Lorde confesses future songs will never be as big a hit as breakout 'Royals'

Kiwi pop star Lorde has admitted that she doesn't expect any of the songs on her upcoming album to achieve the enormous success of her breakout hit Royals.

The 24-year-old rose to worldwide fame in 2013 when the track conquered charts all over the world and sold more than 10 million copies.

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Lorde told The New York Times she would not put pressure on herself to match that level of impact with her new, third studio album Solar Power.

"What a lost cause. Can you imagine? I’m under no illusion. That was a moonshot," she said of Royals.

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The singer added: "There’s definitely not a smash [on the new album]. It makes sense that there wouldn’t be a smash, because I don’t even know really what the smashes are now."

It has been four years since Lorde released her second album Melodrama, which was nominated for a Grammy Award.

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The star said she enjoyed taking time off to recharge between her albums and recently revealed she wasn't particularly motivated by social media any more.

She said: "I realised I was trying to come up with a funny Instagram caption and do a photo of me that looked cool, that I hoped would get a certain amount of likes. It sounds obvious but that’s cooked.

"I’m not a girl that gets a bunch of likes. I am who I am and I’ve got to lean into that."

This year is proving to be a busy one for Lorde with her album following the release of photo-book memoir Going South, which focused on her experience exploring Antarctica.

Lorde said the book serves as a suitable lead-in to Solar Power, which she described as "a celebration of the natural world".

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Environmental messaging has been a part of the promotion for the album, with Lorde stating she will not release the film as a CD and will instead offer an eco-friendly "music box" as a physical release.

The star said in a statement that she has decided to eschew CDs as she "didn’t wanna make something that would end up in a landfill in 2 years".

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