The title of Lana Del Rey’s sixth album, Norman Fucking Rockwell, is meant to be provocative. Is it sarcastic commentary on the illusion of an American utopia? A pointed dig on how modern society is anything but idyllic? Del Rey herself declaring that she’s an arbiter of a new kind of exceptionalism? As it turns out, in an interview with Vanity Fair, she shares that her interpretation is exasperation paired with a slight eye roll. “‘It was kind of an exclamation mark: So this is the American dream, right now,’ she says. ‘This is where we’re at—Norman fucking Rockwell. We’re going to go to Mars, and [Donald] Trump is president, all right.’”
Del Rey later went on to deny that the title is meant to be “cynical,” which is often hard to believe, as Norman Fucking Rockwell is rather lukewarm on the modern world and its denizens. “Why wait for the best when I could have you?” she sings sarcastically on the title track, an evisceration of a frustrating “man-child” who thinks he’s more of a brilliant poet than he actually is. “The Greatest,” meanwhile, mourns for a wild and debauched past amidst a big comedown and a decidedly non-glamorous reality: “Hawaii just missed that fireball / L.A. is in flames‚ it’s getting hot / Kanye West is blonde and gone / ‘Life On Mars’ ain’t just a song.” Other tunes, including “Happiness Is A Butterfly” and “Fuck It I Love You,” detail romances torpedoed (and tormented) by egos and indifference.
Yet Del Rey’s narrators on Norman Fucking Rockwell are more willing now than ever to let their guard down and be real, perhaps because they’ve realized that maintaining a blasé, cool-girl façade is exhausting. On “Mariners Apartment Complex,” the protagonist declares, “I ain’t no candle in the wind,” after her partner mistakenly bonds with her over sadness, while the swagger of “Venice Bitch” is tempered with hard-won wisdom: “I moved to California‚ but it’s just a state of mind / It turns out everywhere you go‚ you take yourself‚ that’s not a lie.” On “Bartender,” the narrator stresses she balances partying with depth: “Sometimes, girls just want to have fun / The poetry inside of me is warm like a gun.” And the album ends with the stunningly personal “Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have – But I Have It,” a sparse piano ballad that addresses grief, disappointment, and regret with piercing clarity.
The latter song, which musically conjures both the cadences of Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” and Cat Power’s most intimate moments, also embodies Norman Fucking Rockwell’s focused musical direction. Del Rey’s Instagram filter-tinted malaise is her calling card, but on this album she jettisons any sonic sluggishness in favor of crisp, unadorned instrumentation: wistful piano, light horns and string accents, sighing guitar. If anything, Norman Fucking Rockwell is her version of a confessional singer-songwriter record, the kind of LP artists make after they’ve established their career is on solid ground.
However, it’s also likely no accident that this new batch of songs reveals a lyrical fascination with the Laurel Canyon rock scene of the ’70s; in separate songs, Del Rey references bands such as the Eagles and Crosby, Stills & Nash, as well as the California area itself. The free-spirited, romanticized vibe of that era and its denizens hovers over Norman Fucking Rockwell’s woozy ballads and gentle folk haze. (Not for nothing did Del Rey describe her album to Billboard as “a folk record with a little surf twist.”) Del Rey even stretches and twists her voice into new vistas—reaching into her high, decadent-shriek range on “Fuck It I Love You,” and taking a conspiratorial tone elsewhere, as on the dimly lit “How To Disappear.” (One notable exception to this grounded vibe is her laissez-faire cover of Sublime’s “Doin’ Time,” a note-perfect update that conjures heat shimmers off hot asphalt.)
Intriguingly enough, Del Rey’s main songwriter and producer foil this time around is Jack Antonoff, who’s known for a heavy-handed pop approach. Wisely, he doesn’t make a dent in her sound; instead, Antonoff gets out of Del Rey’s way and encourages her meandering and confessional vibe. (Going by the same Billboard interview, in fact, their working relationship bloomed after Antonoff played Del Rey “10 minutes of weird, atmospheric riffs.”) The pair’s creative apex is “Venice Bitch,” a nearly 10-minute song featuring haywire sound effects that resemble a psychedelic prog freak-out. It’s a detour that could become completely self-indulgent—but manages to work like some nightmarish dream.
Norman Fucking Rockwell doesn’t always connect. It’s one of Del Rey’s sleepiest albums yet, which is saying something, and the music could be trimmed and tightened here and there. And, at times, her references to other pop culture and musical moments can feel too much like a lazy creative crutch (although the couplet “I miss the bar where the Beach Boys would go / Dennis’ last stop before Kokomo” is gold). But as a mood piece, Norman Fucking Rockwell does an admirable job preserving Del Rey’s mystique while moving her sound forward. And, if you listen closely, there’s even optimism peeking through, particularly on “Venice Bitch”: “Give me Hallmark / One dream, one life, one lover / Paint me happy in blue / Norman Rockwell / No hype under our covers / It’s just me and you.”
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“the narrator stresses she balances partying with depth: “Sometimes, girls just want to have fun / The poetry inside of me is warm like a gun”LMAO, no. It’s about a nice hot load right in the babymaker.
Sit with it for a few more days. It is, in my opinion, near-pop perfection. My favorite album of the year so far, and nothing else is close. I find something else I like about it on each subsequent listen, and I simply can’t stop listening.
Should I go with Pitchfork or Annie Zaleski on this one? 😂
Pitchfork’s “one of America’s greatest living songwriters” line really threw me off their review. I mean, it sounds like it’s a great record, and all (I haven’t listened, yet, so my super-scorching take on it is still TBD), but that’s a pretty bold flex in a world in which Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Carole King, Brian Wilson, Randy Newman, Dolly Parton, Sly Stone, Stevie Nicks, George Clinton, Chrissie Hynde, and Patti Smith are still alive, and in which some of them are still producing new material. And that’s not even counting the greats in the hip-hop space – Kendrick Lamar won a G-D Pullitzer, for Pete’s sake. Then again, hyperbole like that is probably entirely intended to garner a strong reaction, even if it’s negative, so…well played, Pitchfork.
“one of America’s greatest living songwriters” Yeah, no.
Lana Del Rey is one of America’s greatest live songwriters for the people who never bothered to listen to America’s actually greatest living songwriters.
Snobbery has never done anyone a damn bit of good. Let people enjoy what they enjoy, hyperbolic praise and all.
Disputing the notion that LDR is “one of America’s greatest living songwriters” is hardly snobbery, and it doesn’t imply she isn’t a talented songwriter in her own right.
I agree with Pitchfork — and I’m a longtime devotee of Dylan, Young, Cohen, Mitchell, Wainwright, Earle, etc. No less a critic as Greil Marcus calls her “along with Bob Dylan, the most interesting artist working today.”
Maybe she is one of America’s 10,000 Greatest Living Songwriters?
Please elucidate
It’s ridiculous hyperbole, although it’s nice to catch a glimpse of the old aggressively-opinionated Pitchfork.
I love the album and think she’s fantastically talented…and I still struggled with that line. To me she’s clearly a strong writer because she managed to work Antonoff’s cloyingly catchy work into something with real heft but I want to see how long this album sticks with me before throwing around a “greatest” proclamation.
>Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Carole King, Brian Wilson, Randy Newman, Dolly Parton, Sly Stone, Stevie Nicks, George Clinton, Chrissie Hynde, and Patti Smiththis is splitting hairs — most of these are not active, and if they are, they aren’t close to their peak. that skill is mostly gone in a whole lot of them. In 2019 Bob Dylan does not count as a “greatest living songwriter” in the context of that review, it would be like saying michael jordan *is* the greatest living basketball player. they’re putting her up with, say, john darnielle or jason isbell or, yeah, kendrick lamar, not the boomer icons
IIRC, Isbell liked a tweet praising NFR this weekend, too. I’ve never been a huge Lana fan, but this album is just a juggernaut.
There are a lot of word choices that a writer might use to convey what you’re describing (greatest active, greatest of the recent crop, greatest of the millenium, etc…). But pitchfork went with “greatest living” a phrase that specifically makes “not dead” the only criterion. (For example, the first hit on a g.search for “greatest living basketball” yields: MJ. This is not weird, this is what that turn of phrase is useful for.)
They’re putting her up with Darnielle, Isbell, Lamar, and any boomer icons not dead. If that’s not what Jenn Pelly meant, she or her editors should write more carefully.
Not that I’m a big Lana del Rey fan but I think some of the names on that list are mythologized because they were in the right place at the right time not because they’re more talented than artists around today. There’s definitely a lot to be said for being innovative and ahead of the curve, of course, which is something to be admired in itself.
With “one of” qualifying it, the statement is not even hyperbole
It could happen. Lana is up there the Beatles / Squeeze / Billy Joel . . . but I think Lana distinguishes herself as a composer of melodies more analogous to Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, and those sort.
Lana del Rey doesn’t do anything for me, which does not mean that she isn’t talented, but P4k’s “one of America’s greatest living songwriters” still seems like a stretch.
“One of America’s greatest living songwriters” is a pretty cruel twist of the knife so soon after David Berman’s suicide.
I would say the truth is in the middle. I liked this album a lot more than the reviewer did (definitely one of my favorite of the year), but I wouldn’t consider LDR one of the greatest living songwriters. In fact, I kind of got bored with her shtick a few years ago. Still, I’ve listened to Norman Fucking Rockwell on repeat for days.
I actually think p4k are closer to the mark on this one, and I wouldn’t normally agree with them.
I was going to say, usually AVC is the one over-hyping an anticipated album and Pitchfork is the cold water. Was funny to read that line in PF’s review, because while I really dig LDR – and two listens in, I’m enjoying this new album quite a bit – I think that’s a bit (maybe even a lot) of a stretch.
That Pitchfork review is an instant nominee for the Overwriting Hall of Fame. Take this: “Turning the weight of a generation into light, her words crest like the white of a tidal wave—“L.A.’s in flames, it’s a getting hot/Kanye West is blonde and gone/‘Life On Mars’ ain’t just a song/Oh, the livestream’s almost on”—and they feel on arrival to have existed forever. As ever, Lana regards the despondency of existence as a realist, offering a funhouse reflection of the way we live.”Which is just gobsmacking (not least for how tepid those lyrics are to have generated such hyperbole).It’s the most classically Pitchforkian review I can remember (although admittedly, I haven’t been reading them as much in recent years).I kinda loved that Jenn (Pelly, the author) went for it, though. Like really, really went for it.
I love this type of artistic product. You know, the massively ambitious go-for-broke opus that a objectively well-known artist who desperately wants to be taken seriously puts out, un-beholden to a fan base or the type of music that passes for popular. I fucking love this album! And I’ve spent the last eight years talking about how lame LDR is.
*an objectively well-known
Yeah, in that respect, it’s almost LDR’s Hissing Of Summer Lawns.Let’s just hope she doesn’t go on to make her Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter.
I look forward to her Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, and especially her Hejira!It’s her Wild Things Run Fast that I desperately want to avoid.
Somebody please explain Lana Del Rey to me. From my recollection, both she and Pitchfork (who hailed her as the next big thing) were scorched when she put out her first album and it was manufactured garbage of the worst kind. Her second album was also not great.Gradually, it feels like opinions of her began to shift. I’ll even admit that, as she’s connected with better producers and writers, her songs became more and more listenable — but I never found them good or worth paying attention to. Pitchfork is now calling her one of America’s greatest living songwriters, but I listened to this latest release all the way through and it sounds like Instagram: The Album. (Not in an ironic or knowing way, either. It sounds like something a dilettante would put out.)Am I wrong to be comparing her to Mitski and Angel Olsen, whom I both love? Am I just being a curmudgeon? Am I… am I out of touch with the youth?
The difference is that when LDR put out her first album there were still a few people wary of music that was ‘manufactured garbage’, and Pitchfork (who gave the first record a 5.5) still saw itself as primarily covering non-mainstream music. But now pop music is an assembly line of manufactured garbage, and Pitchfork’s gone all in with poptimism, so she fits right in. (And in the most 2019 move possible, Pitchfork writes off early criticism of LDR as sexist.) So I’d say the times have caught up with her…I guess you can say she’s something of an innovator, albeit an evil oneETA: Lindsay Zoldaz’s review of Born To Die is really worth reading today, in that I think a lot of it can still apply to the new record
Meh, I’ve shit on her catalog just as much as the next lonely online contrarian but even I recognize that NFR is a great album if you meet it on its own terms. The writing is fantastic and acerbic. Also, hard as it is to believe, P4K is not a single, sentient beast. It has a team of writers, many of whom have been on the LDR hype train over the course of several of her more recent albums.
I’m with Barb on this. I could have given one shit for Born to Die, and was lukewarm on everything else. NFR, though? Fuck it, it’s fantastic. She’s reached a zenith. Great, acerbic lyrics and a consistent point of view. Brilliant production. Lovely melodies. Everything just … lands this time. I don’t know how else to say it.
Does “acerbic” just mean smug and empty now? Yeah, probably.
I always go to the example of NIN’s The Fragile, when it was first reviewed 20 years ago by Brent DiCrezencio, he was brutal and gave it like a 2. something. (I personally love this album). and when it was reissued a couple years ago P4K gaveit a high score but a different reviewer. here it is because it’s an awesome read:https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5799-the-fragile/
Brent DiCrezencio was a writer so far up his own ass he made me question whether or not I actually liked Kid A. Kid A is, no joke, my favorite album. I just was horrified at the thought of having the same taste as that guy.
I wonder what Old Brent’s doing for a day job now
And I’m with you, he almost made me NOT LIKE Kid A, and it’s one of my all-time favorites.
The Fragile is the best Nine Inch Nails album. Of course Pitchfork didn’t like it.
It wouldn’t be an AVClub music comment section without people shitting on all of pop music lol. “Manufactured” is kind of an opaque assertion in music, but I hardly say it applies here. Every song was written by Del Rey and Antanoff and it’s very much true to her style and what she wants to say. As for pop in general, there seem to be a lot more singers involved in and commanding the writing process now than when I was first getting into it years ago. Clinging to a generalized view of “garbage” without bothering to give an entire genre any benefit of the doubt is your prerogative, but it does make you sound like an angry old man on his porch.
Believe me I feel like an angry old man on his porch! But what can I say, I prefer people who can write their own songs to people who slap their name on work primarily done by producers, song doctors, image consultants etc
Your assumption that none of these artists can actually write songs is indicative of your own stubborn perceptions of the genre and not necessarily reality. Not to mention the frankly tired tradition of snobby listeners entirely discrediting pop artists, especially female ones. But this is also out of place on a discussion for an album that has 2 writers per song, Del Rey being one of them. Not exactly a factory there.
I’ll believe LDR is primary author of her own material when she can do a record without a song-doctor producer.I actually kind of agree with you on the snobs vs pop thing–pop music can be done with a high degree of craft–but the pendulum’s gone way too far to the pop end. Pop music can use a little more snobbery.
I’m sure she’ll get right on that. You do realize producing and songwriting can be quite unique processes, and both offer a lot of input on their own. Writing over a demo track is an established form of songcraft, just as is equally collaborating in both writing and producing processes. Just admit you refuse to give her any reasonable benefit of the doubt and refuse to adjust your tired view of pop music. It’s totally fine, but being self righteous and judgemental isn’t really an interesting POV.Your willingness to put all the credit on Antonoff is a little off-putting, as well as not making much sense, considering she clearly is following a similar style of songwriting and lyricism she’s held her entire career for anyone who bothers to pay attentions. But misogyny isn’t exactly new so I’m not surprised.
“She literally changed her persona because her first musical persona wasn’t working out”I don’t think this person’s really listened to the artist they’re being so dismissive towards. They kinda sound like they’re just regurgitating words they read elsewhere. They think Born to Die is her first album…
If they think she’s “literally changed her whole persona” then I don’t think they’re even listening to the artist they’re dismissing. Anyone who thinks Born to Die is her first album couldn’t comprehend.
I’ve noticed the ongoing use of “pop music” to basically mean “a woman’s voice with electronic production.” Which is an absurdly dated way of talking about music, on par with saying that all music with an electronic guitar is “manufactured garbage.”
pitchfork versus pitchfork from a few years ago is one of the modern era’s great rivalries
I’m right there with you, homie.
I’d encourage you to revisit her second album (meaning Ultraviolence, not the EP that followed Born to Die). It’s still her best work IMO, though I haven’t heard the new one yet. She dropped the dumb overt hip hop stuff, which felt like it was destined to age very badly, and just sang a bunch of very pretty, very sad songs with production that sounded like a million bucks. It won me over to her (after basically loathing Born to Die) and I’ve stuck with her ever since, even though I don’t think she’s yet matched that album again.
thank you, I was about to come praise Ultraviolence but you did it! and even-though overall its not a great album..(I love the first 3/4s of it, but it peters out for me towards the end) those 3/4s IMHO are LDR’s greatest songs. and add to that Dan Auerbach’s production.I wish Lou Reed was still with us and I also wish he would’ve stayed just long enough to record with LDR on “Brooklyn Baby”
If your critical sense is indeed that keen– then you’re not gonna dig the overblown, monotonous mess she just dropped. (And I loved Ultraviolence.)
These elders, most of whom had never heard of her, strong
reactions “Video Games and “Love” at 7:45: My introduction to her was infamous SNL performance. I didn’t
watch it, just listened and was confused because I liked it. “Video Games” is a
great song and a great record. I was a fan from the start. And “West Coast”, “Young and Beautiful” and “White
Mustang” are among my favorite songs of the decade.
The react channel is almost always overwhelmingly positive about everything. It doesn’t mean a thing. That bullshit positivity is just what they sell. When they’re not literally using those videos to sell Disney products, that is.
I think Mitski, Olsen, even Adrianne Lenker give off a humbleness to their work. They are trying to find the right measurements to the songs they produce. Same with that country music star that sings about Rainbows ( not a diss, can’t remember her name).
Whereas Lana…as much as her heart is in the right place She still comes off a byproduct of a fake persona. You look at bands and writers like The New Bloods (they broke up) and you can tell that they are not at all fashioned by marketing to depict an image. I still believe that a lot of singers today just bite off of Martina Topley Bird, in a lot of ways even Lana.
I read the Vanity Fair article, and it was weird, it felt like it was another perfume ad for Gucci Guilty. I didn’t learn anything about her or how she develops music. But props to Lana for making it in the game, but she will always have an advantage over most songwriters because of her connections.
Eh, I love Mitski and Angel Olsen (I’m betting her album will end up my AOTY), and I love this album too. Her previous two albums came and went without ever leaving much of an impression on me; her peak, in my opinion, was the first half of Ultraviolence. But this album sounds more mature and insightful than her previous stuff. Less “sad girl aesthetic” and “daddy problems,” more just a woman with a pretty blue outlook sizing things and herself up in frequently witty ways, with really nice instrumentation and a sprinkling of hopefulness.
She closer to Mitski than Angel Olsen, I’d say. Also, the weird blog narratives completely fucked her circa 2012. Born to Die is a fantastic record that was unfairly maligned amidst accusations of “industry plants” and inauthenticity (a baffling accusation, in hindsight), and Ultraviolence is a scorching album that doesn’t really sound like anything else out there. I’m glad NFR is getting a lot of attention, it might prompt some much needed re-evaluation of what’s been a remarkably strong discography over the past decade.
‘inauthenticity (a baffling accusation, in hindsight)’I mean, she literally changed her persona because her first musical persona wasn’t working out. YMMV on the degree to which authenticity is a valid criteria for musical critique, but it’s not baffling to argue that LDR’s persona is a market-tested construction.
I think I get her schtick but I can’t explain it to you. I am surprised that David Lynch didn’t rope her in for Season 3 of Twin Peaks as she certainly has the Julee Cruise stigmata about her.I’ve grazed the new album and there are bits of it that I like which remind me of Beth Orton when she was doing this kind of sound circa 2002. And I will always, always go to bat for LDR for producing Summertime Sadness, which is just a great freaking jam and has spawned some incredible re-listenable mashups. Like this one, blended with Kool & the Gang.
I really want to like it, since it’s nice to enjoy things, but I just keep finding myself bored.
It’s 2019 and no one would be surprised if the world ends tomorrow. Sad girls singing about how everything is bullshit is pretty much the general mood.
From my recollection, both she and Pitchfork (who hailed her as the next big thing) were scorched when she put out her first album and it was manufactured garbage of the worst kind.Pitchfork can suck a donkey for all I care, they should never be considered a reference in music since it has long been established that their only criteria for evaluating a release is how many clicks their score will generate.Since Tool released the most anticipated album of the decade last week, the same day this one came out, I think it’s relevant to remember the fact that Pitchfork gave Lateralus – Considered by most rock and metal aficionados as the best metal album of all time – the debilitating score of 1.9/10. The whole thing is even cringier than the infamous ‘Fight Club’ review that spawned the 5/7 meme…FYI, there’s no review of Del Rey’s first album on Pitchfork right now.
Born to Die review: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16223-lana-del-rey/Pitchfork was interesting when they were a bomb-throwing review site modeled on the British music tabloids. That Tool review may be wrong, but at least it’s wrong in an interesting way–or, at the very very least, it doesn’t read like mildly rewritten publicity copy like a lot of their reviews today. Now they’re afraid to look like they’re missing out on anything and are afraid to have artists get angry at them, so almost every review reads like a participation trophy (veteran artists, especially rock acts, seem to be the exception). In other words, they’re Rolling Stone now.
I don’t know LDR that well but a quick look at Wikipedia told me Born to Die is her second album, not first.
I’m a rock and metal aficionado and so are 90% of my friends/co-workers. I would never, nor a single person I know, consider Lateralus the best metal album of all time. I’ve never seen it called that on any article, list, blog, metal website, metal podcast, anything ever. The idea is laughable.
this is incorrect. P4K was not big fans of here in beginning. However, the P4k that exists now is not the same webzine of 3 yrs ago – and lot of what goes on there needs to be taken with a big grain of salt. They are closer to rolling stone than cmj.
It’s mostly just a pop and hip hop blog now. I used to like reading their Sunday reviews, however now they even seem to waste those on things like assembly line 90s hip hop releases or the Spice Girls’ Spice.
You really didn’t like “Video Games” when it came out? It was a great single with a really atmospheric sound. And while her sound hasn’t progressed too much, a lot of people related to her melancholy, and embrace of an old style but lyrics about modern topics.I can see why she got attention. But then she got a lot of shit when she started for embracing tha older sound and God forbid not using her real name as a singer. It felt a bit much. I don’t see her music as Instagram as people use Instagram is to make their life look great and her songs are often sad. But I could totally have missed you meaning.
In any case, I usually like just a few songs each album, but glad others find more to like. On this one there’s a lot I don’t connect with yet (as always I find her songs “samey” as the easy not deep critique.) But so far I really like “Fuck it i love you”, “Mariners Apartment Complex”, and then a little less “Love Song” and the Sublime cover. Like most albums these days, it seems way too long, but at least the title makes me laugh.
I listened to this latest release all the way through and it sounds like Instagram: The Album.More like Great Job, Internet! The Album.
It’s not you. Most music in the last decade has been objectively bad. I may be old, but this comes from my 22yo who says the 90’s was the last great musical decade. I tend to agree with her. As for Del Ray, all of her albums sounds exactly the same. So I guess she’s popular with the crowd who prefers unchanging minimalism.
Her first album is a fucking classic, and every album since has been exceedingly brilliant. If she were a bearded, hipster doofus these music bloggerz would have been sucking her D harder than Fadder J Mist from day one. Now with the state of the culture progressing as it has in the past few years, it’s become increasingly more difficult for music critics to couch their misogyny in her reviews so she gets near universal acclaim.
I never understood how the public decides who gets to be on pedestal. Beyonce for example is treated like royalty. Why? Who decided one day she was extra special. More special than other artists?
Fine, I will explain this to you, but I think you should give up on trying to navigate critical discourse if you really need someone to spell it out. First, Lindsay Zoladz, the writer who wrote the Born to Die review for Pitchfork (publications aren’t monoliths, who knew!) published a kind of mea culpa column (on Pitchfork, no less!) a few years later explaining why she reacted the why she did and how her stance had shifted in the interim.Second, her second album was actually quite acclaimed, you clearly weren’t paying attention! It was strong enough to convert many Born to Die skeptics at Pitchfork, and this is probably when her impact on music and pop culture began to be seriously relitigated. Ultraviolence stands as a searing indictment on masculinity and her most masterful deployment of kitsch, caricature, projection, and irony—and the point at which she began to move past those tools, relying less on a persona and more on a tenuous transparency.From then on, it became an open secret to many—and gradually, most—people in music criticism that, hey, Lana Del Rey is actually really fucking good! You can see this reflected in the comparatively muted but steadily increasing acclaim that each of her subsequent albums was met with; Honeymoon, a languid meditation on desire, and Lust for Life, a “glacial trap-pop” (per Craig S Jenkins @ Vulture) experiment intent on blurring generational and genre lines. As an artist, Lana embodies much of confusion that plagues modernity—historical/contextual collapse, gender arbitration, the material value of authenticity, I could go on. Needless to say, she deserves to be taken seriously and many critics who honestly engage with her work see her as one of the greatest living American songwriters! That’s just apparent!If it’s too hard for you to follow this shit as it unfolds I suggest not trying. It’s only gonna make you frustrated and out of touch. But that’s only because you are out of touch! Btw Mitski is on record quoting Lana lyrics <3
My post was mostly tongue-in-cheek, and I don’t really want to write an essay about why I find Lana Del Rey underwhelming, but…If you’re going to accuse me of not being able to “navigate critical discourse,” don’t lead off with the implication that I’m wrong because Zoladz later softened her stance. Because it’s clear from my framing (Pitchfork “hailed her as the next big thing”) that I’m referring to the publication’s celebration of her music prior to the first official album, it makes it seem like you didn’t comprehend what I wrote when you defend their lukewarm reception of “Born to Die.” If I’m saying they treated her with acclaim, I’m not referring to the time they weren’t. I’d hope that was obvious.And while I appreciate you sarcastically explaining her work, I’d further hope that it was readily apparent from the rest of my post that I do actually get her schtick. Her thing is actually really easy to get. She’s like the post- millennial Bret Easton Eliss.
The simple explanation would be that people relate to the romanticized despair and hope in her lyrics. There’s escape in her invocations of icons and settings and grounding in her references to technology and “millennial speak”. Not that you either want or deserve an explanation, seeing as you already understand her and you’re so intelligent with your clear framing and tongue in your cheek and no one gets your skill at critical discourse. My God why can’t you people just make out with yourselves in the privacy of your own rooms. You have to expose the internet to it.
Imagine being so insecure that your feelings get hurt when somebody on the internet doesn’t like the same music as you.
You seem awfully defensive yourself. You know I’m right.
I think you should spend some time listening to her catalog again. I was not a fan of her in the beginning, but the more I listen to her the more I have found her sound to be her own. She doesn’t sound like the rest of the pop artists, that’s what I have found to be the most appealing. Tbh, her sound requires time, she’s not an artist that all people will love on first listen, which is why she doesn’t end up on the top 1o like Taylor Swift and the like, her sound require more time to process, it’s more complex.
Thank you! I have always found her to be such a phony and rip off artist to boot. Can’t sing worth a damn in spite of all the tricks employed by her producers. Why is Lana Del Ray ?
I’m disappointed at the lack of jokes about the Laurel Canyon sound. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore, A.V. Club commentariat.
I, too , am Dawesappointed!
Jesus, it took me way too long to recognize the reference too.
This is the content I scrolled down to the comments for.
Paging Leonard Pierce… IMHO this album does have that sweet Laurel Canyon sound
i did one for the last article!
I didn’t even get a Community notification for this
I don’t think Pitchfork over sold her by calling her one of America’s greatest living songwriters. I’ve thought this about her for years.Love them or hate them, each of her albums tells a specific story of the overarching character she has created, and she has managed to subtly and not-so-subtly develop that character over the past decade in both her released music and a massive catalogue of unreleased songs.This latest album is the perfect culmination of everything she’s been doing for years, while also pushing her forward in a new and beautiful direction.It’s a gorgeous album, best of the year, and I am so happy to see the general reaction being so overwhelmingly positive, especially after the shit she had to deal with at the beginning of her career as a bit of an online punching bag.
I have been listening to Lana since Born to Die. The brilliance of her art is on many levels. She brings intelligent people into the conversation. What is the difference between art and artifice? What is the difference between a popstar’s creativity and their persona? Do we give male popstars a pass in the “persona” department but demand authenticity from female popstars? Sometimes Lana s lyrics go shallow when they could go deep. But they are about conveying feeling. Her songs reach out on an emotional level. She is like Warhol, making her art inseparable from herself; her public persona is part of her art. As to NFR, I love it. I think it stands in the pantheon of Born to Die/ Paradise and Ultraviolence as among her best collections of songs. The melodies are gorgeous as is the scaled-back production.
Nothing past Ultraviolence has grabbed me yet, but I’m hoping this will. I *really* like LDR at her best (not as much as Pitchfork apparently does, but yeah), but everything I’ve heard past UV has just not done it for me at all.
First half of Ultraviolence is my favorite music from her, but this album is right after those 7-8 songs. It’s really great. Love Song and Cinnamon Girl are slight lulls in an otherwise really great record.
LDR and Bon Iver should have a contest of who’s more insufferable. Overrated, both. Pass.
I think this is a great record with some of Lana’s best songwriting, especially the divine “Fuck it I Love You” and “Cinnamon Girl” and “The Greatest.” I just…can’t help but wish Lana would shake up the formula a little more? My favorite album of hers is still Ultraviolence. Even though it sort of peters out at the end with a few weak songs, it at least felt like progression from Born to Die and Paradise.
I’m still fuming from the fact she took Sublime out of their dimming trajectory and infused that shitty song back into the zeitgeist for another decade.
Unless you live in the Los Angeles area, it’s hard to overstate how well liked they still are here.
I remember taking a trip from the east coast to San Diego back in the late 2000s when Sublime (with Rome!) became a thing, and that was all every station out there was playing on repeat.
It was like entering some kind of fucked up parallel universe.
Hey, be fair. There’s also a ton of Social Distortion mixed in, too.
Visiting LA it was like a joke.
To quote Crazy Ex-Girlfriend from about four years ago: “California Christmastime, we gather ‘round and sing song by Sublime”
That cover is goddamned awful, and I have no idea why it exists.
Whenever I hear Lana Del Rey I imagine someone who grew up on her parents late 80s through mid 90s AAA CD collection. The whole smokey, art damaged ingenue gone world-weary schtick (maybe daddy can bribe David Lynch into whoring himself out for a music video!) just reeks of stale artifice. Top it off with sophomoric, nihilistic lyrics that reference, god help us, seventies California rock and you have the perfect album to bond to with your parents over a bottle of the shittiest white wine.Also, trotting out the creaky old Norman Rockwell dis in 2019? Jesus…The unsurprising fact Pitchfork is all over this is just another good example of how utterly worthless music criticism has become in the post-post-indie world.
yikes
All music criticism … except for that truth-telling upstart, Praxinoscope!
“For the sake of art, I must shit on this woman.”- the internet
The unsurprising fact Pitchfork is all over this is just another good example of how utterly worthless music criticism has become in the post-post-indie world.That is how you have to take Pitchfork. They want to generate clicks above all things so you know they will always write with that in mind.Neve.
Lana wrote about you:They think I don’t understand
The freedom land of the seventies
. . .
They say I’m too young to love you
They say I’m too dumb to sing
They judge me like a picture book
By the colors, like they forgot to readYou deprive yourself of extreme enjoyment the fans have. Lana is best appreciated in her live interpretations. Live live live. Here is a wonderful capture of Brooklyn Baby vintage 2015.
“the creaky old Norman Rockwell dis” – this, 100%. Titles are hard, I guess, but, you know, kinda not cool to put a magazine illustrator’s actual name in your album title to indicate contempt. Come to think of it though – “The Fucking Saturday Evening Post” would’ve been been brilliant, so try a little harder is the takeaway, I guess? I think she’s interesting overall but everything (but the production) seems half-baked.
You think her fans – or anyone, really – is unaware that she’s using old tropes? I’m going to suggest a radical idea. That it’s her execution of these cliches that matters. Her voice and her songs and dedication to the craft. The fact that you can take her detached delivery and ethereal music as either sincere or ironic is actually pleasing to a lot of people. Would you believe that? Or is it more plausible to think she sells millions of records and concert tickets to people who just want to bond with their parents?Also maybe look up what nihilism means and then peruse her lyrics if you’re going to whine about how useless other critics are. It might have applied to sections of Ultraviolence and Honeymoon. It’s like you’re reviewing her several years ago.
Norman Rockwell? Yeah, good job on that reference, Lana… wouldn’t want to make it too obscure, especially considering the 14 year-olds that comprise her key demographic.She’s like someone who took a few classes at a small liberal arts college (before getting a job at her dad’s company as a Brand Manager – Coffee Shop and Artisanal Foods Division) and finds herself VERY perceptive now.
If think 14 year olds are her key demographic, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I sense a bit of projection about that “finds herself very perceptive” part.Face it, in the end, most armchair critics are really just talking about smart and witty and knowledgeable they need the world to see them as.
She has one sound and two voices. What am I missing?
I realize that the name of Norman Rockwell is a stand-in for all that cheesy old-timey nostalgia about the “good old days” in US culture, but a lot of the guy’s work is more radical than that suggests. He did a series on FDR’s “four freedoms” — which, if you recall, included the “freedom from want” — that is, not being in poverty is a natural right. That’s straight up Bernie Sanders material these days.
i like dave hickey’s take. for all the drags about being a “propagandist”, rockwell’s paintings captured the promise of america’s youth and celebrated the strangeness of rare american communion over the ordinariness of social chaos.
“…an evisceration of a frustrating “man-child” who thinks he’s more of a brilliant poet than he actually is…. Hawaii just missed that fireball / L.A. is in flames‚ it’s getting hot / Kanye West is blonde and gone / ‘Life On Mars’ ain’t just a song.”The irony of writing a song about a bad poet when you write lyrics like that.
Finally a critic* who doesn’t sound like she wants to just fall all over herself, fawning and supplicating at the newly minted altar of LDR, when the simple truth is the former Lizzy Grant just made another utterly average (or arguably a little below average– see below) Lana Del Rey album.“Meandering” is kind-critical-euphemism for: this album goes on FOREVER. Honeymoon and Lust for Life also had issues with overlength, but at least on those offerings, LDR sounded about 1000 times more emotionally invested– than she even attempts to be here.Tarantino– on his kitschiest day– could never be as pastiche- and homage-worshiping as Lana Del Rey. (Orson Welles would’ve .) Sure, the Sublime cover gets a pass (on an album in which the artist basically wants to re-mythologize the entire state of California), but the reference-pounding really wears thin here (try to keep score of how many better songwriters must be name-checked just to review this album). Did LDR mean for NFR to dive headfirst into self-parody? If so, congrats.LDR will probably make better albums than this. I hope she does. At the tail end of 2019’s vicious and bloody Summer of Hate, I didn’t really need a pop star treating our apocalyptic times with a glib and smug shoulder shrug, like David Lynch on downers. Didn’t find it inspiring. If we don’t laugh when LDR reduces all the (recent) horrors of the Trump Era to a couple of short shaggy-dog jokes (or don’t want to even ironically fist-pump when Lana Del Rey describes humanity’s dissolution as so “lit” of an experience), does that somehow makes up chumps?*Ball is in your court, Melon.
I like it – it invokes Tom Waits’ Small Change. A few records in and you strip it all the way down to the basic essence of the artist to bring out the power. Still prefer Ultraviolence but this is so much better than the last record w/ the failed hip-hop experiments.
overhyped as F.
Really fucking great album, although I wish I didn’t have 8 of these 15 songs on heavy rotation for the past few months. I’ve been listening to “Venice Bitch” for a year, kind of lessened the impact of the album as a whole on the initial spin.
T O O L – F E A R I N O C U L U M
After all this time seeing stories about her, I finally hunted down some of her music. It’s okay if a bit lazy, rubbery and badly overproduced. Her lyrics seem to be intentionally vacuous, tailor made for an audience who doesn’t like having thoughts.