Lorde's smash hit Royals has been given an irony-free reboot, as the soundtrack for a big-budget TV and movie ad for US car-maker Cadillac.

The 2012 song, which satirised conspicuous consumption and brand-consciousness, has been re-recorded from scratch for a two-and-a-half-minute Cadillac ad that was released in China last month. The song was suggested by the ad agency and approved by Cadillac, presumably because it contains the line "we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams".

Lorde, aka Ella Yelich-O'Connor, told the Listener in 2013 that the song was written when she was listening to Lana Del Rey and a lot of rap, and she'd been struck by all the references to expensive alcohol, clothes and cars.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Lorde (Ella Yelich-O'Connor) lets rip in Christchurch during the Melodrama world tour.

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​"I was thinking 'this is so opulent, but it's also bulls…".

The other brands name-checked in the song are Grey Goose vodka, Cristal champagne and Maybach cars.

GEORGE HEARD/STUFF Lorde (Ella Yelich-O'Connor) in Christchurch. The 'Cadillac' line in her 2012 hit Royals was a diary entry from when she was '11 or 12'.

Yelich-Connor's record label Universal Music is understood to have received US$160,000 ($230,000) for letting Cadillac use the song, a lower rate than if the advertisement had simply used the original recording. It is unclear what proportion of that fee will end up in Yelich-Connor's pocket.

Yelich-O'Connor, who recently turned 21, is currently on tour in New Zealand promoting her latest album Melodrama.

The new two-and-half-minute advertisement was an international affair: commissioned by an American company to sell cars in the Chinese market it was shot in the streets of New York by French director Eric Will. Lorde's song was re-recorded in Malaysia at Kuala Lumpur's Two AM studios, which are owned and run by Kiwi expatriate composer and musician Anton Morgan, and the vocals were by Chinese-Malaysian singer Melissa Wong.

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Morgan, 48, who grew up in Auckland, said it had been a "real buzz" for his team to be working on the track.

"We've had comments from people saying this version is really pretty decent, though I'm sure we'll be up for a bit of slack from diehard Lorde fans.

"It's sweet that such a famous Kiwi song was reworked in the middle of Asia by Kiwis who grew up just down the road from where Lorde came from."

He said it was very unusual for a client to request a remake of a full-length song, "as they usually don't want to pay that much for music".

The 2013 Samsung ad featuring Lionel Messi and a version of Royals.

The 2016 Barnardo's UK ad, featuring Lorde's cover of a Tears for Fears classic.

This isn't the first advertising outing for Yelich-O'Connor's music. In 2013, Samsung used a version of Royals in an ad featuring dozens of singing street urchins, with a cameo from Lionel Messi. Her single Glory and Gore was used in a promotion for the History channel TV series Vikings and her cover of the Tears for Fears song Everybody Wants to Rule the World was used in a 2016 ad for the children's charity Barnardo's UK.

In a 2014 interview with US website Radio.com, Yelich-O'Connor said she had first written the phrase "We're driving Cadillacs in our dreams" in a diary when she was 11 or 12.