Lana Del Rey's ninth studio album, "Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd"

^ meant the Jon Batiste interlude, not Judah Smith, who is the pastor heard on the sermon track

Love this one

Lovely Norah Jones esque music to fall asleep to. Very relaxing.

Agreed R2. I replayed that one a handful of times. It's beautiful. It seems she's using the "tunnel under Ocean Boulevard" as a metaphor for the most fundamental part(s) of her that she seems to feel no one she's had any intimacy with has been able to see or access; there's the "when's it gonna be my turn?" and "don't forget me" refrain throughout, too. It made me really sad.

Go post in the thread at r5, OP, I enjoy your insights.

R5 uh oh, I searched but used keywords from the album's title when doing so. Rest assured, I will go kneel on hot coals for penance.

Masterpiece

LOVE THIS WOMAN (almost 44 here) however A&W sucked to me.... WTF?

Cannot wait to hear the rest of the album.

Honeymoon is a masterpiece- the album...

Oh shit.. R2.. Thank you- THIS is stunning..

What do the rich have to offer when it comes to art

I've got "Ocean Blvd" on repeat. Glorious.

And I laughed out loud during "Sweet" when she sang, sonorously, "If you want a basic bitch, go to the Beverly Centerrrrr ... "

R11 I hate classism and nepotism as much as anyone else but wealthy people have been involved in the arts since forever. So it's a bit dishonest to say they aren't creative and can't contribute. Poor people unfortunately don't have the time or resources to create art for arts sake. In a fairer society, all people should be encouraged and enabled to create works of art. That's why a good social safety net and allowing leisure time for creative pursuits is ideal. The US has gotten worse because the working and middle class have to work longer and longer hours to survive and are stuck in debt slavery. The cost of living is too high. And also arts education has been massively defunded and poor and middle class kids don't have the opportunities to be great artists anymore. The arts world became the realm of idle rich and nepo babies. There used to be more working class presence to counterbalance this

Isn't she cockeyed too?

I like her voice, I like quite a few of her songs, she's a better-than-average songwriter by today's pop-music standards (although favorable comparisons to Joni Mitchell's lyricism are preposterous IMO), and I think it's interesting that she cultivated physical images and musical moodscapes that are unique to her and have remained consistent.

But I find her albums to be possibly the music boring and sedative strings of songs I have heard from anyone.

Back during my favorite musical era, people made fun of Sarah McLachlan for being snoozy, boring, depressive. Her music sounds like hard rock by comparison, and if her lyrics could be melodramatic and depressive, to me they had more hope than the bleak beautiful-drug-addict-in-a-trailer-park-with-an-abusive-tatooed-older-man thing Lana glamorizes and people adore.

She is talented but to me very one note and I find it difficult to listen to more than a couple of her morphine-drip songs at a time.

I also don't want to fault her for it too much because I think today it's probably impossible for almost any writer to get solo songwriting credit, but at the same time, she is hailed as a songwriting genius and a great living poet by some, and the reality is that unlike McLachlan, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Jewel, Joni, Laura Nyro and so many talented songwriters, Lana's songs are all products of groupwork, credited to multiple writers. She and Taylor Swift (whose songwriting I find a lot more engaging and full of thoughtful surprises) both have cowritten most of their recent songs with Jack Antonoff, and he produces both with similarly hazy, gauzy, vaporous, spare atmospheres with similar vocal effects. So I have a really hard time putting her in a similar league as Tori and Kate, who are true artistic auteurs, writing every word of their own lyrics, producing their own albums, composing their own music, singing every syllable themselves, thinking about virtually every aspect of the human experience from unfiltered sexuality to religious and spiritual investigation to politics to washing machines, death and loss, cremation, motherhood, painting, dancing, photography, women betraying one another and so on, whereas Lana and Taylor and their cowriters almost exclusively write about smoochysmoochy and angry breakups and revenge.

I'm starting to think Taylor Swift holds back. She also is almost a perpetual moody and naive teenager and that's her schtick. So, I'm interested to see in the future when she gets too old for a teenybopper fanbase whether or not she will start exploring more diverse topics.

I love it, but Lana Del Rey needs to work with Rick Nowels again, preferably exclusively.

Also I loved her album with Dan Auerbach, he’s a cunt but ULTRAVIOLENCE was her best.

LDR is always singing about some guy she's strung out or in love with.

I think that's why gay men like her so much, R19.

This is probably her most personal album to date IMO. She's discussing a lot of real-life human fears and sorrows throughout it that go beyond her typical "in love with a fucked-up bad boy" songs. The lyrics bring up her desperation for wanting a family; being forgotten and/or fearing she will never find love; allowing herself to be sexually exploited, despite her wish to strive for "purity"; contemplating how her siblings would get on without her if she died; the memories of people she wishes to take with her to her grave—it's all deeply reflective and quite sad. She's always been dark, but her candidness on this record is above and beyond. The title track alone really upset me the more I actually listened to the lyrics. It's a gorgeous, highly personal record. She seems to have matured a lot and shaken off the Lolita airs she put on when she was younger.

We got a taste of this on Norman Fucking Rockwell, but that album still seemed to have one foot placed firmly in a fantasyland, and another in the truth. On this album, she seems to have moved over completely. The lyrics are stripped-down and she's laid herself bare.

Someone said she seems a little Aspie or autistic and I never realized it but maybe she is. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

She has an interesting speaking voice. Quite lovely.

Bipolar, ADHD, social anxiety and autism all have very similar mannerisms and traits. High comorbidity.

Besides her music, I quite like Lana's choices of hairdos in this dreary age of Kimberly Guilfoyle-style ugly heavy extensions.

It's about time Gen Z was introduced to the concept of backcombing.

R23 are you a psychologist?

R24 already had it. No generation will ever pull it off like the 60s.

R25 I know many high functioning autistic and bipolar people and I have ADHD myself. Most of these disorders are caused by similar types of genetics and environmental factors. Misdiagnosis is so common because of the similarities. I don't know what LDR has, people have said she's bipolar though.

r26 — oh, I agree. The 1960s will never be back. I just think it's nice to see an actual hairdo on a music star these days.

(Don Loper voice) And here's the lovely Lana Del Rey in a fetching bouffant. Very Anne Welles.

R22 I've never even considered it, but I could see her being on the high-functioning side of the spectrum. She appears to be a somewhat awkward communicator in social settings, and seems like she's very conscious of her words, like she's constantly mulling over everything being said to her and attempting to match it with an appropriate response. In interviews I've seen with her, her communication style seems at times unnatural and doesn't always have a tangible flow. Then again, it could simply be that she's very self-conscious. Autism or not, she is definitely odd, albeit in an endearing way. She seems genuinely nice. A lot of songwriters are awkward communicators, and often use song to express themselves in a way that makes sense to them.

Looking back at this interview from over a decade ago, it seems there's always been a notable strangeness about her. She's always seemed kind of distant—not in an aloof or pretentious way—but just... distant. Unusual, and like a person who has spent most of their life lost in their own thoughts, living in their head. I don't know if that means anything in terms of autism/Asperger's, but it's noticeable, and I think a lot of people were perplexed by her when she first made her big splash, for better or for worse.

I remember her saying she had a depression period where she used to get drunk every night.

R31 she was allegedly a hardcore drinker as a teenager, and her parents booted her off to boarding school because they couldn't handle her. I think this quote from her reveals a lot about who she is and where her perspective comes from:

[quote]"When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal. For some reason that knowledge sort of overshadowed my experience. I was unhappy for some time. I got into a lot of trouble. I used to drink a lot. That was a hard time in my life."

She was clearly a dark child, and someone who obviously has contemplated/been consumed by the notion of death for pretty much her entire life. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill pop princess, and her music speaks to it.

I realize a picture doesn't always convey the whole story but her childhood doesn't seem THAT unhappy.

Here she is as an Ambercombie model with Lindsay Lohan.

R33 upper-middle-class ennui, but ennui nonetheless. Her parents were/are well-off, but it still doesn't mean she had a happy childhood—and even if she did, it seems she was always inherently morbid.

R33 Abercrombie models who looked like normal, healthy kids? Not half-naked, overly tanned T&A. Must have been before they changed CEOs.

I agree. I quite like the Suzy Orman style vest.

I can't stop singing "grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he's deep-sea fishing for sharks in the Pacific" portion of that [italic]Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing[/italic] song in my head, all day long.

I do substitute "sharks" with "trout" though. No idea why, guess my brain just prefers it that way.

Those lyrics spoken by a regular person would sound like Kurt Vonnegut nonsense.

R37 that’s my 2nd favorite, it’s so beautiful. Yeah, who goes fishing for sharks anyway?

My ear worm is from A&W: your mom called, I told her you’re fucking up big time.

She should ditch the Lolita schtick

It's probably not right of me to say this since both she and Taylor Swift have made countless millions of dollars and established fanatical followings doing what they do, but I do wish they'd both outgrow their arrested development already.

I think R40's 'Lolita schtick' perfectly encapsulates Del Ray's character and also her self-imposed limitation. I have all her albums except this latest one, and I do hope the claims above that her lyrics finally go beyond the persona and the 'schtick' are true, because for all her merits and the slight curiosity I have, I also feel like I don't want to bother trying to get into the new album because I feel sure it'll be more meandering gauzy crooning about this tragic domestic life on the California coast. She's done *so many* albums about this and I just wish she'd try radically different subject matter and also, for the love of God, pick up the pace once in a while. Being in a heroin-induced trance is not for me. But good for her for gaining momentum with every crawl in the same direction, I guess.

And Taylor Swift has really grown on me. Or I have come to appreciate her many talents more with every album since I began listening to her. My only wish is that she would GROW UP already and just abandon the high-school romance references that make their way into half her songs, and so many of her songs flash real insights into nuanced, complicated human nature, but she rarely fully 'goes there' and instead keeps the primary focus on love affairs, breakups, plotting revenge or, occasionally and most interesting of all of these, anyway, some self-depricating introspection (Anti-Hero, etc.). I don't really know how she manages to keep coming at the smoochy-smoochy romance stuff with new interesting angles like Mastermind and new metaphors like The Great War, and that she can do that definitely keeps me engaged. But it's really frustrating to an older listener who really loves artists like Tori Amos and Kate Bush, who do the love story stuff but from incredibly expansive and incredibly intimate vantage points, and who address such an endlessly broad range of human experience and ideas. Tori has made references to high-school romantic traumas, as in her song Precious Things and Cornflake Girl et al., but those were recorded in her early albums and in her early 20s, and from there, it was more and more about religious organizations' abuses, different versions of spirituality, women's relationships with women, politics, etc., and Kate gave us narratives about death and reincarnation, songs about dancing and literature and bank robberies and intercultural battles and the POV of a fetus inside a womb after a nuclear detonation kills the mother, a washing machine-based meditation on mourning, etc. These women obviously are unique artists with unique ideas, but Swift seems to me like she has potential to write so much more illuminating songs but she just cannot shake her visions of making out under bleachers on the high school football field and she's now 33 and I find it off putting. I kind of imagine her as a chrysanthemum blossom whose petals inside are pushing hard to open up but there's a stubborn husk on the outside that just won't let it happen. It annoys me a lot. She's smart and she shows that intelligence. She's insightful and she shows that. She could be an extremely thoughtful visionary, I think, but she's happily wading in the same old shallow waters and only shows brief glimpses of hidden depths. She's 33 now. For how much longer is she going to keep writing references to her boyfriend in his high school football uniform. That was half a lifetime ago for her now. Even if she insists on almost exclusively writing about love affairs, can't she update her setting to backstage or the tour bus or restaurants on the road or something?

I love her appreciation for old things. Like falling water.

What other artist seems like they would get into art deco, Norman Rockwell, old movies etc.

Lana showed up as a surprise guest at a Bleachers show this weekend in South Carolina, and performed a stripped-down rendition of "Margaret" with Jack Antonoff. Her vocals are a little shaky starting off, but I'm chalking it up to the fact that she hasn't performed live in several years. The song, by the way, is about Margaret Qualley, actress/daughter of Andie MacDowell. Qualley and Antonoff are currently engaged, and Lana wrote the song about their relationship. It is a lovely song.

Was about to post this, they sounded great. I didn't know she hasn't performed live in years. Has she not toured at all since the pandemic?

I also had no idea Margaret was Andie's nepo baby. I didn't even know Andie had kids! Hopefully she's a better actress than her mom, I know she has that new BDSM movie with Christopher Abbott coming out soon.

Btw, thank you to the poster who recommended the Pop Pantheon podcast episode about Lana in that other album thread, which I assume is now paywalled. It was great, all the background info you could want. The new album review in the following episode with the music reviewer from The Guardian was also terrific.

R44 I don't think Lana has done any touring since Norman Fucking Rockwell came out, which was almost four years ago. Her last two albums she put out were released during the pandemic, and she didn't do much to promote them—not that she really needs to. Her people are in the know.

Margaret Qualley is a bit goofy looking, albeit in a cute way. That said, she is supermodel material compared to Jack Antonoff’s ex/DL legend Lens. I’ve always thought Antonoff was adorable.

Antonoff looks like a 9 from far off, but is also a bit goofy looking in closeups, in a totally adorable way. So I guess they're a good match.

Let us not invoke Lens...

They are a cute pairing. I have seen interviews with her and she seems genuinely weird (in a good way). Very un-Hollywood.

Has she re-discovered interesting musically constructed songs, or is it another tinkling melody snooze fest like her previous couple of albums?

She's definitely playing around with the structure in this one, in that regard it's even more interesting than NFR. It's the Blue Banisters -- with the exception of one or two songs -- and Chemtrails that were the boring albums.

I think it’s one of her best albums, if not the best. I really only dislike one song (Fingertips, too wordy & ponderous).

Yeah, I don't like that one either, not a good balance of free form and structure. Also still not feeling Candy Necklace and Sweet.

Somehow, Fishtail has ended up being my favourite. It's so delicate and the imagery so transporting.

Margaret Qualleys dad is HOT

She didn't get his hotness

I tried to listen to a few songs on the new album and couldn't get past the lack of enunciation. It made Rufus Wainwright sound as if he overenunciates by comparison.

Ridiculous comparison. Your ears just aren't catching the higher tones anymore because you're an old bitch, that's all. I can understand her just fine, except on the A&W track where she's doing the whisper thing in a couple of verses and that's because she's talking about being raped.

Also, this isn't musical theatre, enunciation isn't king.

Or maybe because it's absolute shiite.

Art is subjective and no single opinion matters, frankly, to the interests of others.

My opinion is that I like the sound of her music in terms of its prettiness and dreaminess, and her voice can be very pretty, but it is too monotonous for me to be able to really appreciate her artistry. A single song can be almost too rambling for me. I have listened to whole albums of hers while out walking around and everything blurs together as background music.

I preferred her earlier songs like "Gods and Monsters" because they had more varied structures and were sung with more energy. Her last album gave me the sense while listening that I was standing still in water up to my thighs while high on opium and unable to motivate myself to walk to shore.

But that's just me. She is obviously a superstar and thrilling to a whole generation.

I cannot accept any positive comparisons between her lyrics and Joni Mitchell's, but again, everyone sees the world and art in different ways.

I like her old stuff

R59 I like her old stuff too, but I think her newer material is much more refined and better overall. She's five years older than me (almost to the day), so we're close in age and I've followed her career since Born to Die came out—she has definitely matured as a songwriter and it really started to show on Norman Fucking Rockwell.

I think Ultraviolence was a big leap for her (I loved the guitar-based rock sound that record was shaped around), and Honeymoon was a gothic, somber masterpiece (one of her most underrated records as far as I'm concerned). She still sings about men and relationships (she's a romantic, duh), but her perspective has evolved as she's gotten older. It's no longer a fantasy of being an urban Lolita getting fucked by bikers and thugs in Hollywood—her lyrics have gotten a lot more introspective and personal, and they've never been more raw than they are on this new album. She's introduced a lot of new thematic material on her last couple of albums, mainly reflections on her family and odes to the people she holds dear in her life.

It seems like these days she writes a lot of her material in a very off-the-cuff way, coming up with ideas while spending her days doing mundane things and writing/recording ideas on her phone. I recently read an interview/piece on her from Rolling Stone, in which Jack Antonoff said that she literally goes to gas stations and just observes things. She seems like an odd person, but in a good way—an introverted type who spends a lot of their life living in their head. Her songwriting process seems surprisingly casual, especially considering how impactful and gorgeous the outcomes tend to be.

There were a few photos she posted last weekend backstage with Margaret Qualley, where they were both smoking cigarettes (Capris in one shot!). I sort of wish she'd quit smoking, but I somehow don't envision her doing so. She's looking more matronly as time goes on.

I love The Grants, A&W, and the title track. This album got me listening to Blue Bannisters and Chemtrails again. I was sleeping on them after Norman Fucking Rockwell and I've grown into appreciating them more. I'm a big fan and an eldergay. I think she's one of the great ones.

I gave Chemtrails and Banisters another go after A&W came out and I was waiting eagerly for the new album to be released. Aside from Black Bathing Suit, Blue Banisters, and White Dress -- all of which I consider some of her best songs -- I just can't get into those two albums. There's very little there I find interesting musically. Dealer might be another exception, I do so love it when she cry-sings.

What about Wildflower Wildfire? That’s my favorite from BB.

I listened to it again and it's just too understated for me, at least until the last ten seconds or so.

I do think both of the verses are gorgeously written, especially the one about her dad. The first verse I'd like to sing/say to a guy one day, it's just the most romantic thing ever.

She's easily one of the most talented singer songwriters today. Really enjoying this album, OP. I like it almost as much as Norman Fucking Rockwell, which really should have won the Grammy over Billie Eilish.

Still waters run deep and her music never goes anywhere.

Ridiculous take for anyone familiar with her music.

[ R63 ] I love Dealer, Arcadia, Black Bathing Suit, Wildflower Wildfire but most of all I love Thunder from Blue Bannisters and with more listening, the albums keeps growing on me. [ 64 ] Love WW too!

I don't like her new stuff. Everything people share from her past 3 albums has not ever surpassed her earlier stuff in my opinion.

I like Gods and Monsters, High by the Beach, White Mustang, Music to Watch Boys To, Like An American, Video Games hell even SNL performance of Blue Jeans is better than anything new I've heard.

The new stuff, however well written, seems a bit self-indulgent. She tends to try the patience of her fans with making them listen to every thought that crosses her mind instead of providing them with good music to go along with it. I agree with r70, I miss the SOUND of her earlier music.

I don't liker her. Just so contrived.

R71 Yes, that's it the sound. I don't know if she's grown from talking about boys but I really like the ethereal sounds the way it would musically lead up to something and pay off.

Change my mind! Please. Post her best new songs.

The new album is not my favorite - not sure anything will ever touch Norman Fucking Rockwell - but it has some fantastic songs. Love some of the YouTube comments for Paris, Texas.

Lana's interesting.

My 50 year older sister - who grew up on Siouxie, Kate Bush, etc. - loves her.

So does my very hip lesbian friend who loves Tori, early Liz Phair, Fiona, Angel Olsen, Phoebe Bridgers and a million more indie gals I can never remember.

The pop loving gays who idolize Big Stars like Gaga and Beyonce also seem to really like Lana.

But she's not mainstream at all. She's never really had a billboard hit minus the Summertime Sadness remix.

R84 nice opera parts but ZZZZ

This was better than that.

Love this track. Great album. I even like the pastor part. It fits the overall mood.

R75 it's true, Lana certainly has an interesting cross-section of fans. She has a lot of shallow, young "YASS QUEEN!" pop girls/gays in her fanbase who also idolize vapid cunts like Taylor Swift and Beyonce, but there is also a significant subset of people of who aren't braindead and can actually pick up on her references. She seems much more intelligent and left-of-center than your average "pop" star, and I'm not even sure I'd classify her as that to be honest. You can tell by listening to her music that she's a very introspective person who is a real student/admirer of the arts. I don't get that same impression from someone like Swift, who comes across more as an ambitious social climber than a thoughtful artist.

I have listened to the album a handful of times since it was released, and while I have mixed feelings overall, I think the title track is easily one of the saddest and most gorgeous things she's ever written. It is utterly heartbreaking.

Yeah, the "I can't help but feel somewhat like my body marred my soul / Handmade beauty sealed up by two man-made walls" part in particular I find so beautiful.

Here's a recent live rendition of the title song from a concert she did in Brazil. I don't think Lana is a bad singer at all (I know a lot of people would fight me on this), but her voice really gets drowned out here by the trio of backing vocalists in this arrangement. I don't know if it's just the mixing or what, but you can't hear her very well during the chorus/refrain. Still lovely, though. She looks shaky at times in it and as if she's about to start crying.

Daniel Yearwood (currently in Hamilton) is replacing Jordan Fisher in Sweeney. Doesn't seem like much of a name (in comparison to Fisher), so not sure why they didn't promote from within the cast.

r83 could not be more lost if he tried.

r84, ugh. Sorry. Wrong thread (obviously.) Does anyone else experience this sometimes? Wherein Datalounge has a sort of lag and when you click between threads your post ends up on the prior thread, not the one you most recently clicked on? Seems to happen occasionally when there's a lot of traffic and the site's running more slowly. Please proceed.

(Also... yes.. this album is fabulous! Lana's doing great!)

"Candy Necklace" has grown on me. Like R53, I didn't take to it initially, but upon repeat listens, I've come to like it (for the most part). The pre-chorus ("Rockefeller, my umbrella, god I love you...") in particularly is very haunting.

r86 Yeah, same, I mentioned several times in this thread how I wasn't feeling it even after repeat listens, but that music video, which basically has the song on a loop, made me warm up to it.

Also, Jon Batiste seems quite femmy (look at the move at 2:40), I was surprised to learn he has a wife.

She deserved the Grammy for this album. Those motherfuckers are trippin.