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Lana Del Rey has spent the last 12 years perfecting a musical style that combines intoxicating love, self-destruction, abandonment, and melancholia. She consistently uses a tonal palette of languid, gorgeous ballads filled with unique details and influenced by the glitz of old Hollywood and the rawness of everyday American life. While pop music is constantly evolving, Del Rey stays true to her signature sound, incorporating modern trap beats and her signature puffy, slightly slurred vocals to create what she calls “narco swing.”
In her ninth album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, Del Rey continues to explore the tumultuous emotional landscape with intense emotion. If the troubled character portrayed in her songs does not align with the typical image of a famous singer-songwriter, it is likely because you have not consumed enough tales of celebrity suffering. On the beautifully haunting title track, Del Rey references her favorite moment from Harry Nilsson’s 1974 single Don’t Forget Me, as she relates to the abandoned tunnel that has been closed off for many years. Del Rey is exhausted from being shut off and fears being forgotten, longing for someone to guide her through. She sings with melancholy, “Open me up, tell me you like it / Make love to me until I learn to love myself.”
Her desire for a love that erases her ego is her guiding light, a popular theme that she gave a modern twist to in her breakthrough single “Video Games” released in 2011. While the song celebrated all-consuming romance, it also displayed a willful denial of reality. However, in her latest album, she is stripped of even that. In the standout track “A&W”, she muses, “It’s no longer about finding someone to love me / This is the experience of being an American whore.” As the scratchy acoustic guitar and warbling keys play, the synths grow louder and a hypnotic trap beat kicks in, creating a blurry, feedback-filled and slightly industrial sound. She sings about Jimmy, who only loves her when he wants to get high, while her own voice multiplies into a drugged-up choir headed for “the club”. The song seems like a desperate plea from a tormented soul, but also carries abstract and conceptual undertones; it can be seen as an anthem for an America ravaged by the opioid crisis.
Ocean Blvd does not start with any of these poetic examinations of unsettling dysfunction: the first track, The Grants, is surprisingly pure, though still dark, as Del Rey reminisces on cherished moments – her niece, her grandmother’s last smile – that her pastor claims are the only things she can take with her to the afterlife. A few songs later, she whispers and laughs along with a lengthy recording of Judah Smith, a controversial megachurch pastor known for his anti-abortion and homophobic beliefs. Critics were uncertain – was this an approval or a mocking criticism?
The music of Del Rey on Ocean Blvd is filled with ambiguity that permeates deeply. Unlike her previous popular and catchy pop songs that gained her fame in the 2010s, she now focuses on impressionistic material that may not immediately please listeners. However, upon repeated listening, tracks like “Candy Necklace” (a collaboration with Jon Batiste) reveal Del Rey’s signature themes of idealized love, obsession, and the draining nature of relationships. Investing in her world, which explores the darkness of America, female pain, and the search for temporary escape, yields great rewards. While Del Rey’s music has often been associated with shallow pleasures, this album is richly imaginative and captivatingly enigmatic.
Source: theguardian.com
