After the release of NFR! it seemed as if Lana was at her peak. Think again. Somehow LDR has written an even more LDR-esque song than before: this is the new definition of the LDR genre.
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A whirlwind romance, leaving LA and eloping? Sounds like typical, wistful and ethereal Lana Del Rey. And let’s just not talk about that art cover.
Lana Del Rey has strayed from her usual 2 years break between new projects and has surprisingly dropped the new lead single from her upcoming album Chemtrails over the Country Club, much to the delight of fans. The new single is everything you’d expect from the New-York born songstress: poetical lyrics combined with sultry sweetness and crystal clear expressionism of her desire, which in this case is the departure from LA and eloping with her sweetheart, who enriches life to the full and seems to be the solace of comfort and joy for Lana. This record very much echoes the sound of her recent album Norman F****** Rockwell and provides us with a sliver of what we can expect from the next album. After being unsure and doubtful about the new direction Del Rey was taking I’m most certainly glad we see a return to her roots in the new single, something I’ve been missing in my life. I can now, finally, once again, fantasise about being a scorned lover who is desperate to escape the suffocating air of LA and leave my failed romances behind me.
The desire to leave the city of LA may be a shock to fans as Lana has always labelled herself as an LA devotee. In her recent poetry book she admits her undying love for the city in ‘LA Who Am I To Love You?’ which brings to light the idea of misplacement and the longing for a home to feel content in. Is this perhaps the signalling for a new era completely? Can we see a return to the valley girl Lana portrayed at the beginning of her career? Or is it simply lyrical word play that Miss Del Rey is so hugely well known for? Some may call her style flowery and verbose, yet it’s the only way Lana has ever been known. She’s known for the fripperies of romance, trauma and desires and so the flowery description she may be ridiculed for is her image, her music and her craft, something she has always used for forward motion and allowed her to create more and more for fans.
Aside from fripperies and over explanations, the rhythm and melody of the new single is delicate and fresh. A melancholy piano arrangement immediately sets off alarm bells signalling ‘this is a sad one’, get ready to cry and get all up in your feelings cause you’re about to have a breakdown and cry over the most minimal things (yeah it’s one of those songs). Yet this sad somber tone is somewhat undermined by the desire and desperate longing for escaping restraints and ‘getting lost in the purple rain’ with your lover and getting ‘high off of pink champagne’. Very much a romance straight out of a fairytale or a romance novel that is most definitely a work of fiction. Immediately the focal romantic figure is automatically assumed to be a man of maturity and older age (loyal to the brand) which oozes opulence and richness making the storyline of escaping and the narrative of the romantic affair even more appealing and fantastical. This has always been the way, if there’s one thing in every Lana Del Rey song; its opulence.
If this is the sound of the new album I for one cannot wait for Chemtrails to grace our ears. Channelling nostalgic ‘good old days’ and giving in to some of the most prevalent female desires and using a platform for this kind of desire is nevertheless touched upon in popular culture and music industries. Most songs these days are surrounded around romance, desire and promiscuity but you have to admit that nobody, no one, not a single person does it in the way Lana Del Rey does. The glamour, the richness, the prismatic entity that she creates for herself is entirely separate from the mainstream romance pop songs, this is another level of romance and desire. This is Lana Del Rey.
