Team is from Lorde's debut album, Pure Heroine. The song was
released on September 13th, 2013 as the album's third single by Universal Music. Lorde and Joel Little wrote
the song, with Little producing it. It was was written while Lorde was travelling the world.
Lorde told The Fader there are two lines on the song that are particularly important to her. She said:
"One of them was: 'We live in cities you'll never see onscreen.' Because I like in Auckland, which
is definitely not New York. It just felt important for me to be speaking for the minority. Coming
from a small city, somewhere that feels unimportant, you just wanna get out of there. You're whole
teenage life
The other line is: 'I'm kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air.' Because,
there's been so much of that in pop music, and I'm like, this is the stupidest thing. Being told
to put your hands in the air? That's the last thing I wanna do right now. I just wanted to be
a bit more realistic. I don't if that's relating to young people in general, or just people
who listen to pop."
Joel Little told Billboard magazine: "Team was a beat that I had floating around. I thought I'd be
able to do something cool with it, but every time I started playing around with it, it didn't
feel quite right. I was at home and I did a melody for the intro section, where it's just
a double a cappella of her voice. It popped into my head and I was like, 'I can do something
where it starts off super slow and dark and it's just her. If we can find a way to loop he
last little bit and speed it up, then it will be a bit of a twist.' So I went into the studio
with that idea, had her put the Lyrics together for that intro, and it went from there.
I'm proud of that song; it's a good one."
From the Album:
Pure Heroine (2013)
Released:
September 13th, 2013
Format:
Digital download
Recorded:
Late 2012 to early 2013 at Golden Age Studios, Morningside, Auckland, New Zealand
Genre:
Pop
rock
EDM
electrohop
Length:
3:13
Label:
Universal
Writers:
Ella Yelich-O'Connor
Joel Little
Producer:
Joel Little
Music video:
"Team" on YouTube
On December 3, 2013 the official video was released and uploaded to Vevo at 10am. The video was filmed in Red Hook,
Brooklyn and directed by Young Replicant, and potrays "vaguely sinister sequences involving teens in
a kind of enclave with Lorde". Upon release the video crashed Vevo's channel due to a large number of views.
Lorde Tour Dates: