Royals and The Boss

Seriously, I love Bruce. And as I’ve written before in this space, I also adore Lorde, the teen pop sensation from New Zealand. But I never thought of them as inhabiting the same musical universe, which is why his cover of her breakthrough hit from last year, “Royals,” is as delightful as it is unexpected. It’s an unlikely pairing because musically and generationally, the two are so different. But once you start thinking about their work thematically — the class-conscious populism, especially — it makes absolute sense.