In her new album, the fading star bares her soul to us, both bright and melancholy, with rare poignancy and poetry. And tells the intimate twists and turns like no other.
The latest opus of the American diva, Did you know that there is a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard? comes out in March. Do we want to hear it? Yes, because Lana Del Rey continues to tell the questions and loves of the time better than anyone else. Last year, the singer surprised by publishing a collection of poems, pointing out her interest, often expressed in her interviews, in this particular form; When we first met him in 2013, at the time of his first successes, he was quoted profusely; authors most admired Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan.
Especially the latter evokes in him a restless admiration, which he told us from the beginning. “I had the opportunity to read Bob Dylan, to understand his process and methods. I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with him… He’s my hero. And I specify that I do not put myself on his level. He is above me. Just like Kurt Cobain, despite his sad end. the way he was able to capture melodies that seemed to come out of you…
She also took time that day to deflect from a question about her nails, which she always keeps long and perfectly painted, about the importance of her manicure. Another pinnacle of goodness. Two years later, during another meeting, he recalled the topic of these two conversations: literature and beauty, the very serious and the very light, gravity and appearance. Was there anything that would explain what this young woman really was?
In the video today, Lana Del Rey dramatically transformed her boyfriend
A restless soul
Despite the references, despite the posts, Lana Del Rey is hard to pin down. He has never stopped fooling his world for ten years, doing as he pleases, putting out more and more beautiful records because they are daring, adventurous, while remaining an absolute icon, especially in fashion, which secretly fuels Alessandro Michele’s creativity. : a few years at Gucci that established her as a quasi-official muse. In the process, Lana gave birth to a generation of singers who sought to create, like her, a compendium of glamor haunted by something deeply disturbed, and which would fall under this “anxiety” defined by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. In her wake, we note, for example, Veyes Blood, a singer with a pronounced melancholy, and whose vocal art sometimes echoes that of Lana. We also found Weyes Blood as a featured guest on Lana Del Rey’s penultimate album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club (2021), on which they covered magnificently together Freea song by their mutual idol, Joni Mitchell.
About the latter and its influence on the way she creates, Lana Del Rey already very humbly told us in 2017 that she was definitely inspired by it. What exactly does he take from her? “The way of telling stories. The way he expresses his inner self and the dialogues he has within himself. I love the fact that he envisioned himself as an artist who couldn’t help but become a musician. Also, I love the Laurel Canyon area. With my friends Jonathan Wilson and Father John Misty, we have created a real musical community, just like the one around Johnny and his friends.
California is dreaming
This sprawling Los Angeles neighborhood, which welcomed a community of rock and folk musicians in the 1960s and 1970s, became Lana Del Rey’s refuge away from her origins, which saw her growing up in the Adirondack Mountains. and then getting involved in New York music. Very quickly, he made California and Los Angeles his true anchor, and his records seem to tell the world from that point on. By the way, what story does his new album actually tell? As so often with him, the disc’s narrative seems to merge with autobiographical form.
I feel an inner shift and I try to tell it
Lana Del Rey
His love songs are intimate stories. Nothing is clear with him. The distance set in the song, the melancholy of the voice, the ever-ambivalent way he mumbles the lyrics, between confidence and poignancy, gives the whole thing a post-modern commentary on the way the world goes, and especially the way we love it. each other, we leave each other, get together again, forget each other, love each other again. Here again, Lana Del Rey draws a map of the love twists and turns of an era on this theme.
And he does it rudely, even brutally, without complaint. And that is primarily about him. The love affairs he recites and sings about are filled with muted violence, as if he is fighting an eternal battle, a lonely battle in which the pursuit of love goes through emotional roller coasters and other twists and turns of time. On Did you know that there is a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard?the album’s title track, he sings like a lonely soul, remembering his heroes, clinging to them, their songs (he quotes John Lennon and Harry Neilson, damn singer) and says raw words like: “When will it be my turn?” / Open me up, tell me you like me / Die to me, love me till I love myself” (When will it be my turn? / Open me up, say you like me / Beat me to death, love me until I love me).
on another track AT & V:He tells a miserable love story and does so by navigating between genres, moving from melancholic folk to dark and slowed-down rap, as if to emphasize the different aspects that make it up, opposite and complementary. At the end of listening, we understand that Lana Del Rey gathers in herself all the contradictions of the time and all the impulses that are capable of mixing the most opposite polarities to create a perfect unity in the same creative gesture.
Recovered time
In the last two years, after being one of the stars of YouTube for a long time, with his videos that he edited himself, he announced his departure from social networks, abandoning especially Instagram, where he had been very present for a long time. A sign of the era? This retreat goes hand in hand with this anger, which emphasizes the need to regain control over it, not to allow itself to be oppressed by eternal cruelty, to listen rather than obey. His new album is in line with that. Written from a dark yet combative perspective, it offers numerous and lengthy tracks, sixteen in total, each lasting over four minutes, sometimes up to seven. The time that Lana takes and offers to those who “Listen” is rediscovered time. who is allowed to indulge in listening to the singer who whispers in his ears, hides nothing of his suffering in the face of the world, before others.
Immersing yourself in his music, in his musical exploration of his loneliness and love quest, is to study the soul as closely as possible. At the end of his nine albums, we think we know him a little better. “I grew up with my records, he already told us, I feel an internal shift and I try to tell it. He is growing up, and we, with him, and, like him, continue to search, try to return time to time.
Source: Le Figaro
