The Legacy of Lana Del Rey
Dark Pop Princess Elizabeth Grant, better known as Lana Del Rey, presents an oasis amongst the emotionally barren mainstream music scene. Before there was a niche for mysterious women artists like Billie Eilish or Melanie Martinez, Lana already marketed the “bad girl” aesthetic prior to the most recent anxiety ridden e-girl trend. As an avid stan, I noticed that people tend to forget how Lana paved the way for female artists that take a different approach to being a woman in music. Her overwhelming sad girl persona turn many listeners off, however, with each album explanation, I hope to bring a deeper understanding of her notorious emotional range.
Here is a breakdown of Lana Del Rey’s six studio albums to show her progression as an artist and to entice listeners to begin to venture down this euphoric enchantress:
1. Born to Die (2012)
The femme fatale’s first full studio album debuted back in 2012. With tracks like Video Games, the infamous hit summer single that skyrocketed her career, and Summer Time Sadness; Her legendary album Born to Die, introduced Lana Del Rey’s eclectic sound that masks indie pop, classical, and hip hop influences.
Taking a new approach to the “bad girl” music scene, Lana Del Rey glamorizes her heroine heartbreaks with poetic lyrical imagery and fully encompassed sounds by orchestral back tracks that give Del Rey her buyable punk nostalgic composition. Born to Die starts off with the sound of strings playing in unison, opening listeners to her baroque pop sound.
Lana Del Rey’s depth of sound can seemingly be downplayed to having a sad girl aesthetic. However, her vocals, which are reminiscent of 60s women in early pop music, clash harmoniously with the new experimental pop that was becoming popular at the time. Million Dollar Man instantly shoots up a lecherous sensuality into listener’s veins, unveiling suppressed exploitives towards the familiar unrequited lover everyone has faced one time or another. In essence, her sadness has serious levels, but her cynical perspective complicates her melodic melodramatic moments in this specific album that it leaves people either loving or hating her.
2. Born to Die: The Paradise Edition (2012)
Shortly after her success with her first full length studio album, Lana Del Rey released an additional eight songs to expand the Born to Die era further. Her Americana manifesto is made even more apparent with Born to Die the Paradise Edition. Here, the ecstasy-like joy that is associated with the word paradise is juxtaposed with her sultry open-ended messages of her life in the limelight.
This album expansion also has one of Lana’s first controversial tracks, Cola. Unfortunately, this song has a changed connotation with the many allegations against Hollywood’s own Harvey Weinstein. In the pre-chorus of the song, Lana sings of a scandalous affair, “Ah, he's in the sky with diamonds and he's making me crazy.” However in the studio album, the name Harvey can be made out from the vocals. She even went the extra effort to stand with the alleged victims of Harvey Weinstein and removed this single from her live performances.
Tracks like American, Cola, and Gods and Monsters perfectly speak of Lana’s familiar criticism to pop culture. Where many people in Hollywood strive for celebrity status, blackout partying, and financial success, Lana continues to flip this message on its head. She has all of this, but still despises it through and through. Lana yearns for more; she craves intimacy that exceeds her sexuality but penetrates her retro soul.
3. Ultraviolence (2014)
Her next fully developed album, and my personal favorite, Ultraviolence, was where I felt Lana fully found her sound. Her previous albums were naive, with storylines encouraging girls to chase the blasé bad boy lifestyle and to dwell in their solitude. Her sound was also a little all over the place between the three genres of pop, classical, and hip hop, where tracks could easily be identified by each genre inspo. Yet, this album blends all sounds seamlessly and stands out for its dynamic tracks.
Her sultry inspiration that stems from powerhouse pop women in the 60s and 70s is more visible in this album than any other. Brooklyn Baby, Old Money, and The Other Woman all speak to her old time flare, and there are many other songs backed up with beautiful orchestral track instrumentals. However, within the same album we have trippy tracks like West Coast, Florida Kilos, and Fucked My Way Up that are decidedly more relevant with today’s pop music.
Rock also is majorly present within this album. Obviously taking a more rock ballad approach, Lana’s punk pop sound gives her a double edge to her music. Cruel World, Ultraviolence, Shades of Cool, Money Power Glory, and Guns and Roses all give off the summer somber rocker blues.
4. Honeymoon (2015)
Arguably one of her most heart wrenching albums, Honeymoon taps into a more macabre love obsession Lana has towards romance and her perspective on this dreary thing called life. This album definitely features more of Del Rey’s electrically dynamic vocal range. She opens the album with four powerhouse ballads that set the obvious looming tone of self-reflection and the static desire for sexual exploration.
The middle of the album brings a moment of release from the passionate tension that Del Rey creates through a lust for fantasy. The album’s single, High By The Beach, is the first upbeat poppy song, and the word “upbeat” should be taken loosely.
However, it is a great transition for both shockingly sensual empowering tracks like Freak and Art Deco. These tracks add to the underlying sexual desires, but stand out from the rest because rather than just being a sensual passive lover, Lana introduces the animal of desire that everyone wants to release.
Honeymoon showcases Lana Del Rey’s mastery in lyrical capability. Her inner sorrow grotesquely translates into beauty with strong lyrical choices in tracks like God Knows I Tried and Religion. This album is also the first to include a poetry interlude. Standing as a standalone track, Burnt Norton - Interlude has Lana softly reading a poem by T.S Eliot that is accompanied with an airy ambient mix of sounds. Her piece speaks of the inevitable course that is destiny, and the overwhelming indifference towards the “eternally present” time society finds itself in. It speaks to how desires can be useless, but carry such beauty for the soul.
5. Lust for Life (2017)
In comparison to the other albums, Lust for Life sticks out like a sore thumb and is hands down the most hip hop or rap inspired. For starters, the physical album cover is starkly happier than the rest. Lana is photographed looking directly into the camera— not smizing or pouting into the distance— but actually grinning from ear to ear. A smile so big that her joy can finally attract others who purposefully deter from listing to her infamous sound of sadness that they associate with her.
This album takes a more apparent approach with Lana’s love for both old time ditties and rap bars dripping with clout. Lust for Life is the first collaborative album in which Lana includes featured artists in her tracks. A$AP Rocky is featured in the teaser songs for the album, Summer Bummer with Playboi Carti and the star-crossed lover anthem Groupie Love. A$AP is a familiar rap fetish for Lana, dating back to her Born to Die era, as he was the main love interest depicted in Lana’s music video for National Anthem.
Lana also shares song Lust for Life with The Weekend, where both unique voices mesh melodically together. Both artists stand out within their perspective genres, and Lana has mentioned their close relationship as growing outcast artists within the mainstream media.
On the other side of the spectrum, Lana pays homage to the great John Lennon with Tomorrow Never Came that features his son Sean Ono Lennon. However, the biggest name that came from her many collabs was the legend herself, Stevie Nicks, in their poetic proclamation Beautiful People Beautiful Problems. The beauty of this album takes her music further, demanding attention with the concoction of her musical inspirations coming to life with Lana’s most different personas.
6. Norman Fucking Rockwell (2019)
Her most recent album that was released at the end of August 2019, Lana came in swinging for album of the year with Norman Fucking Rockwell. A fully realized and complete album, this version of Lana Del Rey is the most mainstream and digestible. This and her previous album both had a strong commentary for the state of America. Her direct cynicism is clear with the album title, using American author and illustrator Norman Rockwell to bring awareness to the currently divisive state that the United States finds itself in.
This album holds Lana Del Rey’s longest track, Venice Bitch, that has a studio jam-out in the middle of the song. Lana is no stranger to expanding her tracks with instrumentals. Her previous album ending with Get Free had an additional minute of orchestral accompaniment.
For me, the last image we are left with in the previous album of endless waves across the sea, sets up this album to the tee. Her music video for this album’s single, a rendition of the song Doin’ Time by American band Sublime, is focused on the sea, surfing, and boat riding. The album cover even showcases a boat and for once, someone else other than Lana. Her expression and actual body language suggests a yearning for a change of times.
Norman Fucking Rockwell is reminiscent of Lana’s Born to Die era with tracks like Fuck it I love you and Cinnamon Girl. We also hear familiar messages that we can come to appreciate for their relatable feeling of unrequited love. By far, the heaviest of meanings is Happiness is a butterfly. We hear Lana’s desperation for unconditional love, despite her realization that she will never find a serene solution to her mad love life. Yet with that said, this album is more geared to women empowerment, taking her old messages that speak of an interdependence for men and flips that rhetoric with the last track entitled hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it. This narrative is more reflective, showing how Lana has overcome her troubling life experiences through her music. Rather than merely promoting sulking in sadness, she takes on cynicism and optimism to glamorize the life that starts after we get over our troubles.