Since she burst into public consciousness as a 16-year-old with the release of The Love Club EP and ubiquitous first single Royals in early 2013, New Zealand pop wunderkind Lorde – real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor – has racked up some extraordinary achievements in just two years in the limelight.

Despite not being able to legally drink or vote, Lorde has proven to be wiser, more humble and PR-savvy than the vast majority of pop stars many years her senior.

· Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’: how she stuck it to the critics
· The music video is back and better than ever

She has found that rare balance between overwhelming mainstream success and gushing critical praise, picked up a swag of awards around the world, become a style icon and emerged as an intelligent, considered voice for, oft-criticised, generation Y.

Just this week, on the eve of her 18th birthday, a clip of the prodigy singing a cover of The King’s of Leon’s Use Somebody at 12 showed her immense, raw talent.

Lorde, who was born and raised on Auckland’s North Shore, turns 18 on Friday, November 7, and The New Daily celebrates the transcendent Kiwi’s milestone by reeling off her diverse and prestigious list of accomplishments while still a minor.

Royals makes Billboard history

Lorde’s worldwide mega-hit Royals saw her overtake the achievements of some illustrious artists on the hallowed US Billboard charts. She set a new record for longest stay at the top of Billboard’s Alternative Chart by a female solo artist, surpassing the five-week mark established by Alanis Morrisette’s 1995 smash You Oughta Know, before becoming the youngest artist to top Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart since Tiffany (with I Think We’re Alone Now) in 1987.

Singles and debut album chart at #1, critical acclaim ensues

Royals reached #1 in New Zealand, US, UK, Canada and Italy, follow-up Tennis Courts hit #1 in NZ, while Team peaked at #3 in her homeland and in Canada, and #6 in the US. Debut album, the dazzling Pure Heroine, topped the charts in New Zealand and Australia, and climbed to #2 in Canada, #3 in the US, #4 in the UK, #6 in Sweden, and was a top-20 hit in France, Germany and Denmark. Lorde was an instant multi-millionaire. But she coupled that commercial success with almost unanimous praise from critics far and wide, including four-star reviews from Spin and Rolling Stone, and a score of 73/100 from the influential – and notoriously fickle – Pitchfork.

Headlining Splendour in the Grass

Hipsters clutched their topknots in despair in their thousands when hip-hop sensation Frank Ocean was forced to cancel his Sunday headlining slot at the 2013 Splendour in the Grass festival in Byron Bay. But the 16-year-old Lorde stepped in as an 11th-hour replacement and delivered an incendiary performance, despite having just two days’ notice to prepare. Royals and Tennis Courts were still relatively fresh, but the Splendour throng fell in love with the diminutive Kiwi. Ocean has slipped off the radar completely since, while Lorde went on to headline St Jerome’s Laneway Festival on her own merits just six months later.

Grammy Awards success

Lorde took home Grammys for Song of the Year (with songwriter, fellow Kiwi Joel Little) and Best Solo Pop Performance for Royals, while Royals was also nominated for Record of the Year and Pure Heroine was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album. She also performed Royals and Team in her trademark unaffected, jerky style.

Fronting Nirvana at Rock n Roll Hall of Fame induction

Alongside Joan Jett, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and St Vincent, Lorde was chosen to perform with the remaining members of Nirvana at the seminal grunge band’s induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She sang All Apologies, and although many questioned the decision to have her front one of the greatest bands of all time (she was, after all, born more than two years after Kurt Cobain died), Lorde made the song her own – and to be asked to perform by rock legend Dave Grohl was a career highlight in itself.

Dominating Triple J Hottest 100

For so long the bastion of tangible music coolness in Australia, ‘Triple J’s Hottest 100 of 2013’ had Lorde’s magic woven throughout its upper reaches. Royals polled #2, Tennis Courts #12 and Team #15 – the first year an artist has had three songs in the top-15 since Powderfinger in 2003, and the first time the feat has been achieved by a solo artist.

Curating Hunger Games soundtrack

After contributing a haunting, ambitious cover of Tears for Fears’ classic Everybody Wants to Rule the World to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack, Lorde was enlisted to curate the soundtrack for the third film in the wildly popular series, Mockingjay: Part 1. She provided the first single, Yellow Flicker Beat, herself and put together a stellar tracklist, including original songs by Grace Jones, Chemical Brothers, CHVRCHES and Major Lazer, while also featuring on Stromae’s Meltdown alongside Pusha-T, Q-Tip and Haim.

Appearing on The Late Show and Ellen

Lorde’s reach extended further into the American masses with eye-catching, well-received outings on The Late Show with David Letterman, where she performed a 30-minute set, and Ellen, attracting lavish praise from both talk-show icons.

Parodied on South Park

In perhaps the most definitive nod to her rise to worldwide fame, Lorde was portrayed in a recent episode long-running cult cartoon South Park. In the episode, it is revealed Lorde is actually Stan’s dad, 45-year-old geologist Randy Marsh, who began posing as a 17-year-old pop singer to be able to use women’s bathrooms. A full parody song, Push, sung by reclusive Australian singer Sia, was subsequently released. Lorde took the spoofing in typical good humour, even joking “yeah, he has a moustache…I mean, I have a moustache, but is it that prominent?”

‘Royals’ adopted by Major League Baseball team and fans

Lorde’s biggest hit was apparently inspired by her seeing a picture of baseball great George Brett in his Kansas City Royals uniform in a 1976 issue of National Geographic, and the team’s supporters adopted the song as a quasi-anthem. It spawned several remakes with tweaked lyrics by KC fans, while the club sent her a replica of Brett’s No.5 jersey and she met the man himself before a show in Las Vegas in April. Last month, the Royals reached the World Series for the first time in almost three decades, pitching Lorde back into the headlines by default.