review: Lust For Life.
Sat, Jul. 29th, 2017 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scvdderLana Del Rey's latest album, Lust For Life, came out last Friday and I've been more or less listening to it all week. The singles that have lead up to it for the past few months have been rather extraordinary so I had hopes, and boy did she deliver.
Much like Love and Coachella - Woodstock In My Mind implied, the album takes on very dreamy tones, a far cry from the album that first brought her to fame, Born To Die, but a very appropriate sequel to Honeymoon. The instruments are stripped back so that it is her voice carrying the music. Honeymoon and Lust For Life both lead me to such a content state when I listen to them. Like they're the albums you could spend a whole day in bed listening to, just enjoying life and the small things.
The lyrical content of this album is really interesting too - especially the effect that the political landscape in America has had on her music, given she's not typically very political. Songs like Coachella - Woodstock In My Mind, God Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women In It, and When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing all highlight her worries about the political future. Ultimately, she comes to a grim but hopeful conclusion in When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing, as she points out that we have pulled out of similar situations in the past. And while the brash patriotism that every American seems to be prone to is a drag, it's interesting to see how the months during the wiritng of this album have been something of a wake up call.
Other stray songs like 13 Beaches (Lana voicing her frustrations with the paparazzi) and Heroin (a song on the addictive and toxic nature of fame) are also very interesting.
This time around, she did a lot more collaborations than she usually does but as someone who is Here For Lana, I found that very frustrating. Like, half of the titular song is The Weeknd and while I don't mind his stuff, he doesn't fit the genre and he does not deserve the titular song even if they are good friends. I don't really feel like A$AP Rocky or Playboi Carti improved the songs, I just skip over their parts because I want to get back to the good stuff (Lana), and it took me too long to realise the second verse of Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems was another woman, not Lana's voice pitch-shifted so the youtube video couldn't get taken down because of copyright laws. Perhaps if I knew Stevie Nicks better I'd appreciate the song more, and A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti might be perfectly fine artists. But I don't want them on a Lana Del Rey.
That being said, I adored Sean Ono Lennon on Tomorrow Never Came was a perfect fit. His voice complimented Lana's so well and making that song a duet added to the meaning of the song. He also did many of the instruments and I must admit, the song really does feel like it could of been by The Beatles (in my defense, I thought that even before I realised the singer was John Lennon's son).
tl;dr: I would die for Lana Del Rey and the day I stop listening to this album is the day I die.
Much like Love and Coachella - Woodstock In My Mind implied, the album takes on very dreamy tones, a far cry from the album that first brought her to fame, Born To Die, but a very appropriate sequel to Honeymoon. The instruments are stripped back so that it is her voice carrying the music. Honeymoon and Lust For Life both lead me to such a content state when I listen to them. Like they're the albums you could spend a whole day in bed listening to, just enjoying life and the small things.
The lyrical content of this album is really interesting too - especially the effect that the political landscape in America has had on her music, given she's not typically very political. Songs like Coachella - Woodstock In My Mind, God Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women In It, and When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing all highlight her worries about the political future. Ultimately, she comes to a grim but hopeful conclusion in When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing, as she points out that we have pulled out of similar situations in the past. And while the brash patriotism that every American seems to be prone to is a drag, it's interesting to see how the months during the wiritng of this album have been something of a wake up call.
Other stray songs like 13 Beaches (Lana voicing her frustrations with the paparazzi) and Heroin (a song on the addictive and toxic nature of fame) are also very interesting.
This time around, she did a lot more collaborations than she usually does but as someone who is Here For Lana, I found that very frustrating. Like, half of the titular song is The Weeknd and while I don't mind his stuff, he doesn't fit the genre and he does not deserve the titular song even if they are good friends. I don't really feel like A$AP Rocky or Playboi Carti improved the songs, I just skip over their parts because I want to get back to the good stuff (Lana), and it took me too long to realise the second verse of Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems was another woman, not Lana's voice pitch-shifted so the youtube video couldn't get taken down because of copyright laws. Perhaps if I knew Stevie Nicks better I'd appreciate the song more, and A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti might be perfectly fine artists. But I don't want them on a Lana Del Rey.
That being said, I adored Sean Ono Lennon on Tomorrow Never Came was a perfect fit. His voice complimented Lana's so well and making that song a duet added to the meaning of the song. He also did many of the instruments and I must admit, the song really does feel like it could of been by The Beatles (in my defense, I thought that even before I realised the singer was John Lennon's son).
tl;dr: I would die for Lana Del Rey and the day I stop listening to this album is the day I die.
