I think it all comes back to promotion and expectations.
First, Katy Perry was a huge pop star like a decade ago, and like I had all of her CDs when i was a kid. But then she kinda disappeared. It's only fair plp my age or a lil bit older go check it out. She's was no Gaga, but like... Have you ever seen her play a concert in Brazil? HUGE. The song is bad, but people are curious.
Although this thread doesn't make any sense bc Woman's World and SP were like one number apart lmao, I have a theory.
The dissappearence of Katy on the music industry + her comeback makes plp WOW KATY IS BACK. And want to check it out. Promotion was good, but not astronomic. Also the fact that she's working with a predator. It makes people want to listen to it, but also also it gives the ick. You know?
Lorde is kinda different. She was a huge success with PH, and then a HUGE succes with Melodrama. Critics loved it, the media loved it, A LOT OF PROMO. SP had really big expectations, plp were expecting a melodrama 2.0. People were SITTED, and the thing is: there was no promotion - bc it honestly wasn't a comercial album, and her label knew it. People were kinda disappointed, critics hated it (unfairly on my opinion). We can se the expectation/disappointment on the stream numbers. The single Solar Power has 45,031,153 streams, meanwhile her second single (SATNS) has only 8,394,501 streams. But she's still popular tho, her numbers on spotify are stable, her last concert in Brazil was kinda amazing - we screamed at the top of our lungs the songs from SP. One of the best experiences of my life tbh.
So there's that. People expect ****, and Katy Perry did promote it very well. People were talking on Twitter and in here. Solar Power had no promotion, our girl Lorde wasn't even active on social media at the time, she only sent newsletters to her fans lmao. Her fans did the work, but also she is a huge name - plp love Melodrama, it followed their teen years or young adult years and it's very relatable. People were expecting the same for a third album -which didn't happen (altho i love the third album and think it's a very quiet masterpiece, bt that's just my opinion)