Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club (2021)

So, this album certainly deserves its own thread !

https://images.app.goo.gl/NWyjWj2uwRQHg9fu6

does it

https://lecanalauditif.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/lana-del-rey-chemtrails-over-the-country-club-1610317466.jpg

does it

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, March 19, 2021 11:24 AM bookmarkflaglink

motion sustained

Taylor got two threads last year, one new one for lana seems fair

even if I think this one is just OK

Well the problem is mainly because this album was discussed in a thread about another album which will make searches more difficult later on (in the distant future !) when someone wants to find this specific album.
If all LDR albums were discussed in one general LDR thread that would be fine by me.
Anyway, so far I like the first 3 songs on this, particularly the first one.
The rest is still indistinct so far.

sorry i was really just kidding!!!

As said on the other thread, her falsetto is very noticeable.
I'm not sure she has ever sung like on the chorus of "White Dress" ?

xp
:)

I'm bored this time round.

maybe not a great idea to prominently feature multiple vocalists who are all considerably stronger singers, pierces the bubble a bit or something

I've seen the cover a number of times now and I still mistake three other non-Lanas for Lana before I see the real Lana.

eheh some kind of variation on Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" video.

I wasn't surprised that I didn't like this and bailed but I was surprised that I liked the new Greta Van Fleet songs more than this.

excited to share news of their Greta del Fleet collab

was really looking forward to the djp livetweet of this record but i also couldn't survive the falsetto in "white dress"

the piano was pretty

I disagree with all of you haters, this is a very good album, but that's a predictable reaction from me at this point. I think it's arguably better on the whole than NFR, though as someone else pointed out, it doesn't have any individual tracks that are better than Venice Bitch, though the title track is close, for me.

I was a Lana sceptic for a long time, but I absolutely loved NFR. Waiting for my copy to get here tomorrow, but if this is even half as good as NFR I'll be very happy.

"haters"

hey im just trying to get hip with the kid lingo

Yeah this album is much better than this current thread lets on. "Tulsa Jesus Freak" and "Dark But Just A Game" are top tier imo

i don't know what the narrator is trying to show me w this album

the only thing I don't like on the album is the boogie down bit in "dance til we die". I know what that song is about; when she played Berkeley a few years back Joan Baez came and they talked about how they had had dinner, I'm sure that was a really great experience for her, but I could have done without the meta commentary on it, and the middle portion just bugs me aesthetically.

i don't know what the narrator is trying to show me w this album

"i don't know what the narrator is trying to show me w this album"

you have to pay extra for the commentary track

lol the lana defense squad has logged on

seriously

There’s skywriting here in LA saying “LANA DEL REY CHEMTRAILS”

Into it except for the Joni deepfake at the end.

i feel kinda confused by the way NFR was held up as a masterpiece by a lot of people and then the reaction to this one has been much more lukewarm (both here and with critics more broadly) when it seems obviously stronger to me idk

none of the bloat of NFR and nearly the whole album captures the atmosphere that made "venice bitch" such a highlight. the only real weak points are "let me love you like a woman" and "breaking up slowly" which are just ok compared to the rest

I don't think Weyes Blood sounds like Joni, or do you mean the cover in general?

Weyes Blood sounds nothing like Mitchell.

yeah, hence me not getting the deepfake comment. someone else did think it sounded like joan baez I guess, maybe?

I was driving and listening to the album and didn't even know the last song was a cover, so when "they knew he had never been on the TV / so they passed his music by" came in, and the "o" sound in "took over" and then the last "free," I wondered for a moment if it was a Joni cameo, maybe from the original recording.

David Crosby (with the Byrds) also covered "For Free", I sense a duet coming.

Apparently there will be another album, Rock Candy Sweet, in June.

Lana Del Rey just released her new album Chemtrails Over The Country Club yesterday. And now she’s already announced a follow-up album, Rock Candy Sweet, which she says will be out on June 1st — and responded to a Harper’s Bazaar article titled “Lana Del Rey Can’t Qualify Her Way Out Of Being Held Accountable.”

“Just want to say thank you again for the kind articles like this one and for reminding me that my career was built on cultural appropriation and glamorizing domestic abuse,” Lana wrote on her Instagram story. “I will continue to challenge those thoughts on my next record June 1 titled Rock Candy Sweet.”

Alongside a screenshot from the article discussing her recent online controversies, she added, “You’re right it would have been unnecessary if no one had significantly criticized everythin about the album to begin with. But you did. And I want revenge.”

oh nooooooo

her making an album where she Responds to Her Critics is surely going to take her lyrics from 'uninteresting' all the way down to 'insufferable' and fuel another wave of equally exhausting thinkpieces

the album won't be out june 1st though she's never been good with planned release dates

Lana's next album:

https://tenor.com/view/half-baked-fuckyou-gif-5926484

Oh well, that didn't work. It's the "fuck you...fuck you...you're cool...fuck you, I'm out" GIF from Half Baked.

I love that line; my wife and I quote it a lot.

responded to a Harper’s Bazaar article titled “Lana Del Rey Can’t Qualify Her Way Out Of Being Held Accountable.”

I'm wary of artists who feel the need to respond to their critics directly (and I dread the results) but come on no way this article isn't completely insufferable

also yeah no way that comes out this year

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a35311661/lana-del-rey-appropriation/

this is the article and it's a bit of a mess yeah

it makes plenty of fair criticisms (the same ones i'm sure everyone is familiar with) of her weirdly defensive album cover announcement post and that 'question for the culture' post she rightfully got a lot of flack for last year. there's also mention of her wearing native american headdresses early in her career (obviously bad) and using "he hit me and it felt like a kiss" as a lyric in ultraviolence as an example of her glamourising domestic abuse. all reasonable

then it delves into a messier critique of her whole persona being 'cultural appropriation'. like there are certainly criticisms to make of her relationship to race (and the article does make some fair ones) but i think reducing that down to 'cultural appropriation' is clumsy and totally unhelpful. an example given of her 'cultural appropriation' is her hairstyle in the "fuck it i love you" video was popular among latina subcultures in LA in the 90s and then more recently became a celebrity fashion trend, which on its own isn't really indicative of anything but the article seems to imply this is an example of her being problematic. as part of the broader point about the way she borrows significantly from black & latina culture while not fully including actual black & latina people, or being weirdly defensive about it etc., sure i guess, but then the article reduces that all down to 'cultural appropriation' which to me fumbles the whole point.

ugh why did i think this much about a ldr thinkpiece

there are so many actual genuine predators and villains in music, why waste column inches going after the merely dunderheaded, is my only real take on this subject

A previous version of the article incorrectly stated Lana Del Rey's father was a millionaire, which has been corrected.

I think for me it's just getting to the point where it's like Arab Strap or the Ramones, like I just don't really need any more albums like this

I’m just here to show off the display name fgti gave me

i agree with simon, upthread.

I think for me it's just getting to the point where it's like Arab Strap or the Ramones, like I just don't really need any more albums like this

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

This is how I'm feeling. There's nothing particularly bad about this album, but there's also nothing to really convince me this is anything more than just another Lana Del Rey album. Listening to Chemtrails at work the other day, when it ended it went straight on to NFR and just 30 seconds of that first song sounded so much more compelling than anything here. Honeymoon is the only one that took time to grow on me, everything else was really instant and I've gone back to them all a lot. I'll probably give this another chance to see if anything sticks.

it feels pretty distinct to me as far as her albums go, much more folk-y and atmospheric than before & her vocal approach has changed too with much more falsetto than before

First 2-3 tracks are great, maybe her best lyrics. The rest is kind of a featureless blur (though the line "I love you lots/Like polka dots" always makes me smile).

Yeah, I'm in the "this is kinda boring" camp. As background, it's unobjectionable but mostly doesn't distinguish itself. The production does achieve a consistent vibe, but it kind of flattens her melodic instincts, which really carried NFR imo.

flattens her melodic instincts

This. Her weakest since Honeymoon.

Late with this, but...

ugh why did i think this much about a ldr thinkpiece

^^New board description?

was really looking forward to the djp livetweet of this record but i also couldn't survive the falsetto in "white dress"

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson),

Oof the falsetto in the chorus is the thing I liked the most on first listen. Love how thin and powerless it sounds, it’s a nice break from the usual Lana vocals. Maybe it just stand outs to me because at this point in her career every song of hers fades one into another for me.

Yeah, exactly, I love "White Dress" and specifically the way she sings the chorus (also the video makes me want to go out and cruise the sunny spring Paris streets on rollers !).

I also hope the awkwardness of fitting way too many words into a line like she does in “white dress” or Ariana Grande on “positions” becomes a trend in pop.

Yeah, I think my favorite moment on this record is when she does that in the second verse of "Wild At Heart"

the forced phrasing was really bugging me the other day, like "swim-MING pools" in the title track and "schoo-ellls/joo-ells" in for free

the one that is driving me nuts is the "every time I said 'no' it wasn't quite what I meaned / if you know what I mean" in "Not All Who Wander", just c'mon.

Overall I'm feeling pretty middling on this, feels like a kid sibling to NFR - starts out pretty great, but much of the rest of it just feels like lesser versions of what she did more interestingly on NFR.

Okay, I have to retract part of that, hadn't made it to the last two songs. I really like the vibe on "Dance Til We Die".

it hadn't really occurred to me until just now how funny the phrase "The Men In Music Business Conference" is

it's hilarious, one of my favorite lines on the album

I haven't listened to this but the title is awful, so awful, I can't bear it

Old favourite Cherry Blossom rumoured to be on the next one; she did an IG post quoting the lyrics. I do yearn for a ‘Best of the Unreleased Tracks’ compilation with Driving In Cars.., Serial Killer, Queen of Disaster, Yes To Heaven, Pawn Shop Blues etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZuT6ltpFKI

yeah it would be nice to see some of those officially released though so many of them seem like the work of a different person at this point. Driving in Cars is still one of her best pop songs.

xp at first I thought she was saying "mini music business conference." Would be pretty funny either way

I haven't listened to this but the title is awful, so awful, I can't bear it

it's her best album title!

Heard it first as Meta-Music Conference (or metal?), all of which (along with "men in music") sound like a title you'd see in a dream.

Ok on my third listen now and this might be the first LDR album since Ultraviolence in which I love more than 2 songs in it.

I’m actually surprised how much this one works for me. I know people loved NFR but I didn’t. This one was so easy to like in comparison. For starters it’s one of her shortest albums and it’s very intimate sounding. I love the vibes going on and how the instruments mostly provide ambience, waiting for the vocal hooks. I guess fans of her more “maximalist” side might find it boring.

Love these: White Dress, Yosemite, Dark but Just a Game.

Like these: Chemtrails, Dance till We Die, Tulsa Jesus Freak

Bored by these, haven’t really won me over: let me love you like a woman, wild at heart

Thoughts on the alternate cover (HMV exclusive vinyl)?

https://images.genius.com/9cdfa2ba25187376f756075ce635817d.644x644x1.jpg

wow, the original cover looks like a friggin masterpiece now

it's bad but in a completely different way to the regular cover

At this point there's only one song on the album that I don't like : "Breaking up Slowly" (it's funny because at first I thought it was a duet with Stevie which would have been a nice concept since in the following song she mentions her as well as Joni who she covers on the final song !).
The highlights imo are the first 3 and "Dark But Just A Game" which low end during the verses sounds HUGE on good headphones/hifi. One of my favorite moments of the album.

I like the cover of the album.It's certainly not worse than all her previous covers !

yeah "breaking up slowly" is just kinda melodically trite

I don’t find any of her album covers particularly offensive but they’re not great either. It has always seemed weird to me how clear her aesthetic in terms of sound is yet it isn’t quite mirrored in her artwork and music videos.

Yeah she's got the worst sleeves of a big act since Oasis.

NFR! is the only one I find actively repellent. I like the Lust for Life cover a lot.

I like all her album covers except for Born To Die and Paradise, even when I don't like the albums (e.g. Lust For Life). The Honeymoon cover is great, and I liked the NFR cover even more once I realized the background was a painting (which of course it is).

She has stated that she regards album art as a complete afterthought and for single releases would just use whatever picture she found on her phone. The alternate NFR cover with her friends sitting in a park with godawful fonts is a good example. I wish she had a better aesthetic sense for these things; I really only like the covers of BTD, UV (the original B&W cover, not the alternate cover of her knee which I assume was another iphone shot), and the alternate Honeymoon.

DArk But Just A Game is one of my favorite songs on here too, it's recorded really well, the guitar tone is really nice, and opening up the soundstage with the bridge was a great touch. Arrangement-wise it reminds me of the White Album or something.

Arrangement-wise it reminds me of the White Album or something.

hum. Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way but now I can totally hear that !

I have to admit the bad cover art might be part of why her music gives me weird nostalgia for the 90s cd era.

it's weird that she doesn't care about the album artwork when she seems to care very much about the visuals for her videos etc

alternate cover looks like she shot out just out of frame of this

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LNX-E07tXM8/maxresdefault.jpg

*shot it

Arrangement-wise it reminds me of the White Album or something.

Been thinking about how classic the arrangements are: Beatles, 3rd-album Velvets, "White Dress" gives me Laura Nyro vibes kinda. Maybe I don't get out enough but it feels kind of surprising in 2021?

I don't know, I think it's pretty in tune with 2021. Jack Antonoff just won album of the year with Taylor Swift, and the sonic palette is partly him.

“it's weird that she doesn't care about the album artwork when she seems to care very much about the visuals for her videos etc” true and I don’t k ow how truthful that statement was but it seeems to explain some of the tossed off nature of some of them.

Also important to note that there were videos she made (like video games) and videos that I’m sure were 100% other peoples ideas (like Born to Die). The video for Chemtrails is interesting because it seems like the former style until near the end when it turns into a vampire video out of the blue (and even that owes something to Bat for Lashes)

xp yeah listening again a lot of the arrangement is of a piece with the Taylor albums, what's interesting to me are the aesthetic choices that don't fit (Beatles outro in "Dark But Just a Game", VU guitar in "Not All That Wander Are Lost", I swear there's Nyro in "White Dress" but I don't hear it every time)

Tonight at a small country bar in South Austin, we saw @nikkilanemusic. She brought Ms. @LanaDelRey out to duet "Breaking Up Slowly" and then Nikki covered @rosannecash "Seven Year Ache." For our 1st live show in 13 months, it was a transcendent one-two punch of joy. pic.twitter.com/5GYojQDkAB

— MattShiv (@shivvy) April 5, 2021

Another on the way: https://variety.com/2021/music/news/lana-del-rey-new-album-blue-banisters-1234962009/

no surprise that she changed the title for it but given her history i doubt this will make that release date

oh reading up on it and people think this might be a separate project to rock candy sweet bc she mentioned having two more albums in the work not too long ago (one possibly a country covers album?)

If that font is not already on bistro menus everywhere, it will be.

truly, the stans will eat what they're given

I sort of get the impression she's not a fan of the traditional album/release schedule she's always been on (where the usual allowances are made for vinyl manufacturing etc) and might be hopping over to a more modern approach (aka "release as much whenever you can") which...I don't know, maybe it will result in more spontaneous/less "safe" material, but quality control is a real concern lol

Maybe she's guided by voices?

i feel like she's always announcing projects that inevitably get themselves delayed into more traditional release schedules

yeah it feels like once per cycle she gets a text from the same label guy to be like "what did we say about timetables lana"

I can't help but find her apathy/indifference about visual aesthetics sort of charming, like she's developed an early case of old man swag

Her album covers are the aural equivalent of thinking crocs with socks and a bathrobe is an acceptable attire to wear in public.

three new singles just showed up on streaming services: "text book", "wildflower wildfire", "blue banisters"

lol that they're all separate releases, her people really have no savvy about how to juice streaming stats

surprisingly the mike dean one is the least distinctive. she's improving as a singer. someone destroy her piano.

"Dark But Just a Game" shows how much she can do as a melodist when someone gives her a harmonically interesting structure with some key changes. Otherwise, I have to roll my eyes when two consecutive songs on this record ("Let Me Love You Like a Woman" and "Wild at Heart") begin with the same IV - I - V chord progression* played at the same tempo.

* If you're generous, you could say that "Wild at Heart" is actually a ♭VII - IV - I in light of the subsequent verse, but off the top it's the same progression.

Let the record show that Blue Banisters was not released last week.

Nice new song :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mECX60FVJQ

And a great beat at the end of the video !

Yeah I dig that coda (?) though sounds more like an interlude that will work great in the full album context.

that outro nearly rattled the decorative plates off my shelf

album is out in October.

oh damn i had only heard the version on Spotify and it doesn't have that extra bit at the end.

She's terrible.

Had to turn this off after the first verse. Words were bad, very bad words.

I don't hate her but man every song the past 5 yrs is the same tempo, mood, delivery. Coda here is morricone sample + generic trap beat.

Well (good/great) sample + (good / great) beat is a fine formula imo. This one works well !

Agreed that her latest releases lack diversity in arrangements/production. I loved NFR, some tracks from Chemtrails but the first fews tracks from Blue Banisters don’t do much for me.
I like this one though but I’d like a return to some HipHop beats and other directions.

She’s on such a roll; the last two albums have had some of her very best work, certainly since her first album. This very tasty re-edit/extended mix of Tulsa Jesus Freak is one of the top few things to ever bear her voice IMO. The spoken stuff being given room to breathe is particularly delicious..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OkwRXxKmT8

I saw a YouTube video a few weeks ago of her covering "Wicked Game" at the Hollywood Bowl with Chris Isaak as a special guest, and suddenly it clicked how much that song feels at the root of much of what she does. He certainly embodies the "do one thing well and don't mess too much with it" philosophy. Would like to hear them cover each other's songs.

She’s on such a roll; the last two albums have had some of her very best work, certainly since her first album. This very tasty re-edit/extended mix of Tulsa Jesus Freak is one of the top few things to ever bear her voice IMO. The spoken stuff being given room to breathe is particularly delicious..

📹

She has deleted basically her entire social media presence; I can't say I blame her, if every single thing I posted was just replied to by thousands of bot-sounding weirdo stan accounts spouting fucking gibberish. But surprising thing to do weeks before an album launch.

A couple of weeks ago a friend posited that "White Dress" was the single of the year and I definitely think it's one of the most daring album openers I've ever come across (also yes I do love it)

new album is ok but probably a step down from the last two on first listen

some good tracks but the album is too long yet again & she spends too much time in her most boring languid piano ballad mode. "black bathing suit" is really good at least

Yeah, I have the same first impressions. I like "Thunder" and "Dealer" is fun !

if you cut it down it'd probably be solid enough

the morricone trap remix interlude is pretty goofy & out of place

eheh, yeah it's a great break in the album.
"Sweet Carolina" is also pretty... sweet =

I think it's a good album but wasn't surprised to learn it's kind of an assemblage of older stuff (I had no idea she recorded a whole album with Last of the Shadow Puppets that went unreleased or unfinished). Dealer is the highlight to me, never heard her wail like that. Black Bathing Suit is good but I don't know if I'm sold on the mix at the end of the song; I feel like it attempts to do a Venice Bitch but it's not hitting the mark the way Antonoff would mix it. Anyway, interesting that she deleted all her social media presence earlier this summer, wonder what that will do to sales (not that I think she cares).

i thought i disliked dealer until i realized it was stuck in my head all day

it's not unusual for her outtakes from sessions for previous albums to reappear on later records (usually having been leaked online long beforehand) but there's a lot more on this one than usual yeah

"cherry blossom", "nectar of the gods", "if you lie down with me" and "living legends" are all ultraviolence outtakes, though idk if they're totally unchanged since then or if she's re-recorded them. "dealer" and "thunder" are from 2017 sessions with some of last shadow puppets (but not all, haven't seen any mention of alex turner being involved), & "dealer" is confirmed to be unchanged from those sessions but idk about "thunder".

gave this some more listens & there aren't any outright duds on this but it rarely comes even close to her best work. there are a few interesting moments at least ("black bathing suit", "beautiful", "dealer") but overall the stripped down mode she's mostly working in gets pretty dull across the course of the entire (too long) album. comparing it to chemtrails, it's just not anywhere near as melodically strong & the arrangements are lacking.

would rank it somewhere around the middle of her albums

Yup. I guess 2 albums in the year, following a great album in 2019 is a bit much. Like these 2 albums cut down into one would have been a great follow up to NFR!

i know i'm in the minority here but i think chemtrails is her best. there's not really anything on the new one that i would have liked to have had on chemtrails, the tracks i am fond of here wouldn't have really fit too well.

nfr! was decent but its reputation already seems ridiculous to me. it leads with a few great tracks before spending most of the album just being fine - this was certainly a victory considering how inconsistent most of her past work had been but chemtrails improves upon it, much more consistently reaching nfr's highs & being a reasonable length for once.

My first listen of "Dealer", I thought "this is the kind of music I'd imagine Karen Black making". I googled "lana del rey" "karen black" and there was only one prior comparison, written by a Grantland writer, saying "if Lana Del Rey doesn't love [Five Easy Pieces'] Rayette Dipesto, I'll eat my makeup." Then I searched for Karen Black recordings, having only heard "Dreams Come True Girl" with Cass McCombs, and discovered that Cass finished and released a posthumous Karen Black album just a few months ago. I'm listening to it now and it doesn't sound anything like "Dealer". Sounds good though!

Really love the horns that come in on "If You Lie Down With Me"

Yes it's a nice touch. And it resonates with the Trap Morricone bit.
At this point there are about 10 tracks that I like a lot on this album.

10 tracks probably would’ve been the ideal length for this album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYqky795R1s

well this is the most interesting thing she's done in a while, idk if it really works though

This interview was intermittently interesting.

EILISH: I’m really curious, and you can feel free to say fuck off, but you are so romanticized online, specifically different eras of you and your music and your visuals. You were always the coolest of the cool in my world, but I was wondering if having older versions of yourself romanticized later in life might give you this feeling of, “When I was doing that, you guys did not give me that same validation and gratification.”

DEL REY: Yes. I was thinking about this last night actually, if it’s better to be initiated into that club where it’s like, “She’s wonderful,” right away. Once things grew on YouTube, I expected that there was going to be this very niche lane where I knew that I could thrive, but it didn’t really go that way. I quickly shifted right into the middle lane where everyone could see it and could hear the music. As soon as that happened, I knew I was in for it, but I didn’t know to what extent. In the beginning, I was following the mantra: “It’s all about how you feel, not about what other people think.” I had never thought that one day Bruce Springsteen would say something like, “I think she’s one of the most beautiful American songwriters” after Sasha Frere-Jones said, “Change your name, change your face, and try a new career,” and Jon Caramanica was going off about whatever—this was in The New Yorker and New York magazine, and I lived in New York. All of a sudden, I was walking down the street as I always did, and people would throw elbows at me. I was like, “Oh my god, no way did that actually happen. Someone recognized me and gave me a shove.” Or in San Francisco, I was eating at a bistro and a woman threw a book about feminism at my face. I thought I was completely in for it. I thought that all I could do was just keep touring. So, I toured for nine years and kept my head down. I didn’t think anything could ever get elevated to the point where, for instance, Interview magazine would say, “You’re on the cover.” Even still, it’s like, “Really?”

I’d love to see the article in which SFJ said anything like that about her. The only NYer piece about her that I can recall from those days is https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/02/06/screen-shot

Misremembering or self mythologizing, either way, A&W is the most interesting thing she’s done in a while, and on that level it works great for me, but I agree w/ ufo, no idea if it works-works.

Hm, that's funny, I don't see "But anyway I misread something Ann Powers said once and essentially sicced my fans on her" in that paragraph.

Eilish couldn't have tiptoed more deferentially into that question.

The whole piece is "Lana Del Rey fawned over by a teenage fan."

I‘ve liked both these new tracks (shocking). I agree the new one may not quite “work,” but it keeps me listening. The transition/breakdown bit reminds me of that Lorde track “Hard Feelings/Loveless”…

“You can really hear the Antonoff!”

https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/oh-hello-nick-kroll-john-mulaney-620x400.jpeg

I find myself in the disorienting position of highly anticipating a Lana Del Rey album

after Sasha Frere-Jones said, “Change your name, change your face, and try a new career,” and Jon Caramanica was going off about whatever

…Maybe she was thinking of the closing lines from this (weird) Caramanica piece that I just came across, and was misremembering it as SFJ?:

A career founded on bad faith all around can’t be long for this world, but at this point what can Ms. Del Rey do? Not much. Her cultural stamp has already been affixed, her biography written in concrete. The only real option is to wash off that face paint, muss up that hair and try again in a few years. There are so many more names out there for the choosing.

i feel like there was a terrible SFJ piece on LDR at some point but maybe that's just something that really seems like it should be true but isn't? idk

Oh wow this single !
I didn’t care about the previous single but already love this one, especially the extended chanting coda.

It takes too long to simmer but yeah adore that second half

this is a good song. this seems like the fourth album now where she's just decided she's going to do whatever the fuck she wants to do.

I just thought that this track is a kind of more realized follow up to “Arcadia/the trio”, with a more developed and satisfying trap/heavy beat part. I also prefer the ballad part actually.

I've listened to Blue Banisters a few times over the past few days... there's some very good stuff there, I admit I stopped paying attn after NFR!. She seems to be doing things similar in approach to some of her "peers," whom I have always far preferred, but she's actually doing it better(?!)

The albums gets a bit soporific, especially when it hits the string of piano tracks at the end (an hour-plus of slow Lana songs is a lot), but even those are good. I guess it's kind of a mismash of stuff from different eras?

Her vocal style has always been Obstacle 1 for me (to appropriate an old Interpol joke), but it seems like she's changed it up? I do really like her singing on this newer stuff.

(I've also given Chemtrails a few spins now, but nothing grabs my ear on that one... it's a snooze.)

love the title track, love “white dress”

The "Down at the Men in Music Business Conference" part of White Dress has (unexpected) Fiery Furnaces vibes...

“White dress” is fantastic. It almost make me go back to roller skating !

I prefer Chemtrails to Blue Banisters, though BB may suffer just for coming along so quickly before I had moved on from the earlier album

"Dealer" -> "Thunder" (on Banisters) is some hot sh1t!

yeah those are some great tracks on bannisters. I think bannisters did get short shrift; it's kind of a mopping up album, some of the songs on it are from earlier sessions, and of course she then went off social media around the time it was released. she doesn't seem to have really returned either except with a private instagram account. I've heard rumors she will no longer tour either. Good for her.

First 30 seconds of the new track remind me of something and it's bugging me. Thought it might be a Radiohead track or something from a soundtrack, but can't place it.

This?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbVKGlh3gg4

Sorry to rhapsodize, but "Thunder" has the kind of melody that I feel like I've been waiting to hear my whole life – it just falls into place; like I can't tell if it sounds like some combination of great songs from the past, or is entirely original, but it doesn't even matter.

It's the kind of track that's so ridiculously good, it makes me wonder what it must be like for the artist & songwriters/producers to listen back to it in the studio, and realize, "Yeah, that's a song we made..." (Not to mention casually deciding – "guess I'll make it, oh, track 9 or 10 on the album..." lol).

Worked out what the intro to A&W reminded me of. There’s a Radiohead connection via James Lavelle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh92yoebuhM

I'm still heavily into Banisters (to the point of distraction)... dipping back thru her catalog, it really seems like she doesn't have many other songs like these(?) I was surprised to learn that three of the tracks date all the way back to 2014 (like, the actual recordings themselves); b/c they sure seem distinct from the stuff she actually released back then, and wrote with some of the same folks.

Today, as I worked on my taxes, I dutifully queued up Born to Die (Paradise Edition), Ultraviolence, and Honeymoon (that's a lot of Lana!)... and even with my ears "primed" and wanting to enjoy it (like, "gimme more!"), I just couldn't find much I would want to return to. Maybe the production is throwing off my ear somehow? – it doesn't help that a lot of those tracks are smeared with gobs of dusky trip-hop beats. But I'm still coming away feeling like she saved this extra special material to be tacked onto the back half her 2nd album of 2021, where they'd fit perfectly with a suite of terrific new songs, as weird as that sounds. (Not to mention the two amazing tracks in the middle, which apparently came from an aborted collab with a UK band in 2017...)

Boy, Lust for Life is really not a good album! Talk about an artist not playing to their strengths…

it's half a good album I think. the more pop moments don't do much for me at all and I get the feeling they didn't do much for her either.

I don't mind LFL. Honeymoon gets taxing.

I really like the drum sound on "Love" from LFL. The whole album sounds underwater half the time.

Yeah, the production style really doesn't seem to work (unrelated - this final song, "Get Free," sounds like she listened to Radiohead's "Creep" while writing the verse melody)

this final song, "Get Free," sounds like she listened to Radiohead's "Creep" while writing the verse melody

iirc there was a bit of controversy when this came out and her people said it was just a coincidence. given that her music is an i-spy of music references, we all know it was intentional

Same chord changes, but the melody is different enough for deniability.

...and Radiohead took those chords from "The Air That I Breathe" anyway.

Yeah, the production style really doesn't seem to work

Oh, I meant underwater as a compliment.

...and Radiohead took those chords from "The Air That I Breathe" anyway.

Huh, I had forgotten about that... considering that song was on an album called It Never Rains in Southern California, seems like there could be a kind of deep meta-connection there.

A few more thoughts for my LDR Blog (as I've been listening to pretty much only older Lana for the past week, to break up my repeated spins of Banisters):

1. It's interesting how her vocal phrasing and bits of her songwriting can recall other artists, such as Gaga or Taylor... based on my casual contact w/LDR, I had the sense of her being sort of sui generis, but it turns out she fits right into the cultural pocket of the past decade (and I don't mean this in a negative way, like any of these artists are copying each other – just that she's more squarely "contemporary" than I had realized).
2. I had underrated Lust for Life a bit on first listen... it actually may be more interesting album overall than the few before it, and has a few particularly good songs. I do think that mode of going for an overtly pop-forward approach (with rap features, etc.) wasn't a productive path; she loses some of her distinctiveness here.
3. Her choices of cover songs seem really bad to me! They're either too on-the-nose ("Blue Velvet," lol), or just things that I do not want to hear (though I know "Doin' Time" hit it big, so I guess that worked out).
4. Banisters is still so head & shoulders above the rest for me, and I'll stop talking about it, but it feels remarkable to encounter a "where did these songs come from??" kind of album, so deep in an artist's catalog. NFR! was clearly an artistic turning point – then it feels like took a few tries, or maybe a happy accident with the right collaborators, and suddenly she hits it out of the park...

As far as I'm concerned, "Dealer" and "White Dress" are two of the best songs ever recorded by an A-list artist

Something remarkable about "Dealer" is how it has five credited songwriters (which is totally fine for a song, no shade on that) – but it feels like a single, perfectly executed idea.

I wish I had the vocabulary to talk about how other songs on Banisters's first half have a sort of tentative, resistant feel, with the cymbal lagging behind the beat... and Lana's almost pulling the song forward with her vocal, like she's fighting against inertia, until her voice breaks with the effort ("Black Bathing Suit" exemplifies this).

I had never listened to Blue Banisters until tonight, and...holy fuck, this album is amazing. Her voice is so different on "Dealer" I went to Wikipedia to see if it was a guest vocalist. But she's singing completely differently from the style I expect from her all over this record. And the arrangements are brilliant. The horns on "Arcadia"...

It's a shame Blue Banisters came out so quickly after Chemtrails as it's a much stronger album and didn't deserve to get the muted reaction it did. Nice to see your positive reactions to it.

The only review I’ve looked up is Pitchfork’s; and it’s a solid, generous Sodomsky piece, but it doesn’t really reckon with or grasp the sheer quality of the album (IMO)…

Yeah “Dealer” is very odd vocally coming from her.

I kind of like it, she sounds more “50’s” if it makes any sense.

Sounds like Horace Andy.

What! you’re right! The verses sounds like Horace Andy. Is her voice pitched down in there? It really doesn’t sound like her. I can hear some multitracking but no idea if there’s a second vocalist credited or it’s all her.

I had to scan the credits last year to ensure it wasn't him.

The song features vocals from Miles Kane, frontman of The Last Shadow Puppets.

thanks to this thread i've revisited Blue Banisters for the first time since it came out and WOW every song is hitting me hard. it's not that i disliked it when it came out, it just didn't *seem* to make much of an impression. i guess they just needed to live in my subconscious for over a year to finally sink in

Dealer is from a scrapped album with Kane.

I checked out Kane’s 2017 album Coup de Grace, which has a Lana co-write (“Loaded”) which apparently came out of the same sessions as “Dealer.” The album definitely does not sound like “Dealer”!

So is that actually Miles Kane on the verses? You can hear the opening vocal - the one that sounds like Horace Andy which I’m not sure is LDR anymore - and LDR’s vocal entering on the second verse.

I mean, she sings on it too, yeah...

So where I’m at is that is that it’s actually Miles Kane on verses and LDR enters on “give you all my money” onwards.

yes it's a duet

After much listening and re-listening, I've made a playlist of my fave (pre-Banisters) Lana Keepers (sorry, Ultraviolence fans... it's not represented).

Her career has such an "upward arc"; I can't think of another modern artist with a catalog like that. Feels more like the way artists would develop back in the '60s or '70s(?) – lots of albums, and increasingly finding their footing after a shaky first few tries. (I think "Terence Loves You" is her first really great song.)

I’ve made the same argument with certain Lana naysayers for sure. I was head-over-heels for “Video Games” and then extremely disappointed with the SNL appearance and the overall ‘thing’ with the following singles. But: an incendiary performance at Coachella in 2014, songs getting better and better, she’s now one of my favorite contemporary artists, for sure

I asked a coworker, with sometimes overlapping taste, if she's an LDR fan, and she said – "I've never forgiven her for that SNL performance"(!) (I went back and watched it, and yeah, it was mighty stiff, but... guess it's just as well I wasn't paying attention back then, the LDR "discourse" seems like it was sure gnarly.)

I think the reaction to the SNL appearance was so harsh because people were essentially trying to figure out what her deal was immediately after "Video Games." There was skeptical press about how she had changed her name and image, and also the debate about how the lyrical content wasn't exactly feminist-leaning. So when she bombed on SNL the people who hadn't heard of her until then were like "what the fuck is this," and many of the people who had heard of her thought, "I guess she stinks after all," and they were done with her.

Chemtrails has grown on me... it's def an album you can listen to all the through (despite some weaker tracks on the 2nd half). The playing is really strong – the music has this kind of languid but focused quality; with horns hovering softly in the background, and piano swelling up and receding, following its own train of thought. (It looks like Antonoff did a lot of the playing, in addition to (co-)producing, which makes me see him in a new light... I didn't realize that sounds like this were in his toolbox.)

3. Her choices of cover songs seem really bad to me!

...amending this to note that her take on "Season of the Witch" (from a 2019 horror-movie soundtrack) is pretty groovy!

i really love NFR ... i'm ambivalent at best to essentially the rest of her music ("white dress" is also great)

but this thread makes me feel like i should listen to blue bannisters

It is a lowkey masterpiece (…if I haven’t adequately made that point!)

The melodies set against that monochromatic production wore me down, especially against two albums. No doubt I could assemble a playlist comprising the good stuff. I loved NFR too.

I think I’ve recommended BB to five (5) ppl IRL so far…

I definitely went through that thing with Blue Bannisters where I listened once or twice when it came out, decided it was more of the same, and then 6-8 months later put it on while driving around and was blown away. I think it's very likely her best or at least should be a big part of that conversation.

New song is out

Someone please set her piano on fire

Holy sh!t... this album is gonna be amazing

How did she just like casually decide, in mid-2021, to become the world's greatest artist(?)

(I'm hyperbolizing obv - but goddamn, these new tracks)

yes to this song, album shaping up beautifuly.

s-s-springtime madness

https://www.themodernhouse.com/sales-list/evelyn-road/

I feel like the Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass poetry album/book, while not all that notable in itself, might have really loosened her ideas about sound and words on these two albums. "Wildflower Wildfire" is hypnotic in its layering of vocal and instrumental textures.

“Dark But Just a Game,” a Del Rey/Antonoff tune on Chemtrails, reminds me a little of “Death by a Thousand Cuts" (the Swift/Antonoff joint). It’s one of the few instances where I can maybe hear the Antonoff in the songwriting, on one he co-wrote.

what am I missing about that house listing?

I assumed it was posted in the wrong thread (or it’s an inside reference I’m not cool enough to get)

The stack of LPs under the table.

Good spot. Was hoping it would have blue banisters.

The turntable isn't hooked up to anything and some of those covers have water damage or something. Who could live in such a dump?!?

Good spot. Was hoping it would have blue banisters.

They’re now green and grey.

I somehow completely missed Blue Bannisters – the title track is incredible.

I’ve been digging into A&W, which begins as somewhat standard LDR ballad before going completely sideways 2/3 of the way through into some weird electronic nursery rhyme breakdown chant about drugs and sex (worth noting for audiophiles, this has a really terrific surround Dolby Atmos mix). So ... still kind of a standard LDR tune, all things considered.

This is kind of my LDR experience these days – new single or album pops up in my feed, I check out some of it, am usually really impressed by a track or two, rinse, repeat. I’m not sure I’ve dug into a whole record of hers since Lust for Life – about half of which I loved and the other half mostly just strutted on past.

I think this is kind of what happens when you emerge onto the scene a fully formed artist. Everyone wants to work with you and you’re game – so you go from being rough n’ ready where some stuff soars and others crash and burn to where the overall quality improves but the highs are maybe less risky and weird and the whole thing, in her case, is buried in a sea of strings, piano and tape echo.

At this point, she’s done so many production, genre and formal experiments that it usually takes a really killer melody for any of it to stick. Thankfully, she still has those. In general, since the rules haven't really applied to her since Born To Die—let’s put a clompy hip hop beat here, let’s make this song 7 minutes long and make it a duet—I find she benefits from when she abides by a few anyway.

Has anyone listened to her very first album – the one that was pulled from iTunes when Born to Die came out? Despite its non-availability (except on YouTube), she seems to count it as a core part of her catalog; a promotional T-shirt for Ocean Blvd refers to the new one as "the ninth studio album by Lana Del Rey" (all Tarantino style).

^^I figured out how to listen to "LDR1" on the big speaker, via YT Music. It's pretty good! Better than Born to Die...

(The highlight – besides "Yayo," which later made it onto the Paradise EP – is "Brite Lites," which is v proto–Billie Eilish.)

It's kind of fascinating how she went from her first album – a batch of nimble and fresh-feeling songs, all written solely by her – to an overdetermined and (IMO) pretty corny major-label debut, which feels weighted down with a lot of "input." Maybe she got what she wanted with it, I dunno...

(I wonder if it's a coincidence that "Video Games" includes the line "Heaven is a place on Earth with you" – even though that's not one of the songs co-written by Rick Nowels, the Belinda Carlisle songwriter.)

I happened across this (highly interesting/recommended) recent interview in Rolling Stone (UK), that actually addresses a few of the questions I raised above – what went sideways with BTD (in her opinion); but also my half-joking thing about what suddenly shifted for her in 2021. Turns out, a few things did...

(I like this a lot – it’s very generous):

“If people think my music is good it’s because there’s other people involved in the songs and in the process of making it. So many people,” she says, with a smile at just how good it is.

last track on the new one is an early version of "venice bitch" apparently, huh

And the album is 77 minutes long, which is...too much.

Looks like there are a few (spoken-word?) "interludes," which may be eventual skips (bringing down the functional runtime)?

I cannot wait for it to come out!

It's kind of fascinating how she went from her first album – a batch of nimble and fresh-feeling songs, all written solely by her – to an overdetermined and (IMO) pretty corny major-label debut, which feels weighted down with a lot of "input." Maybe she got what she wanted with it, I dunno...

I had a conversation with a friend today about The Male Professional Songwriter & Why All Women Stars Apparently Need Them.

Obviously, there's a long, sordid history here where it went from dudes writing songs for women singers (ie, Dusty Springfield), before evolving into the proverbial singer-songwriter era with Carole King/Joni Mitchell writing the songs they performed themselves.

But it seems like maybe around ... Madonna maybe(?) that women singers began receiving some credit for songs for which they weren't the primary songwriter (kind of an interesting reversal from how the Morris Levy's of the world used to just assert credit for songs they had nothing to do with outside of making mob payments). My guess is that the justification was something along the lines of "if the woman vocalist is going to be the brand responsible making these songs valuable that they deserve a cut of the publishing royalties."
At any rate, that seems to be the standard now, where labels utilize professional songwriters to approach a lot of women artists with songs and the artist receives some kind of writing credit, often one of many.

Which kind of leads us to LDR and Taylor Swift, both of whom are obviously songwriters in their own right but have worked with a ton of professional hacks themselves -- guys like Rick Nowels, Max Martin, Jack Antonoff, etc. I think there's certainly a legitimate question as to whether either of these women "need" assistance in the songwriting department -- Swift's material def. seemed to become more popular once she started working with Martin, but she was certainly accomplished to that point. Meanwhile, LDR wasn't as well known but clearly had incredible skill right out of the box.

I think the biggest thing these hired hands seem to bring to the table, at least with these two artists, is productivity. TS and LDR release a metric shit ton of music -- too much, as I've noted in the case of Lana but also with Taylor. Both produced two records during the pandemic when they couldn't tour. It's legit hard to keep up as a fan, much less a listener. And from what I've read about both artists, my sense is that neither would be able to produce this much material if left to their own devices.

That doesn't answer why it always has to be men working with these artists -- "keeping them on track" and "broadening their appeal." My guess is that it's just good old fashioned Hollywood misogyny (which I think LDR slyly winks at with songs like "Fucked My Way Up To the Top") but who knows.

Here's a Lust for Life-era interview with Nowels that I ran across the other day, where he talks in detail about the songwriting process with Lana (it's kind of cute, he defines very precisely for the reader what a bridge is...).

But it seems like maybe around ... Madonna maybe(?) that women singers began receiving some credit for songs for which they weren't the primary songwriter (kind of an interesting reversal from how the Morris Levy's of the world used to just assert credit for songs they had nothing to do with outside of making mob payments). My guess is that the justification was something along the lines of "if the woman vocalist is going to be the brand responsible making these songs valuable that they deserve a cut of the publishing royalties."

Poor example. Madonna absolutely is the primary writer of her material. (So is Mariah Carey, for those who don't know.)

Also, my (limited) understanding is that when an artist receives credit, they have contributed to the lyrics or melody in some way (just like the other credited songwriters)… it’s not like the credit is just handed out as a sort of consolation prize

Madonna since 2008 has written with phalanxes of writers, but that's the state of affairs in pop in the last dozen years, especially since the "Blurred Lines" case. Up until that point, though, she almost always co-wrote with her producer; in the case of Music it's clear Mirwais had the production ideas and could play guitar but not much melodic talent (as his own album showed). She brought the melodies, song structure, and lyrics.

But I agree with your large point, NTI.

even in those most recent madonna albums a good portion of the tracks are just credited to her + the producers she's working with

fwiw swift's first songwriting partner was a woman (liz rose). she's said she finds it much easier to write by bouncing off someone else's ideas, usually just writing to someone else's instrumental sketch these days.

It’s interesting that Lana was 27 when she finally got her break (after recording EPs and stuff for years)… like, she’s four years older than Taylor, but didn’t get on the map until over 5 years later.

(I started a thread for the new album, FYI: Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2023))

And the album is 77 minutes long, which is...too much.

This is just her coded nod to ILX.

I fell into a YT/SoundCloud rabit hole with her early demo EPs and other unreleased stuff... holy moly. She has clearly been super talented from the beginning.

Some of the demo tracks are not entirely different from Liz Phair's Girlysound material — just as a point of comparison that I wouldn't have expected, based on Lana's later aesthetic.

This is my favorite of the three(?) extant versions of "Brite Lites"... what a banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57oYg3mhJXM

...and here's an example of how strong her earlier acoustic stuff could be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hecdLBfl8z8

some of those may jailer songs are really good

"Let Me Love You like a Woman" (from Chemtrails) has become one of my favorite songs... like, by anyone. Don't really know why, but it's like my anthem, lol... I don't do karaoke (and can't sing), but it makes me wish I could passionately belt it out in a karaoke booth.

I know this is a trite observation, but I think it's so clever how the first two lines in the chorus –

Let me love you like a woman
Let me hold you like a baby

– are grammatically identical; but "like a woman" and "like a baby" have opposite meanings, in that they're referring to different people (her, and the person she's singing to, respectively). Language, man... far out

you might like this, the original version which didn't make Ultraviolence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UgdhObcwbE

(lots of people seem to prefer this version but to me her vocals sound pretty strained, she's grown immensely as a vocalist since this)

I had no idea about this earlier version. Interesting that the opening verse on the finished version is new and is so 2020 (the idea of leaving L.A. for, wherever, Ventura County or Joshua Tree.

Don't really know why, but it's like my anthem, lol... I don't do karaoke (and can't sing), but it makes me wish I could passionately belt it out in a karaoke booth.

Totally cosign with this (other than that I love doing karaoke). I can listen to this song on repeat 5-10 times.

Thanks for the link, akm! I read about that version in "Lanapedia," but didn't think to look it up (she has so many demos / unreleased songs floating around, it's bonkers).

Yeah, I'm not so fond of that particular "voice" she was using in that era. It is fascinating to hear how she reworked the song.

She probably has as much leaked unreleased stuff as she has officially released, it’s kind of crazy. A lot of it is very good. She seems to have allowed it to happen as well; stuff has been on YouTube for years.

Fwiw now think the title track to Chemtrails is my all time favorite song by her.

She has so many unreleased traxx, I've had to kind of stop digging into them, b/c it fries my completist-oriented brane. (Just today, I discovered this entire fan-compiled album consisting of Ultraviolence outtakes.)

oh yeah I found that last night too. FWIW I think most of those outtakes are pretty subpar; that version of Diving in Cars with Boys sucks balls; the original version, particularly the one without the truncated lyric, is still one of her greatest songs

This version?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCfvH0h2_SU

yes, this has the full prechorus. for some reason there was subsequent mix that edited it down and it sounds stupid

i really dont' know why this was never released officially, I guess maybe she felt it never really fit on an album (true, other than BTD it doesn't fit with anything else) and she doesn't really release non album singles (I do appreciate that she remains very album focused).

anyway "miss america with the blue mascara on" is a wonderfully delivered line

BTD could have been so much better, considering what else she had to work with. Some of the creative choices seem so bizarre or rushed to me... like how the first line of "Born to Die" and "Radio" have very similar lyrics and the same melody; or the phrase "take (your/that) body downtown" being used in two different songs. And "This is What Makes Us Girls" is such a bizarre choice to end the standard edition - it feels so random and abrupt as a final song (the bonus tracks obv improve the landing).

I also think it's funny how, for an album (and artist) so heavily steeped in "Americana," she pronounces the word "vitamin" (in "Radio") a way that no American has ever pronounced it – just for the sake of a (corny) rhyme.

You guys, I’m at a party where there’s a karaoke hookup – I asked the host to pull up “Let Me Love You Like a Woman,” and I did it, it was awesome and so much fun even though I sounded like ass #noragrets

P.S. I’m actually wearing my LDR T-shirt from hot topic

Ooh ooh!

Ahah

Just realized I'd love to hear The Magnetic Fields cover "Let Me Love You Like A Woman."

dang. good call.

From "Arcadia":

I'm not from the land of the palms, so I know I can't stay here
I'm not native, but
My curves, San Gabriel all day
And my lips like the fire licks the bay

It strikes the listener that palm trees also aren't native to Southern California (except one variety) – instead, they were mostly planted for symbolic reasons, and to lure visitors and new residents. So the couplet sets up this inherent irony: calling SoCal the "land of the palms" (not a common phrase), and then declaring "I know I can't stay here." Plenty of other folks move to L.A., but many put down roots and stay (you know, like palm trees). It's a fascinating (and I think intentional) contradiction, in a song where Lana presents her own body as so deeply ingrained with the local landscape that it's a kind of living figuration of it (literally, "a map of L.A.") – but then she skips town at the end, because ppl got mad at her Instagram posts or whatever.