Lorde certainly stole the show at the 56th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles this year. Nominated in four categories (Record of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for Pure Heroine), the singer took home gold trophies for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for 'Royals'. Today, Lorde is the third-youngest Grammy winner in history.

Anyone and everyone who listens to music on radio or TV cannot miss out her name these days. Lorde is an original artist and wunderkind, an artist who is barely in her late teens, but has managed to stay true to her image and music. She is typical teenage material, with a real teenage voice, only difference being she is a star musician today. There are very few artists such as Lorde, as other teenagers sing other people's songs, which are fine, but it's not an authentic teenage experience.

Now known by her stage name Lorde, the teen singer was originally christened Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor. Her debut effort has 10 tracks, with Royals being the headlining single, receiving critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide. Pure Heroine lyrical themes explore teen angst, teen pop themes, social anxiety, romantic overtones and adolescent behavior.

The album title of ‘Pure Heroine’ literally describes a righteous female leader. Lorde’s voice has a cool and smoky timbre, which can become fiery at times. A lot of its best production ideas and lyrical motifs repeat in such a way that it sometimes feels like you’re listening to 10 versions of the same song, but lyrically they’re thankfully different.

The opener Tennis Court opens with vocals, a reverbed synth,while 400 Lux (the measurement of light emitted from a sunset or sunrise), is narrative like most of her tracks here, and has a poetic feel to it. On Team, midway through the album with its pounding drums and an anthemic chorus, she speaks of culture and what it has done to people. It has a memorable chorus, but most of its lyrics ("I'm kinda over being told to throw my hands up in the air"; ………."We live in cities you never see on screen/ Not very pretty but we sure know how to run things") are self explanatory. On Glory and Gore, she rehashes teen imagery in a sort of different way, but stuffs a bit too much of words in the track, that the melody gets suffocated. Her super hit Royals, is all vocals, with a little percussion and bass, otherwise it’s an out and out down tempo track with a very catchy chorus, that the whole world has come to recognize. Likewise, the outro to White Teeth Teens is once again vocals, this time very subtle.

Ribs a very strange name for a song we’d say, but otherwise its one of the other best songs that this very promising songwriter has written so far because her lyrics touch you immediately. How you’d like words like …."It feels so crazy, getting old,” The beat suddenly takes a twist and peps up, "The drink you spilled all over me/ 'Lover’s spit' left on repeat."……. "I've never felt more alone/ it feels so scary, getting old."

The other cuts Buzzcut Season, Still Sane and A World Alone are fairly easy on the ears and a repeat of what you heard earlier in the album track listing.

The album no doubt is a polished work from a budding artist, pop infused with slow to medium jams. Lorde shows the way that you don’t really have to open letters of past boyfriends in your songs, spread your legs to talk of sex overtones, or do stuff like teen heartthrobs have done in the past namely, twerking and obscene images to promote oneself. This is what makes Lorde a complete star, or definitely our "queen bee".

Includes lyrics to all songs.

-          Reviewed by Verus Ferreira