Six years ago, 16-year-old Ella Yelich-O’Connor, under her stage name Lorde, released her debut album Pure Heroine to overwhelming success and would go on to be nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album. Since the start of her popularity, Lorde has become sort of a patron saint for bored suburban teens with a lot of feelings (and I say that lovingly as a former bored suburban teen with a lot of feelings). Jason Lipshutz described the vibe of the album perfectly in his Billboard review, calling it “an exploration into the soul of a quiet girl in the Internet age, trying to feel something and not envy everything.” Her lyrics have the potential to resonate with anyone as if she wrote a manifesto that universalizes the tediousness yet the ever-present drama of adolescence. 

“Royals,” one of the singles from the album and a massive hit at the time, seemed to strike a resonant chord with listeners all around the world who didn’t relate to songs about endless wealth and glamor. The song, which was released three months before Pure Heroine, gave listeners a glimpse into Lorde’s heavily observant and introspective voice, something to change up the narrative of pop music. While there are so many special songs on the album, here are a few in particular that I go back to all the time. 

“Tennis Court,” the first track, reflects on Lorde’s upcoming fame through a highly critical lens. The young teenager uses typical high school tropes like “class clown” and “beauty queen” to dissect the nature of fame now that she’s seeing it from the inside, looking at the fleeting nature of celebrity and being at the top of the throne. The song’s title, as well as repeated use of royal imagery, could perhaps be a reference to another monarch who had a major fall from grace. 

The album’s second track, “400 Lux,” is a tender slow-burn about driving with someone who means a lot to you and watching the sunrise. The lyrics treasure little, fleeting moments (“You buy me orange juice”), and highlight how, in the monotony of daily existence, you can take comfort in the familiarity of your surroundings and mutual understanding between people you love. In a departure from typical adolescent angst over wanting to leave suburbia, Lorde stops to look at the roads she knows like the back of her hand and feels solace.

Perhaps the most compelling song on the album, “Ribs,” starts as a whispered memory that quickly turns into a frenzied mantra about the nature of getting older. As a 16-year-old, Lorde anguishes over the stress and fear of feeling further and further from childhood. It seems silly hearing an adolescent saying this, but she captures how it is to be that age and feel constantly on the verge of something. The rest of the song plays out like a nostalgic-infused cry (“I want ‘em back I want ‘em back/The minds we had the minds we had”), daydreaming about sleepovers when she was a little kid and wasn’t constantly thinking about impending adulthood. It’s a beautiful song about growing pains that I still think is one of her best.

So, thanks Lorde for giving us an album six years ago that made it seem like many of us were growing up with her. Pure Heroine is an incredibly vulnerable piece of music that I think will be relatable for a long time, and stands as the beginning for what I hope is a long and insightful music career.