Lorde Said She Only Listens To Covers of Her Career-Defining Hit, Called Her Original “Disastrous” and “Awful”

An artist’s perspective of their art will often be different from their audience’s, and the same can be said about Lorde, who struggles to listen to anything but cover versions of her career-defining hit from 2013. “Hit,” in this sense, is somewhat of an understatement. Escaping the New Zealand pop star’s breakthrough single, “Royals,” was virtually impossible in the early aughts. It was a phenomenon.

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“Royals” helped usher in a new era of dark, moody pop, and the masses instantly ate it up. But in hindsight, Lorde (who was still a teenager when she released the iconic track) struggles to listen to the song. In fact, she prefers cover versions to the original.

Lorde Only Listens To Covers Of This Career-Defining Track

Lorde burst into the American mainstream in 2013 with her smash hit, “Royals,” which featured a sparse arrangement, thick vocal harmonies, and lyrics begging to be put into an Instagram caption: We’ll never be royals. It don’t run in our blood. That kind of luxe just ain’t for us, we crave a different kind of buzz. The song contrasted the ever-popular lyrical themes of wealth, success, and abundance. As a teenager growing up in rural New Zealand, this simply wasn’t a reality Lorde was even remotely familiar with.

Speaking to The Observer in the mid-aughts, Lorde said, “What really got me is this ridiculous, unrelatable, unattainable opulence. Lana Del Rey is always singing about being in the Hamptons or driving her Bugatti Veyron or whatever. At the time, me and my friends were at some house party worrying how to get home because we couldn’t afford a cab,” per Far Out Magazine. 

Despite the song’s connection to Lorde’s childhood in New Zealand, she struggled to relate to the song as she got older (and not just because her superstar status placed her squarely in that world of unattainable opulence she once viewed from afar). One of Lorde’s biggest hang-ups was the production value. “It sounds like a ringtone from a 2006 Nokia. None of the melodies are cool or good. It’s disastrous, awful. But for some reason, in the context of the way I released it, it just worked out” (via Express).

She added, “I listen to people covering the song and putting their own spin on it. I listen to it in every single form except the original one I put out, and I realize that, actually, it sounds horrible.”

Public Criticism Helped Shift Her Perspective On The Song

The production value and melodic arrangement weren’t the only things that bothered Lorde about her massive breakthrough hit, “Royals.” After all, cringing at things we believed, did, or said as teenagers is a natural part of the human experience. It would stand to reason that Lorde might feel the same way about a song she wrote when she was only 16 years old, especially when those lyrics garner flak for potential racism and cultural appropriation.

Backlash to Lorde’s career-defining hit began after Feministing blogger, Véronica Bayetti Flores, claimed some lines from “Royals” were subtly racist. Namely, the pre-chorus: But every song’s like gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom…Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece, jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash. Flores argued Lorde was specifically criticizing imagery from predominantly Black hip-hop culture. While Lorde admitted to pulling from this kind of opulence so often talked about in hip-hop, she said she never intended the song to be racially derogatory.

“I mean, it’s one thing for kids who fight in the comment section of YouTube and who use ‘gay’ as an insult to take offense at what you’re doing,” Lorde said in a 2014 interview (via HuffPost). “But when it’s highly intelligent writers, all of whom you respect, you start to question what you’re doing and if you have done something wrong. I’m glad that people are having discussions about it and informing me about it.”

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