FEATURE:
(Almost Nearly) The Greatest
Lana Del Rey and the Career-High Norman Fucking Rockwell!
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I have already covered my favourite albums…
PHOTO CREDIT: Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times
of 2019 and selected the debut albums that have stuck in my mind. Today, I wanted to highlight a particular artist and album because, recently, I included her in my Modern Heroines feature and looked at how, since her debut in 2010, Lana Del Rey, she has come a long way! That album turns ten on 4th January, and we can see how Del Rey (real name Elizabeth Grant) has progressed. That is not to say her debut or first few albums were weak or lacked quality. Whilst some wondered whether Lana Del Rey was a marketing gimmick – who was putting advertising slogans in her music -, she has singled herself out as one of the finest artists of this generation. I will write a separate piece about women in 2019 but, when we consider the very best albums, most are by women. Lana Del Rey is a classic case of an artist who gets stronger with every release. Working with various producers on Norman Fucking Rockwell!, including Jack Antonoff, Del Rey has released an album that stands alongside the very best of this year! I will come to the album in a bit but, very shortly, she will be releasing another album:
“Lana Del Rey has announced she will be releasing a new spoken word album in just over two weeks’ time.
The pop star broke the news in a “video note” posted to Instagram early on Friday (December 20), revealing that the album will be released January 4.
Del Rey began the message to her fans with the news that her book of poetry, Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, “is taking a lot longer to handbind than I thought”. She had teased the volume with social media posts in April.
Though Del Rey didn’t specify the spoken word album’s title, she did say that she had for some time wanted the album to cost around a dollar, “because I just love the idea that thoughts are meant to be shared and you know, they were priceless in some way”.
I wonder what we will get from the new album and what it will sound like. Norman Fucking Rockwell! was released on 30th August and is the sixth album from Lana Del Rey. With primary production from Del Rey and Jack Antonoff – with additional production from people including Rick Nowels and Andrew Watt -, one is captivated and struck by a gorgeous combination of genres and moods. From piano ballads to Soft Rock moments, there is so much going on. I think of Lana Del Rey more as a cinematic icon rather than an artist. She seems to weave these dreamy scenes and can project so many personas through her music. Small wonder Norman Fucking Rockwell! has been nominated for Album of the Year at next year’s Grammy Awards. I may well focus on another album or two from this year that warrants special attention but, as we end 2019, I felt it only right to talk about Lana Del Rey’s finest album to date.
In many ways, it is like she has found her voice; those who criticised her early in her career for sounding fake or prefabricated could not have foreseen the artist we hear on Norman Fucking Rockwell! It has been a remarkable year for Del Rey; she is kicking off her 2020 campaign sooner than anyone could have expected! The reviews for Norman Fucking Rockwell! are hugely positive. Here is what AllMusic had to say:
“A strong classic rock influence comes through on many songs, with the softly building pianos and acoustic guitars on tracks like "Mariners Apartment Complex" or the apocalyptic "The Greatest" sounding like the best of '70s FM radio reworked around Grant's smoldering, exhausted vocals. Even though Stevie Nicks' witchy mystique has long been a reference point for LDR, this particular brand of classic rock -- silky guitar solos, compressed drum fills, and lingering, mournful outros -- is unlike anything she's attempted before. The most exciting aspects of Norman Fucking Rockwell! come in these unexpected moments. A faithful reading of Sublime's "Doin' Time" contorts to fit Grant's moody approach, becoming an extension of her own expression rather than a goofy, ironic cover. Where huge pop hooks met eerie melodrama on previous albums, here both extremities of that formula have grown more understated and direct. "Venice Bitch" is the best example of this. The nine-minute song begins with gentle strings and soft, hopeful melodies but winds into a long, meditative stretch where synth textures and hypnotic repeating vocals bleed into walls of noisy guitars. While much of her older material reveled in its own inconsolable sadness and detached numbness, the lush sonics and intimate narratives of Norman Fucking Rockwell! draw out hope from beneath desolate scenes. The patient flow, risky songwriting choices, and mature character of the album make it the most majestic chapter of Lana Del Rey's continuing saga of love and disillusionment under the California Sun”.
In their review, Pitchfork were eager to compliment an album that marked a big step from the American songwriter:
“Norman Fucking Rockwell! is the apotheosis of Lana Del Rey, songs of curiosity and of consequence, darkness and light, a time capsule of 2019, proof that a person cannot escape herself but she can change. Lana has said hope is dangerous because of her own experience, because in Hollywood she “knows so much.” Hope is dangerous because women are rarely taken seriously, from matters of authenticity to cases of assault. Hope is dangerous because the world fails women, and the bigotry to which American power is currently pitched ensures it. Lana calls herself “a modern-day woman with a weak constitution,” witnessing “a new revolution,” with “monsters still under my bed that I never could fight off.” What makes this final song of survival so cutting is the palpable difficulty in her delivery. When she lands on “a gatekeeper carelessly dropping the keys on my nights off,” it sounds like an oblique image of corrupted power, as upsetting as it ought to be, one to finally drain her of hope. But she still has it. In a piercing falsetto we rarely if ever hear from Lana, perhaps saved for her most pressing truth, she touches the sky: “I have it, I have it, I have it.” And when she does, you believe her”.
I will finish with an extra from an interview Lana Del Rey conducted with The New York Times recently. Before coming to that, I have been considering why Norman Fucking Rockwell! is such a leap. I love a lot of her previous albums, yet I feel a lot of the songs sort of blend into one another. Maybe there isn’t the variety to pique the interest throughout. I think Del Rey’s voice has become more nuanced and broader since the start. It is one of her strongest suits and something that divided critics earlier on – its hushed seduction and dreaminess perhaps lost on some. In any case, I think every aspect of her music has strengthened. This all bodes well for 2020 and forthcoming material. Norman Fucking Rockwell! is packed with brilliant moment, but I would suggest getting it on vinyl and hearing it in all its wonder and purity. If Del Rey split critics a few years back, there are very few who have dissenting opinions and can refute her music. In fact, The Guardian just named Norman Fucking Rockwell! their favourite album of 2019:
“More significantly, Del Rey deepened her craft, producing six albums in nine years, each better than the last. In pop’s big league, only Drake matched her productivity, although he might wish he had her increasing creative returns. Her themes became more provocative, while her sweeping, lunar balladry pushed beyond cliched noir. Here was someone who knew exactly what she was doing – and when other people tried it (see: Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams), something was clearly missing. There were hundreds of crooners, but only one Frank Sinatra.
Del Rey’s image and artistry perfectly aligned for the first time on this year’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! (NFR), a supremely confident declaration of self. Unlike Lust for Life, with its unconvincing forays into trap, Del Rey’s stately sixth album is completely out of step with contemporary trends: as if a Brill Building stablehand went west on a Laurel Canyon recon mission. Those sounds are more than just another layer of Americana cosplay (though they are that, too). On NFR, Del Rey asserts a newfound sturdiness after a wayward past of teenage alcoholism and yielding to men who take her sadness “out of context”. “Maybe the way that I’m living is killing me,” she gasps on Fuck It I Love You. “But one day I woke up like, ‘Maybe I’ll do it differently.’”
The headlines only penetrate NFR once, at the end of The Greatest, a gorgeous, valedictory ballad that builds and builds, yet never yields to the inevitable collapse. “Hawaii just missed that fireball,” she mutters. “LA is in flames, it’s getting hot / Kanye West is blond and gone / Life on Mars ain’t just a song.” It’s a eulogy for the privilege of not having to care, of missing the days where she was “doing nothin’ the most of all”. It’s been interpreted as a song about helplessness, but I think it’s about what comes next: understanding your purpose and setting aside naivety. It’s another subtly defiant assertion that Del Rey is here for the long haul, no matter what. You don’t move to California oblivious of the big one”.
This year, Lana Del Rey has been all over the media. There was great anticipation ad tease in the run-up to the album coming out. I can remember cryptic messages coming on Twitter and everyone wondering when this album would come out. Songs like Venice Bitch were put out there and, with such a wave of anticipation, Norman Fucking Rockwell! was going to be the subject of great interest and scrutiny. As it turns out, so much of what was said and written about the album was adoring. I went in expecting an album similar in scale to Born to Die or Honeymoon, but I was pleasantly surprised by the new layers to her work. One can look at that Guardian review that talks of a new-found maturity and sturdiness; a young woman who is focused and a lot more than mere Americana. The depth and variety across Norman Fucking Rockwell! is staggering. I have looked through a lot of interviews Lana Del Rey conducted this year, but I was interested in The New York Times’ interview from back in August. Del Rey was asked about working with Jack Antonoff and whether she sees herself as influential:
“What did you get out of working with Jack that you haven’t with others?
It’s kind of like a romance in a way, where things work out best when you really are not looking for it. I was at a party and I met him and I didn’t even really want to go down to the studio, because it was winter and I was chilling. But then we wrote a song in about 40 minutes — “Love Song” — and I was like, “You are so good, would you mind recording me live, to no track, singing this song that I’ve journaled called ‘Hope Is a Dangerous Thing’?” And I really liked how he captured my voice without instruments. I thought, [expletive] it, let’s make an album.
Do you have a theory as to why so many female artists are drawn to working with him?
I think it’s his musicianship. I know a lot of producers who can’t play. He plays the sitar on one of the last things we did! I feel like what I can do in terms of grabbing a melody out of the air, he can do with a very minor chord progression and just like, mmm, magical.
How do you feel about the state of mainstream pop right now? Is that something you keep up with — the radio, Spotify, Billboard?
Yeah, I love it. I don’t keep up with the charts, but do I have the radio on? Ehhh. It’s more like on Instagram, I’ll see someone have a clip of a song and then I’ll go on YouTube.
I love Billie Eilish, and I feel like I’ve been waiting for this time in pop-music culture. I personally am very discerning. I can tell if a female pop singer, for instance, has a generosity of spirit or a playful fire in her heart. With Billie, she’s prodigious. I needed to hear one line of one melody and I just know. And then Ariana’s choices of intonation, it might not be traditional, but it’s very good. I also really love hip-hop, so seeing such an influx of little mumble rappers coming out and being so sexy and authentic — one of the little dudes wants to wear a dress onstage and everyone’s clapping their hands like, “Bravo!”
Do you see a generation of younger women making music who feel influenced by you?
Yeah”.
Although Norman Fucking Rockwell! is not my favourite from the year – mine is Jamila Woods’ LEGACY! LEGACY! -, I think it is the most interesting and accomplished album, in the sense Lana Del Rey has hit heights she hasn’t done previously. Norman Fucking Rockwell! is one of many albums that has made…
2019 such a fabulous year.