FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
The Best of Lana Del Rey
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ON 24th March…
the sensational and iconic Lana Del Rey releases her ninth studio album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Although she (Lizzie Grant) released the eponymous debut Lana Del Ray in 2010, I think Born to Die is her true debut. That 2012 album is hugely underrated. Since then, she has released some of the best albums of the past twenty years. One of the greatest songwriters of her generation, we will see that demonstrated through Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. I recently read the superb profile and interview that Hannah Ewans conducted for Rolling Stone UK. It is such a deep, interesting and great piece of writing where we learn more about Lana Del Rey’s past work, career and her new album. I think her ninth studio album will be among her most personal, arresting and enduring:
“Del Rey’s music once had a cool distance. It felt like she was melancholically singing over your shoulder. Now, however, her lines are played straight to the camera and then knock the fourth wall aside entirely to speak to you directly. There’s a playfulness, freedom and an honesty about her immediate reality on her new album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Tracks flow in a jazzlike trance; classic piano and acoustic songs blend into hip-hop, pop, gospel and choral numbers. Colloquial lyrics move as fast as a Beat writer’s poem: they seamlessly speak to a friend about culture, offer mundane updates on what’s going on in her daily life, present notes on dark relationships. But songs frequently, as Antonoff notes, come together with a “voice of God, some joy or hopefulness”.
Antonoff returns as a producer on multiple tracks. “You have a weird whiplash of not knowing what you’re supposed to feel,” says Antonoff of the second single, the horror folk meets internet rap track, ‘A&W’. “That sensation is across the album: you could dissect the tone of whether it’s hints of gospel or bringing back some of the 808s and the fucked-up side of things. But in the studio, it was just about finding what is shocking in the moment.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Chuck Grant
The tunnel under Ocean Boulevard is a real place. In LA’s downtown Long Beach, the abandoned Jergins Tunnel will still gleam if you cast a light on its white, sand and caramel-coloured tiles and beige mosaics on the floor. People walk above today not knowing what lies beneath. In the late 60s, it was sealed off and closed to the public, but once upon a time it was a subway for holidaymakers to access the beach. Cotton candy and souvenir vendors lined those walls. Not to be too literal, Del Rey says of Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, but “would it be a worrisome concept to be boxed out and sealed up with all these beautiful things inside with no one able to gain access except maybe family?”
Lana wears own dress, gemstone bracelet by Swarovski, bangles and rings stylist’s own (Picture: Chuck Grant. Styling: Joseph Kocharian)
It’s a revealing query that shows Del Rey’s sensitivity around how she’s perceived and understood has softened but remains an enigmatic concern. “That was a question I had because that’s a very plausible thing that could happen with the music, with how pointed people’s perceptions of my music can be,” she explains further. “Would it probably, plausibly, get to the point where it became a body of work that made me a vessel that was sequestered to the point where only family would have access to the metaphorical tunnel?”
This album is a box of treasures of its own dedicated to family. You hear it in the constant reminders that this is what Del Rey calls a “name-out or call-out album”. She mentions her father, sister, brother, Caroline’s baby and all those loved ones around her to “keep them close in the music” because they’re with her every day. Some jokes and lines are drawn directly from conversations with her girlfriends, like on ‘Fishtail’ when a friend’s date promised he would come over to her house to braid her hair, but he never did. “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”.
Looking ahead to her new album and back at the incredible work she has produced so far, below is a career-spanning playlist featuring her singles and best deep cuts. I hope that Del Rey continues to release albums for years to come. With such an expressive and mesmeric voice and style, that is matched with her unique and engrossing songwriting. The recent Rolling Stone interview lets us into a truly amazing human. I look forward to hearing what Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd offers. It is going to be another successful and acclaimed album from…
A genius and hugely compelling songwriter.