It’s not like we needed any additional reasons to crown Ella as the queen of pop.  At just 20 years old, she’s stolen that crown from Ariana who stole it from Carle Rae who stole it from Taylor.  Well, that’s if you ask me.

But personal and irrelevant opinions aside about who owns pop (when it’s really the record companies and producers), Melodrama was – and is – a stone cold classic.  If you try and find a poorly constructed or unimaginative tune on it, you can’t.  It’s art-pop at it’s best, and it is everything that the industry should be striving for.

…And then there’s moments like this that go even further above and beyond what you’d expect.  Lorde must already be bored getting showered with accolades, because she has gone to work creating six incredible live re-imaginings of some of Melodrama‘s best songs: “Hard Feelings/Loveless” (see above), “Writer In The Dark”, “Sober”, “Supercut”, “Homemade Dynamite”, and “The Louvre.”  The above is one of my early favorites – there’s just something about the way she gets down to her own music that is both adorable and admirable.  You can tell she loves what she does.

In a brief interview with Vevo, Lorde states,

I don’t really do, like, acoustic sessions or anything, but with this record, it had roots in acoustic instruments and live musicianship.”

She also discusses working with Jack Antenoff (of Bleachers) and how the record centered around a search for the right piano.  Watch her brief foreword to the re-imaginings below:

You can listen to the other 5 live song versions here:

Now you know it’s really gunna blow…(pause)…”poooooooooow”

Is that Jack Antenoff sitting next to her on the piano?  Why yes, it is.

Those horns at the end…

This is passion.

But we’re the greatest, they’ll hang us in the louvre…down the back, but who cares, still the louvre.