You might not like it, but the defining image of pop culture in 2013 is likely to be Miley Cyrus, straddling an oversized concrete orb – even former Golden Girls actress Betty White, now a sprightly 91, has parodied the singer’s Wrecking Ball video in an amusing promo clip for her US TV show Off Their Rockers.
Is Cyrus, who turns 21 today, pushing society’s buttons brilliantly like Madonna in her prime, or simply using cheap shock tactics to prolong a career that could have evaporated when her teenage fan base began to outgrow her? Either way, at the moment, it’s clearly working: she’s become so ubiquitous that Google Chrome has introduced a plug-in, No Cyrus, that blocks any mention of her name from your browser, and her album Bangerz recently debuted at No 1 on both sides of the Atlantic.
Cyrus may be the biggest attention-seeker, but she’s not the only young female pop singer making waves right now.
This year’s most exciting breakthrough artist, Lorde, is a 17-year-old New Zealander who coolly critiques mainstream pop and rap music’s obsession with luxury brands and extravagant parties on her current single Royals.
“But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece, jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash,” she sings on the first verse, before distancing herself and her peers from this material world: “We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair.”
Thrillingly, Lorde’s Royals has become an impossible-to-predict international smash, topping the charts in the United Kingdom, US, Ireland, Canada and the singer’s native New Zealand. This is partly because it’s a terrifically catchy pop song with a succession of ear-snagging lines, but also because the hip, minimal production from Lorde’s Australian collaborator Joel Little cleverly echoes the very music Lorde is scrutinising in her lyrics. As British rapper Dizzee Rascal noted recently: “She sounds like she’s influenced by the stuff she’s talking about.”
Royals is no one-off and Lorde’s debut album, Pure Heroine, released at the end of September, is the work of an artist who’s had time to work out who she is and what she wants to say. The singer-songwriter, whose real name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor, signed a record company development deal when she was just 12 years old and arrives now sounding like an old head on young shoulders. Her songs, all co-written with Little, are elegant vignettes about growing up in an unglamorous part of suburban New Zealand – something to which any listener who doesn’t come from a world of “jet planes, islands and tigers on a gold leash” – will be able to relate. “We live in cities you’ll never see on screen, not very pretty, but we sure know how to run free,” Lorde sings with quiet defiance on a song called Team.
The irony is that Lorde’s flair for writing about her relatable teenage lifestyle is now taking her away from it – in recent months she’s played gigs in London, New York, Sydney and San Francisco. Naturally, this preternaturally savvy teenager had already worked out that this was likely to happen, and sings about it on another standout track from her album, Tennis Court. “How can I f**k with the fun again when I’m known?” she asks, already knowing the answer.
Lorde is one of this year’s biggest success stories, but a top tip for next year is 18-year-old British newcomer Chlöe Howl. With her freckled face and cropped ginger hair, Howl looks like the perfect quirky pop star, and, so far, her music suggests this is precisely what she could become.
Her debut single, No Strings, released at the end of August, is a fizzy electro-pop number about clumsy teenage romantic encounters that features the clever play-off line: “The trouble with no strings is you can only fall.”
Another track Howl has shared online, Rumour, playfully sends up the-high school gossip mill. “She used to be quite overweight, she may not be entirely straight” is one of several sharp couplets that prompt a wry smile of recognition as you listen. Howl’s debut album is due early next year and features songs co-written with top pop songwriters including Eg White (Adele) and Justin Parker (Lana Del Rey), so she’s definitely an artist to keep a close eye on.
As is rising star Charli XCX, a 21-year-old who’s recently been asked to write songs for Britney Spears and Rita Ora. Charli’s calling card is I Love It, the punky dance number she co-wrote for the Swedish duo Icona Pop. When I Love It became a hit first in the US and then in the UK, it provided long-overdue validation for this sparky self-starter from Hertfordshire, who began her career performing on the East London warehouse scene when she was just 14 years old with her parents waiting in the car outside.
Charli XCX’s progress hasn’t been as rapid as Lorde’s but this April she finally released her first commercially released full-length album, True Romance, and it shows plenty of promise. The standout tracks Nuclear Seasons, Stay Away and Take My Hand are dark, exotic-sounding alterna-pop tracks that might have become mainstream hits if they’d found themselves on the right film or TV soundtrack.
Despite being busy with those high-profile songwriting assignments, Charli is already cracking on with her own second album. Next month, she releases its lead single, SuperLove, which sounds a bit like Kylie Minogue gone indie and showcases her knack for huge pop hooks and endearingly daft lyrics like the ones she wrote on I Love It. “I think your hair looks much better pushed over to one side / How do you feel about me?” Charli sings at one point, and it’s the sort of couplet that sticks in your head even though you know it shouldn’t.
Like Charli XCX, 21-year-old Sky Ferreira has been plugging away for some time, but now seems to be finding her rightful place on the pop landscape. This ambitious LA native first emerged in 2010 when her record label tried to market her as a successor to Britney Spears, but a couple of expensively-produced singles flopped and Ferreira, who had already been branded “difficult” because she kept asking for greater creative control, looked like damaged goods at the age of 18.
The turning point came last summer, when Everything Is Embarrassing, a track she was given by the trendy producer Dev Hynes, became an unexpected blog hit.
It hasn’t quite been plain sailing since then – this September, Ferreira was arrested in New York alongside her boyfriend on charges of drug possession and resisting arrest – but her debut album finally came out last month and somewhat against the odds it’s a triumph. Titled Night Time, My Time, it’s an effortlessly cool collection of grungey pop songs with honest and emotionally complex lyrics. “I want you to know I blame myself … for my reputation,” Ferreira sings humbly on a track called I Blame Myself.
The album’s controversial cover art shows Ferreira cowering in the shower, body exposed. It’s a raw and provocative image that’s got pop fans talking, which suggests Ferreira should be able to hold her own next February when she opens for Miley Cyrus on the latter’s Bangerz Tour of North America.
Nick Levine is a freelance music journalist based in London.