January is a funny time of year for music. Many albums wanting to be big in 2024 have either come out already or are holding off. It’s hard to pick albums to review unless you’re looking back before you’re looking forward. And in this episode’s case, we wanted to pick a critically lauded album that we passed over. So after a sift through a few lists we weren’t really sure. I’d never landed with Lankum, SZA was, sadly, out in 2022! In listening through tracks linked to the various lists, we were all mesmerised by A&W and after that we sort of got pulled in. And it’s not a decision I regret. It’s a pretty stunning piece of work, even if it’s imperfect.
I’ve never been a true fan of Lana Del Rey but I’m definitely an admirer. Of how she is, of how she operates, her ability and insistence on doing this her way. I was on board for Video Games (who wasn’t?), but perhaps my experience is influenced the way many others’ is. Is it made for me? Is there too much artifice? It’s definitely not style over substance, but there’s also a definitely imperative style that sets its into its own sphere, and I just don’t know if that’s ever really landed with me. Perhaps I’ve never given it enough time, either. She’s an artist on that list of people I really know I should’ve devoted more time to over the years, who friends and critics have pointed me at her, but it’s just never locked.
And obviously I’m wrong. She is not an artist that’s liked. She’s adored. Her fans are devoted, her songs held like torches for her acolytes. She moves them and that’s a magical place to be in the universe. Because what got us into music? What made us love artists? How did that music speak to us and make us feel? And how intense did those feelings burn? It’s what makes music music. It is what makes us love it. It’s why we do this thing. So that devotion, that desire, that’s what it is all about. But delving into Lana’s world – not to mention her huge back catalogue (Ocean Blvd, as I’m going to abbreviate it to from now on, is at least her 10th album, depending on how you count them) – is daunting. Both because she is such a big artist, and also because there’s so much context to each record, something that I just don’t have. So many of the callbacks, references to previous records, break-ups, themes, will largely sail over my head. Coming to a new album from such an established artist can be a bit, well, cold.
But it’s also because LDR’s world is uncompromising. Her position as a woman in music – as any woman in any position – is precarious. She’s held to a ridiculous standard. She is critiqued for being strong, she’s critiqued for looking good, she’s attacked for looking good, for not looking good. Being Lana seems a pretty awful place to be sometimes. Yes, she’s also harnessed this, leant into the darkness – themes of death, abuse, misogyny and the male gaze all loom large even to the arms-length fan – but it remains a big shadow over her work, and the more I read the more I admire her for refusing to compromise on what she wants to do, even as it (surely, I don’t know) must take a toll living in that universe.
The lyrics, the world she paints is bleak, playing up against the world she lives in. Pushing back against that onslaught of criticism, making it front and centre of her work, that brutal glory, turned against its creator. Ocean Blvd – at my newbie eyes – bares this beautifully and powerfully. At its high points, it’s breathtaking. It’s bleak and catches in the throat. There’s a frankness and personal feel to it, and yet it’s cryptic and full of contradictions. But it’s a fascinating and engaging listen. Having been the first album of hers I’ve knowingly listened to in full it’s hard to compare against, but I realise I’ve underestimated her and feel a bit foolish for that. I loved Video Games, her laconic but powerful delivery, the whole 60s-tinged femme fatale style, the heavily stylised videos, all overflowing with ideas. It just sort of passed me by as I went for the familiar, and the new, that just never really landed on her records.
Yes, I’ve not connected with her music as I have with others but there’s something very real going down. The lead single, A&W (the root beer for sleeve-friendly abbreviation, but really the devastating American Whore) is at the vanguard. Firing back at critics’ lazy views, owning the pejorative personas they paint her with, and turning it back on itself. Opening with piano chords and guitar, her vocals feel at their most invasive. Almost deliberately light and sunk into the midrange but it’s all more powerful for it. And you can’t get away from the chorus: ‘‘it’s not about having someone to love me anymore / this is then experience of being an American whore”. Christ. And like all great long songs, it’s a shapeshifter. A second part that drops into electronic, elastic bass and sharp percs, and twisted vocal phrases, taking on a different power altogether. The final stanza, with it’s repeated phrases, looking back to a lover that wanted to only be with her when he was high, both calling out his behaviour, but also perhaps her self-destruction.
There are moments all through the album of breathtaking nihilism, none more so than the title track’s ‘open me up, tell me you like me, fuck me to death, love me until I love myself’ is her withering beauty (yes, there is a tunnel, I’ve discovered, but it’s closed). A line that catches, but also that feels both exhilarating to hear, and bleak to listen to again and again. There’s a fragility to her music that plays against some of the more belligerent, combative tones of her output.
Another standout for me was with Father John Misty. They seem very apt bedfellows – and I’ve since found out this is her third collaboration him – though FJM’s dripping cynicism seems a mite more laconic and detached, where Del Rey’s feels more pointed and sharpened and real. But the story – I think – about an affair with a married male musician, feels both hopeful and doomed to fail.
There are a lot of memorable other moments here, in fact the collaborations across the album stand out: from John Batiste’s harmonies and vocals on Candy Necklace, the haunting Paris, Texas with SYML, and lament of Bleachers on the late-album Margaret. I’m still not sure what to make of Peppers (which features Tommy Genesis) but they all stand out in their own way. There’s engaging use of electronic flourishes throughout too, not just on A&W, but also memorably on Fishtail, which provides colour alongside the piano and guitars that dominate the album. I’m also intrigued by the Judah Smith interlude. The modern preacher, its message seems at odds with LDR’s fanbase (she’s been in his congregation), especially the LGBTQ+ element, when Smith’s historical views on non-Christian ‘lifestyles’ are pretty prejudiced. Perhaps she’s focusing the words on herself. As ever, it doesn’t feel as direct or clear as it could be. Perhaps Del Rey enjoys the confusion.
But let’s also talk about the elephant in the room. The album is long. Really long. And we all know our struggles with long albums. Not just The Ascension. Also Dragon New Warm Mountain. I have my ‘60+ minute hip-hop album problem’ too. It’s not just the cliched attention span issue, but 40-50 minutes is my sweet spot. So 78 minutes I have truly struggled with. I haven’t even got through he whole thing in one go. Partly just logistics, but also just having little full hour windows or more to listen in my life. So it’s a fractured experience. And one I’ve not managed to break.
I think, inevitably, the album sags. On their own, all the tracks have merit, but I have ended up going to remove 3 tracks from it: Kintsugi and Fingertips, which don’t seem to lend huge contrast, and also lately the Jon Batiste Interlude, which is striking, but I’m not sure it feels like a hole without it, and at least it’s a 62 minute version that’s more possible to digest.
As a whole, I’m not sure if I’ll love this album, but I’ll definitely come back to big chunks of it. There are songs on it too striking not to be remembered, but will it spark an overdue love affair with Lana? That’s probably optimistic. But she hardly needs my affirmation: she’s got all the dedication she needs from people with much more invested in her music than me. And that’s a pretty good thing to exist.
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