Amid all those twerking Mileys and expletive-Tweeting Azealias, Lorde is a different sort of pop star, her music sheathed in mystery, and what feels suspiciously like real human emotion. Just 16 and from dreariest New Zealand suburbia (her description), Ella Yellich-O’Connor might be the most dreamily disarming newcomer since Lana del Rey – even if, unlike Rey, she seems entirely without artifice (her schtick is that she really doesn’t have a shtick).
You will already have encountered her Regina Spektor-ish worldwide hit ‘Royals’, a pop song which, setting meta levels to kill, contemplates how impossibly aspirational pop songs usually are. But, languidly catchy though it is, ‘Royals’ offers merely a glimpse of what Lorde is capable of. Co-written with Joe Little of New Zealand indie band Goodnight Nurse, Pure Heroine is at once deeply cryptic and off the dial joyous. On the fantastic ‘Ribs’, Lorde offers a shaky-cam view of the pain of growing up, her increasingly bitter-sweet lyrics paired with ghostly dance beats; the swooping ‘Team’ yields a fine-boned cynicism one rarely encounters in chart music any more (“I’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air/ So there/ I’m kind of older than I was when I reveled without a care.”) In interviews Lorde has revealed herself to be a smart lady with firmly held opinions – she called out Selena Gomez for pandering to contemporary pop’s raging misogyny, and refused to back down in the face of the predictable accusations of ‘hater’. If you’re going to tumble head over heels for one gorgeously murky and heartfelt pop record this year, make it Pure Heroine.

Key Track: 'Ribs'