release date: Aug. 30, 2019
format: digital (14 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,36]
producer: Jack Antonoff and Lana Del Rey
label: Interscope Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Norman Fucking Rockwell" - 2. "Mariners Apartment Complex" - 3. "Venice Bitch" - 5. "Doin' Time" - 6. "Love Song" - 8. "How to Disappear" - 10. "The Next Best American Record"
6th studio album by Lana Del Rey (aka Elizabeth Woolridge Grant) is primarily produced by Jack Antonoff and Del Rey - producing 11 of the album's 14 tracks, which has a total running time exceeding 78 minutes.
Lana Del Rey is undoubtedly one of America's contemporary major pop stars selling millions of albums all over the world. Her polished melancholy femme fatale style has never really caught me as something... desirable or highly original. Music for the masses, our time's Tina Turner, Kim Wilde and The Bangles - artists I never bothered listening to in the 80s. Regardless, her status and musicality on the safe side of the road, I have to grant her that this is her best effort ever. The album contains some nice half-daring tunes and especially strong lyrics. Much as usual, the new album has been followed by a (long) list of singles, where both tracks #2 and #3 "Venice Bitch", were released a year earlier - the latter being a major hit in a considerably shortened version, which makes much sense 'cause the album version at 9:37 minutes seems unnecessarily long. Track #14 ("Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have - But I Have It") was released Jan. 2019 without making any notable entry on the singles charts. Also track #5 was released before the album in May, a song that has also had some airplay. Succeeding the album release, tracks #11 and #4 are so far the only singles to be released, both without any top entries on the singles charts; however, the album has been met by critical acclaim, and it has so far made it to #3 on the Billboard 200 in the US, but peaks at the top in both Switzerland and in the UK.
I think it's truly a bunch of nicely produced songs where the common denominator is more than meets the eye. This is much more than a nicely wrapping, and I do understand the positive reviews, although, I think many are way over the top in critical acclaim. But it's music meant to please, and nothing's wrong with that, and then it offers a layer on top of that, which is nice. In a way, this complexity is also suggested in the front cover. At first, you see a so-so kind of stereo-typical pop music cover with no deeper meaning to it, and then you realise that the sunset glow in back of the image really is a whole country on fire - both hinting at contemporary physical forest fires and the symbolism of a fire running through a country and / or modern society.
Anyway, I'm still not really a big Lana Del Rey fan - never was. It's music for the broad masses, major radio stations will love it - apart from all the beeps 'cause Lana, she makes a fair use of explicit lyrics - and I even think my old mum will enjoy it, though I will probably not listen much to this despite all my recognition 'cause I don't enjoy the singing voice of Lana, which to me is someone trying too hard to sound like Hope Sandoval [see Mazzy Star] and then she stays too much in the same pitch regardless the subject and I just find the whole wrapping too pure mainstream colourless to my liking. All that said, it's undoubtedly still her so far best album.
[ 👎allmusic.com, Rolling Stone, 4,5 / 5, Slant 4 / 5, 👍The Guardian 3 / 5, NME 5 / 5 stars ]
