See Lorde’s New Videos for Six Reimagined ‘Melodrama’ Songs
Lorde has unveiled six new videos, which reimagine songs from Melodrama. The stripped-down renditions, which were filmed for Vevo, include “Homemade Dynamite,” “Hard Feelings/Loveless,” “Supercut,” “Sober,” “The Louvre” and “Writer in the Dark.” She filmed the new cuts at New York’s famed Electric Lady Studios, where she also recorded the album.
In a clip accompanying the video series, she explained that this was new ground for her. “I don’t really do acoustic sessions or anything, but with this record, it had roots in acoustic instruments, in live musicianship,” she said. A piano at the studio also played a significant role in Melodrama, with several of the LP’s songs written on it.
“I think when you start to strip a song back, you really come back to this place of where you were building it,” she continued.
Most of the new videos were filmed inside the candlelit studio and feature the aforementioned piano, including “Writer in the Dark.” Album co-producer and co-writer Jack Antonoff appears in that song’s clip. Brass and string musicians also feature in some of the videos, along with a female choir.
“Hard Feelings/Loveless” was filmed on the studio’s roof, where Lorde and the choir perform a joyful, singing-in-the-round performance. “A lot of Melodrama is really about taking these kind of traditionally young female emotions – it was kind of interesting to me to take those, and amplify them and make them into something kind of transcendent,” she said. “And so I feel like having the girls out on the roof and making a really beautiful multipart harmony and just getting to have a sing is kind of what should have always happened with Melodrama I think, what the DNA of it is for sure.”
Last weekend, Lorde performed at Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco, where Antonoff joined her to sing Paul Simon’s 1972 hit, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.” See more of her new videos below.
“Homemade Dynamite”
“Supercut”
“Sober”
“The Louvre”