“In My Feelings” drags another dirtbag boyfriend for filth, jumping an octave whenever Lana calls him a “loserrr!” and, in the chorus, asks, “Who’s doper than this bitch? Who’s freer than me?” “Cherry” compares having the courage to trust a lover to a convict staring down an executioner. There’s joy, levity, pain, power, and frailty mixed in with the political jitters. Lust shouldn’t go down as Lana’s Trump rejoinder, although some are banging that drum. There’s no outright protest music here - although, the “Is it the end of America?” sentiment of “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing” comes close - but there are songs expressing concern about the opioid crisis and fear that growing up in a country that doesn’t prioritize women’s health and rights will cause real bodily harm to young women she counts as fans. Lust for Life locates a folksy social consciousness that makes sense for Lana. The lyric recounts a moment where she peered out into the crowd and fretted about the good fortune of the kids there. Upon introducing “Coachella - Woodstock in My Mind” this April, the singer noted that it was written on the way back from the SoCal festival after she caught wind of a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. But where the last three albums found the singer stressed and struggling to cope with shitty boyfriends and feelings of dread, Lust for Life is a search for happiness in the face of forces hell-bent on hindering it. Lush instrumentation drapes over the low end, and Lana’s voice billows straight down the middle as always. On the surface, it’s another 72-minute serving of sun-bleached, slow-motion California pop music not terribly removed in scope from everything that came before it. This week’s new album, Lust for Life, blows up the idea of what a Lana Del Rey song can be about, while preserving the general understanding of what one ought to sound like. To her credit, she tightened up her craft and then burrowed further into character to spite her critics, razzing them with songs like “Fucked My Way to the Top” and firing off bazookas in the “High by the Beach” video. Pop music is about creating an exciting present, not staying tethered to your past. We jumped at downtown performance-artist Stefani Germanotta’s laser-guided dance music as Lady Gaga and even (briefly) believed Disney-certified country singer Miley Cyrus cared about hip-hop. We didn’t care when Christian singer Katy Hudson became the powder-puff-bustiered pop nova Katy Perry. In retrospect, it was a dumb conversation. ![]() It seemed as if we’d been sold a bill of goods. Dialogue about the music quickly shifted to marketing and authenticity. The response was divided, especially when early recordings under the singer’s birth name, Elizabeth Grant, came to light. It felt time-displaced and familiar all at once, like discovering a heat-warped cassette tape of a singer-songwriter album from that part of the ’90s where trip-hop invaded pop. It didn’t sound like anything on the radio. 2012’s Born to Die came from nowhere with a fully formed Natural Born Killers aesthetic that was perhaps too much too soon. Her music was dour and gauzy, glacial and bass-heavy, with a kiss of hip-hop flair. For five years, Lana Del Rey has made a mint mixing old Hollywood iconography and spurned love stories.
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