More about: Lana Del Rey

A week before release, we’re brought into a record label office to listen to Lana Del Rey's new album to review. There are drinks and snacks; the crunchy kind, to be chomped on during the masterpiece. We settle in and listen; people go to the toilet missing entire tracks, twiddle thumbs, scribble notes. Most listen once, and leave to give it a rating and comment on its merit. We’re the critics, and when Lana sings “I know you hate me” on the final track, it feels pointed. But it’s a wonder that she doesn’t hate us more.

It's no secret that Lana has had a troublesome relationship with the press and critics – and that’s no surprise. Despite being one of the most popular artists of our time, she is criminally overlooked by awards, underappreciated as a writer and largely misunderstood, causing her to basically withdraw from public life as she made her Instagram private and shrugged off the concept of a release cycle for her last few records. Hinted at a few times on Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, as she sings “when you know, you know, it’s time to go” on ‘Paris, Texas’, or most explicitly on single ‘A&W’; “it’s not about having someone to love me anymore” – Lana has given up making for anyone else. She did a long time ago. But here, she’s found true glory in freedom.

"This is the most Lana Del Rey album that she has ever made; from start to end, this is a magnum opus for her fans..."

Glory is the perfect word. As we’re counted in a choral backing singers walk us into the album on opener ‘The Grants’; welcome to the Lana Del Rey hymn book. Grab a pew, these are her revelations. Immediately launching into her classic 1950s/60s inspired sound, her swaying influence between classic ballads and early RnB are balanced perfectly. Her vocals come through assured as they always do; Lana Del Rey has always known who she is, she’s always known how to stun with her singing but on track one of this new album, you hear a new type of Lana vocal – a strength that pushes through the rasp, like her hand is raised and all the congregation is on your feet and Lana leads the choir.

Throughout the first three songs, you get the sense of Lana staying on stage. With an atmosphere like a ballroom performance or an old school residency, so much of the album feels like it could’ve been recorded live with Lana stood up there in front of the orchestra, with everything following her lead. Even the album cover gives that sense, listing the producers and featured artists in the old fashioned way, when musicianship was a respected craft, crooning way the way and accolade was built through good work and respect, not booming hype. Looking through the credits, she surrounds herself with people that fit that bill as Jack Antonoff, Drew Erickson (who’s production is the stand out here), Jon Baptiste, Father John Misty and even her sister Chuck Grant make up the Lana Del Rey master team, bringing integral details all to serve Lana’s purpose, allowing her to be her most authentic and nailing her vision. Maybe all of that is to say that this is the most Lana Del Rey album that she has ever made; from start to end, this is a magnum opus for her fans.

And the most delicious detail of that is the repeated sampling of old tracks, as themes, lyrics or even whole sections of tracks from all previous albums dip back in here. The break in ‘A&W’ undeniably takes from the epic ‘Off To The Races’, ‘Fingertips’ sings once more to ‘Sweet Caroline’, ‘Margaret’ steals sounds from ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’, ‘Fishtail’ from ‘How To Disappear’ and the epic finale ‘Taco Truck x VB’ replays the entire end of ‘Venice Bitch’ with added beats and strings. Such a unique move and so boldly Lana, it’s like she said it best once so why would she bother to say it again? Like a dig at any fans or critiques that claimed she’s changed or shunned her latest work as too different or boring, the circle back to Norman Fucking Rockwell or even further to Paradise serves as a reminder that she is still the same Lana; still the same innovator; she contains multitudes.

Firmly rooted in who she is; not looking back but knowing herself in the present as a person that’s grown and matured through all those old albums and into this distinctive current space; her lyrical vantage point has changed too. In the albums first interlude, a 4 minute long recording of Judah Smith preaching, Lana Del Rey giggling and Jack Antonoff pulling it all together on electric guitar; it quietens for a second - “I want to be a man of love, not a man of lust”. With every instrumental swell on this album, we’re taken to church.  Returning to the foundation of the intro track’s choir-like, hymnal energy; this is the rock that Lana has always been built on.

Harking back to Paradise’s distinctive religious focus, shown best in her story film Tropico, we’re back but in a grown up way that feels closer to where Lana is now as a person and an artist. Rooted more in the domestic than the theatrical, considering love far more than lust, or even considering family, friendship, grief or identity more than any of the steaminess you might have expected from early Lana lyrics – even the decision to include voice notes or clips of Lana and her team of collaborators actually speaking screams something new and something organic. Finally sick of the conversation about who Lana Del Rey is, the constant questioning of whether she’s a character or a figure of irony, whether she’s problematic or empowering, whether she’s actually like this; she’s letting everyone in and shutting them up.

Especially on ‘Kingtsugi’ and ‘Fingertips’, two tracks that feel almost improvised in their lack of formula or followable rhythm; Lana is getting incredibly personal. Building a bridge between her poetry and her music, there’s a sense that these tracks moved directly from page to music. Referencing Leonard Cohen as she sings “that’s how the light gets in”, in my notes I scribble notes about the poet or draw lines between Lana’s improvised energy, that some might shrug off as messy or unpolished, and the punk poetry of Patti Smith, especially that of ‘Birdland’. As a pop artist and such an iconic pop culture figure, I don’t think people are often willing to afford Lana likenesses to artists like that.

I look round and watch people eat popcorn, the room is suddenly cold, I sip my coke and wonder why we’re the people allowed to even have a say in all this. I think of Lana Del Rey working somewhere in LA, writing songs like this as I struggle to make my notes legible, and decided that really if anyone deserves to be likened to Leonard Cohen, it’s Lana. I tap my feet along to the Father John Misty duet that deserves to go down as a classic country love duet sang by two artists that seem absolutely tailor made for each other. I write “lovely drums” or comments like “lana talking, so cute”. I really like the album, you can feel all the work that’s gone into it, all the joy behind it and the catharsis – and I don’t understand why I can say that after one listen and expect it to mean anything. It doesn’t deserve to.

My notes become especially jumbled as we reach the final tracks.  Back onto the topic of revisiting old Lana’s in a new setting; ‘Peppers’ sees a return to tracks like ‘Groupie Love’ or ‘Summer Bummer’ as the Tommy Genesis feature brings back the fool proof and always perfectly unexpected combo of Lana’s old Hollywood vocal and true RnB beats and rap additions. But what I really love here is how what feels like Lana’s house band keep playing. Still with the same sense of Lana up on a stage, the band add Beach Boys style doo-wop drumming as the album never surrenders fully to one style, keeping it firmly on track and firmly in the world of this current album while pulling from the past. Finale ‘Taco Truck x VB’ does it to. There’s a little giggle in the room as Lana sings “pass me my vape” and sings about not giving a fuck. It’s silly in the way all the best Lana songs are, throwing out lyrics without thinking about them too much, saying it how it is or however she wants – if there’s any track the critics were going to slag off, she knows it would be this one and she glares us down, daring us. But I won’t.

As we descend into a new version of ‘Venice Bitch’ I want to sing along, I draw 5 exclamation marks. And when the album ends, after 70 minutes of tinny vocals and an annoying bass rattle from one speaker; I think everyone should’ve got up and applauded. Instead, we collect our phones and shuffle out. We’ve listened to it once, time to go rate years of hard work. I think we should all be forced into a room to try and make something like that. I bin my coke and walk out, questioning the whole profession.

"This is a new classic for her, a vital step in her progress as an artist and a fascinating revisit of her past..."

I’m giving the album a 10. I know it before I leave the building. I have that feeling in my bones that I get in a good gallery; a mix of being awed and totally humbled. Even from that basement with the soundtrack of other peoples pens, I feel like I stared in the face of the muses in the way Greek myths talk about it. I know i'll listen to it repeatedly, religiously; like millions do with every other album Lana has released. This is a new classic for her, a vital step in her progress as an artist and a fascinating revisit of her past. But mostly, I feel like I have absolutely zero right to say it’s anything but.

It’s a 10 - not because it’s faultless, not because everyone in the world will love it, not because it’s a skipless listen - but because it’s nothing below. Lana has been making nothing but 10s for a long time, since her debut. She’s been making new sounds, building worlds, creating atmospheres without a second of mix up on what she’s saying or who she is. She is an artist in the grandest sense of the world that is deserving of accolade and is entirely unrivalled in her class of peers. And Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is her at her finest. Merging everything that’s come before while a whole new sense of maturity, personal identity and flawless craft - who are we to say anything else? Who are we to comment on that?

"...an artist like that shouldn’t get anything less than applause from ‘critics’ that listen once and get to write on her art..."

Lana del Rey is an artist failed by the music industry. It’s not set up for her, or for any artist with such a distinctive voice beyond dull sentiment or easy-in stories. She clearly has no interest in playing its game and so she’s been abandoned by it. She deserves to be handled how we handled Prince or Bowie; considering their albums and spontaneous holy offerings from the artist, send from exactly where and who they are at the current moment, totally outside of where music on a whole is at, totally trendless and demanding you either dive in wholeheartedly or fuck off and leave it alone. Building a hymn book complete with choral sections, full orchestration, RnB beats, vape references, entire sections of old releases, a country duet and a whole sermon – why do I deserve to say anything about that?

I give Lana a 10, knowing the work she put in, the things she wrote and the sound she put it all to deserves nothing less and an artist like that shouldn’t get anything less than applause from ‘critics’ that listen once and get to write on her art. So I’ll shut up, bow to her and say thank you Lana for letting me hear your work early. I really loved it.

Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd arrives March 24th

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More about: Lana Del Rey