a leader on the Billboard 200 with her 2017 sophomore album Melodrama, to a brace of Grammy Awards, and having the honor of performing a tribute to David Bowie at the 2016 BRIT Awards. She’s even found the time for a Instagram side-hustle, with her “onion rings worldwide” account.
Her third and most recent album, 2021’s Solar Power, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, and No. 2 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart.
The Sonos Radio station is “a collection of forms, gravitationally bound. A handful of planets, dozens more dwarf planets, and countless little rocks. All orbiting, all reflecting the light from a sun, these are the forms that have altered my course — for better… and otherwise,” she comments.
“Everything from the tunes my parents pulled from their super sick CD tower to the songs I ripped off YouTube as a pimply teen to the records I include in full because they were that shapeshifting for me as a thinker and feeler. This cluster of celestial bodies will tell you who I am, not who I’m trying to be, but how it really is in here. It’s all in the SOLARSYSTYM.”
Lorde’s Solar Power world tour kicks off May 25 with a sold-out show at the O2 Academy in Leeds, England.
Stream below.