More about: Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey seems to have fired her publicist and really leaned into chaos the past couple of months. Taking an optimistic approach, fans are eagerly anticipating her new record Chemtrails Over The Country Club anyway, with visuals that seem to herald a return to old sugar-daddy dating, cherry coke drink Lana.

Doing a full 180 from the toned down imagery and honest lyrics of Norman Fucking! Rockwell, the new record looks to be going full glam, bringing back the heart-shaped-glasses-wearing queen of 2013 Tumblr. With only a couple of cryptic teasers to go off, here are our predictions for what this new record might sound like...

'White Dress'

This can only go one of two ways. We’ll either settle into the scene of the album with a sexy beat-heavy track, being introduced to a bored Feminine Mystique inspired housewife figure whose sick of being married and is plotting to leave her rich old husband. Or, she could begin with a NFR type ballad about her recent engagement. We hope it’s the prior.

'Chemtrails Over The Country Club'

This track was released as I was writing my prediction and had just scribbled down; ‘spoken word?’. Having just released a poetry book and accompanying spoken word album, there definitely potential for some readings on this album sound tracked by stripped by piano. And I wasn’t far off. 

'Chemtrails Over The Country Club' is super lyric heavy, like the majority of her last album, but returns to the hyper-romanticised 50s imagery of her earlier releases with a 5-minute long music video full of old cars and covens. She sings about moon signs and wraps it all up with a cinematic echoing drum solo, so I think this is a signal to get your pearls out and revival what’s left over your 2014 Ultraviolence angst. 

'Tulsa Jesus Freak'

This has to be sexy, right? Only Lana Del Rey can take a song title that screams Karen-Flavoured Catholic guilt and turn it into a thirst track. If we take a scientific approach, her character titled songs like 'Carmen', 'Million Dollar Man' and 'Sad Girl' all have one thing in common; classic stripper-esque instrumentals with lyrics about self-destruction and sex appeal that makes you feel kind of gross if you think about them too long. There will be a lyric about Sunday best dresses and beehives so high they’re stroking heaven. 

'Let Me Love You Like A Woman'

A Lana ballad like no other, only let down by its amateur-level photoshop artwork. Let Me Love You Like A Woman backs up the prediction that this record is taking the musicality of NFR but doubling down on her glamorous fantasies. I think this is the album’s major love song, and by that I mean that I hope the rest is a bit livelier and chaotic because I simply cannot relate to this love, Lana. 

'Wild At Heart'

We know Lana loves Blue Velvet and she’s got to be obsessed with Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks so this is of course going to be a melodramatic Bonnie and Clyde type banger inspired by the Lynch film. £10 says she gets a direct film quote in there somewhere and sings in her old Paradise era baby voice. If this is a slow song where she sings the words ‘wild at heart’ without a touch of irony I’m muting her from my Spotify. 

'Dark But Just A Game'

It’ll be about a dangerous affair, but aren’t all her songs?

'Not All Who Wander Are Lost'

She’s trying to be deep but this one is going to be cheesy. In a dream situation, 'Not All Who Wander Are Lost' will be like 'Looking For America' with soft haunting vocals and gentle meandering lyrics. But something is telling me it won’t be and this will be a 'Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems' type faux-intellectual skip track. 

'Yosemite'

This will be where our album’s protagonist falls for her secret lover. Lana talked about this song way back in 2017 having written it for Lust For Life and calling it a stripped back love song that was "just too happy" for the album. So this will be a slow build to a big, angelic bridge with various lyrics of dedication and comments on how cool her man is. 

'Breaking Up Slowly'

Then obviously, this song is about her breaking up with that man. I bet he drinks too much and doesn’t appreciate her little love songs. Something like that, definitely won’t be her fault. 

'Dance Till We Die'

It’s been a long time since we had a Lana Del Rey song with the potential to be remixed into a floor-filler. Think back to the various versions of 'Summertime Sadness' that we used to hear in those things called clubs, or livelier tracks like 'Cola' that you’d put on to dance round your room when you got home drunk, I think we’re due something like that. In a year that saw Taylor Swift go indie and turned us all onto sad girl songs courtesy of Phoebe Bridgers, Lana knows we need something to boogie to.

'For Free'

She’s either going to annoy Radiohead more by doing a follow up to 'Get Free', ending the album on a melancholic slow ballad that fades out. Or it’ll be a big euphoric full-orchestra track about leaving her old rich country club husband to run off with her one true love who she’ll be with ‘for free’, big finish, violin carries us out. Quite moving really. 

Chemtrails Over The Country Club arrives 19 March via Polydor.

More about: Lana Del Rey