Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
The Alternative is 100% supported by our readers. If you’d like to help us write about more great music and keep our site going, you can become a Patron on Patreon, which also allows you to receive extra content, sweet perks, and The Alternative merch, with levels starting at only $2 per month. Everything helps, and if you can’t afford to donate, consider sharing this article and spreading the word about our site! And if you want The Alternative delivered straight to your inbox every month, sign up for our free newsletter. Either way, thanks for reading!
Lana Del Rey is one of the defining artists of her generation. Elizabeth Phelan, Ryleigh Wann, and friend of the site Michael Colbert sat down together to examine the highs and lows of her career.
Elizabeth: So what are your personal favorite LDR songs and albums?
Ryleigh: I think my favorite song is “Art Deco” or “Freak.” Do you guys remember the “Freak” music video with Father John Misty in it, where he’s, like, the cult leader? Oh, my god! But Norman Fucking Rockwell, hands down. Ultraviolence is a second favorite of mine.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I feel like Norman Fucking Rockwell is kind of peak Lana. Like, she will never get truer to herself, perhaps, or to her image, than in that record.
Ryleigh: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. What are y’all’s favs, in terms of songs, Greatest Hits?
Michael: I’m also such a Norman Fucking Rockwell truther, I guess it’s not really a truther, because…
Ryleigh: Everybody agrees!
Michael: Everyone agrees! [laughter] But I famously listened to “Fuck it I love you” like 600 times two years in a row on Spotify, and that really spiritually connected with me, but these days I’m all in on “Venice Bitch.”
Ryleigh: Oh, yes.
Michael: I also love Ultraviolence. And the very first song that got me into Lana was “Carmen.”
Elizabeth: Interesting!
Michael: I love the persona in that, and I think about it all the time. I’ve stuck with it since I first heard it. Also “A&W” is just incredible—coolest turns, coolest transformations, I love that song.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I love that. Like, the the transition too, with, like, the introduction of the more electronic, like, not trap beats, but it’s almost like a transformation of genre. And then, there’s this moment where the background singers, they all go “ooh!” and it’s so cool! It’s like a rush. It feels amazing.
Ryleigh: Yeah, she really captured her version of lightning in a bottle for that song.
Michael: Didn’t it also drop on Valentine’s Day?
Ryleigh: Did it?
Michael: I think it did, or in my memory did, or I just listened to it then.
Elizabeth: Definitely powerful, powerful aura. I think that’s also like the best of her, well maybe, if not, the best, one of the best Jack Antonoff collaborations, I dare I say, across all of his artistic adventures. I think Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard is one of his strongest works.
Ryleigh: Yeah, I’d agree with that.
Elizabeth: I really like the song, and this is kind of a deep cut off of Blue Banisters, but the song “Dealer”—
Ryleigh: Oh!
Elizabeth: It’s very minimalist, and really the only thing she sings in that song is the chorus, which is “I don’t want to live,” and she sings it with this rawness and intensity. And it really takes my breath away every time I listen.
Ryleigh: That’s, like, the only good song off that album.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think she had a mini flop for a minute there.
Ryleigh: Yeah, that’s my heat, my hot take.
Elizabeth: Okay, are there any songs that you’re embarrassed that you love?
Ryleigh: Do you guys remember “Serial Killer”? That was not on an album. I remember having it, like, on my Tumblr. It’s a cringe one, it’s probably why it’s not on a record.
Elizabeth: Intense title too.
Ryleigh: Yeah. You guys will have to dig it up online after this. But I love that one. I think “Carmen” is also one of my kind of embarrassing ones that I love. You know, I was 16 years old, like yeah!!!
Elizabeth: Yeah, the boys, the girls, they all like “Carmen.” That was my cringe pick too.
Ryleigh: But it’s a good one. That’s great.
Michael: I can also get really into both Honeymoon and Lust for Life. I love the “Art Deco,” “Religion,” “Salvatore,” back to back. I think those ones are kind of cringe, but they’re so fun.
Ryleigh: Yeah, I had that CD in my car. I, like, loved that record. I always kind of forget about it, to be honest. What is it, “Terrence Loves You”? I like that one a lot too. That whole record, the persona of it. I remember being really obsessed. I don’t really revisit it, actually, now that I think about it. When is the last time I really listened to that record? It’s been a lot of time. I’ll have to bump it after this.
Elizabeth: Yes!
Michael: I do think “Fuck it I love you” is also cringe. [laughter] Especially how many times I listened to it. Do you have any others, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Any embarrassed loves? She doesn’t play “Pepsi Cola” anymore, or “Cola,” I guess it’s just called. But I was in high school, like, locking myself in the bathroom listening to that song. So insane… I think a lot of us as children listen to it, and maybe, maybe this goes for a lot of her work, but there are some crazy, sexy, druggy themes that were very mature for their audience, perhaps.
Ryleigh: Yeah, I think a lot of it is like, because when I think of like, what got me into Lana specifically, was being on Tumblr and “This Is What Makes Us Girls.” I just used to hang out with these girls, the girl group, and I remember we would walk to the truck stop gas station at midnight and get truckers to buy us cigarettes, and listen to Lana.
Elizabeth: Oh my gosh!
Ryleigh: It captured such a sense of yearning and desire, like it was just exhausting to, like, want something so bad. And I think when you’re 16, 17, there’s so much tension in your life, and that feeling is what drives everything. The nostalgia of it! Now I listen to that song and I’m like, “Oh my God, I didn’t know anything!” It’s so good, though.
Elizabeth: That’s beautiful, Ryleigh, actually.
Ryleigh: Yeah, the escapism, you know.
Elizabeth: What’s your Lana Del Rey story, Michael?
Michael: How I came to her?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Michael: So it was through “Carmen.” This is really a deep cut, but I was so into American Horror Story: Coven.
Ryleigh: Oh my god, yes!
Michael: And I don’t know why, but I was just like on YouTube, watching videos of Emma Roberts’ character, Madison Montgomery. Then that led to fan compilations of video clips of her in the show set to “Carmen,” and I was so into it. I feel like it really captured the ethos of this character I liked in a way that was so obvious. I kind of dropped off on Lana for a while, and then got really into her with Norman Fucking Rockwell, and then she was all I listened to after that album.
Ryleigh: It’s funny you bring up American Horror Story because they did the “Gods and Monsters” song sequence with Carnival. Do you guys remember what I’m talking about?
Elizabeth: I only watched the first few.
Ryleigh: I was obsessed. Okay, there’s a scene where, oh, my god, the iconic actress, Jessica Lange, she sings “Gods and Monsters,” to all the carnies dancing. Fucking Ryan Murphy! But, I mean, I love that song, again, also kind of a pretty cringe one. But that’s a good coming-of-age Lana story.
Elizabeth: Do you guys have any pet peeves, or least faves of her discography?
Ryleigh: I remember hating “Diet Mountain Dew” with a burning passion. I still hate that song. I remember I had burned the album on a CD, and I would always skip that one, like, even before it came on. Like, you know when the number would show up.
Michael: What is it about it?
Ryleigh: I don’t like the melody of it, something in it just irks me so bad. I can’t even say, like, the lyrics are corny, because a lot of her… you know what I mean. Like, when she hits, she hits, and then there’s some… Oh, I also didn’t like “Million Dollar Man.” I think they’re back-to-back on the album. But I can’t say something about it is cringe to me, because a song of hers that is definitely cringe that I’m obsessed with is “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.”
Elizabeth: Mmm!!
Ryleigh: Yeah, the astrology line in it is just, eye roll. I think it’s the melody of “Diet Mountain Dew baby New York City.” I just can’t do it.
Michael: I like the song “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” I feel like I’ve had a moment with it lately. But the album does nothing for me. I’ll occasionally put it on as total background music, but I really don’t care for her doing that. I think following up Norman Fucking Rockwell was kind of impossible. I actually like Blue Bannisters, but I really don’t like Chemtrails, except for the single. And… I don’t know if it’s the one she does with Stevie Nicks, or if it’s on Chemtrails—
Ryleigh: Oh, yeah.
Michael: There’s one song, like, “Born Free” or something.
Ryleigh: Yeah, I don’t remember the name of that one, but I totally forgot she did a song with Stevie Nicks. She did a song with Stevie Nicks, and then didn’t she also… she’s had so many features that sometimes I just like, “Oh, she did a song with that person. That’s right.” Like, how did her doing a collab with Stevie Nicks get so buried, right?
Elizabeth: Yeah!
Ryleigh: “Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems” is what it’s called.
Elizabeth: She had Weyes Blood and I think one other person on the cover that was on Chemtrails, but it did not make much of an impression on me, I have to say.
Ryleigh: Yeah, that’s fair.
Michael: What was it missing for you?
Elizabeth: I think, well, this is kind of like part of her pivot, to a certain kind of really white bread Americana, like, literally the country club. And very Christian as well. Like that song “Tulsa Jesus Freak.” And it sounds kind of, I don’t know. It just doesn’t have that snap to me. It doesn’t have that appeal. And it felt kind of limp, almost, compared to the raw charge of her earlier works. I don’t know if you guys agree with that, and I feel like she kind of got it back a little bit with Did You Know. But, yeah, I think Blue Bannisters and Chemtrails were both like a little bit of a slump period after Norman Fucking Rockwell, and she also released them in the same year. And I’m kind of surprised looking back on that, that she released two albums in the same year, and now she’s, like, how many months late?
Ryleigh: We’re gonna get in the fall, I think. [Note: ��]
Elizabeth: Is she in her country era, do you think?
Ryleigh: Yeah, that’s what I was about to ask as well. I think so much of, like, I don’t want to say mainstream, but the twangy country influence, folk influence, is having such a moment the past few years. A lot of musicians are like, “I’m exploring country!” And I feel like it’s gonna be softer acoustics. I’m sure she’s spending a lot of time with her Gator guide husband. [laughter] I have no idea what it’s gonna be like. Definitely like country-inspired, but old country… I mean, the kind of John Denver, John Prine direction.
Elizabeth: One would hope.
Ryleigh: Yeah. So it was going to be called Lasso, but she’s changed the name a few times.
Elizabeth: Yeah, the first time it was going to be The Right Person Will Stay, right, which is very much marriage vibes.
Ryleigh: And then she said she’s changing it again, didn’t she?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I heard this from you, actually, that she changed it to Classic. But maybe, maybe she’ll change it a third time. Who knows.
Ryleigh: She did that funny Instagram clip, where she was like, “Should I even say the name changed? You guys know you’re not gonna get it on time.” And we’re like, “Girl, what else are you doing in the sticks out there, hanging out with gators? Come on.”
Elizabeth: I saw clips from her UK tour that she’s on right now, where she has this song that hasn’t been released yet, called “57.5,” I think. And the lyric, she doesn’t see it anymore, but it’s “I kissed Morgan Wallen.”
Ryleigh: Yeah, I saw that clip.
Elizabeth: And now she doesn’t sing it when that line comes up, she just kind of makes a little face.
Ryleigh: Oh, my God.
Elizabeth: Was that like a situationship? Was that responsible for her turn to country?
Ryleigh: Yeah, she says, “don’t go ATVing,” it’s a funny line.
Elizabeth: “Don’t go ATVing when you’re out west.”
Ryleigh: I’d be here for a country album. I think it would have been perfect for summer, like, you know, I want to be sweaty and hot flipping a burger in July listening to some Lana.
Elizabeth: I feel like the Morgan Wallen album was, like, so hotly anticipated though, that maybe she didn’t want to, either, compete with that or come out with something that is kind of implicitly dissing him.
Ryelight: Interesting.
Elizabeth: But I also don’t know if she, like, actually cares.
Ryleigh: Yeah, I feel like she doesn’t give a shit.
Elizabeth: She doesn’t give a shit about a lot of things, like the Silver Jews-busted-phone-in-LA-traffic selfie really just made me feel like she’s such an enigma, and I think that makes her so interesting in so many ways, and has throughout her career.
Ryleigh: She’s just done so many weird, so out-of-touch things. Surely, you know what I mean. I’m like, you didn’t think people would be upset when you wore a rhinestone mesh face mask during the pandemic? Read the room! It’s comical.
Elizabeth: I wanted to talk about her relationships too, and the Waffle House waitress thing. But, like, I think you pointed out that prior to her marriage with this alligator tour guide, she was with a cop and a prison guard.
Ryleigh: Yeah, she dated a cop!
Elizabeth: Was there like a Trump supporter, too, at one point, or was that just mystery and rumor?
Ryleigh: I don’t know about that.
Elizabeth: It’s the demographic. And I think this kind of ties into her doing whatever she wants and not caring and like adds to her mystique, because we’ve never had a star that combines these aspects into her identity, or these aspects of womanhood into her persona. Or persona versus private life. But Jude Doyle, whose essay about her I love, argues not that there is no divide between public and private, but that she means everything she says, and she’s completely sincere 100% of the time, which is debatable, but I think there’s evidence for that too, like the Waffle House waitress thing seems like such a Lana Del Rey persona come to life, you know?
Michael: Yeah. I think it’s interesting, because it’s so much of that question of sincerity versus persona with her. She inhabits such a persona in her music, and then I think her celebrity also inhabits that same mode a lot of the time. Like, is she performing class and femininity, or is she just really out of touch?
Ryleigh: Yeah.
Michael: I have a hard time knowing where the sincerity is. Is that part of why we’re captivated by her—because she’s performing, or does she just really not give a shit?
Ryleigh: Yeah, I love that point. I thought of this just now: I think the persona is when she’s lighting a cigarette on stage and smoking, but the genuine her is when she’s hitting somebody’s vape in the crowd. You know what I mean?
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. So, like, basically the same thing, but just a little more down to earth, maybe a little less classy, dare I say it.
Ryleigh: Yeah, I think that’s fair to say.
Elizabeth: Also, I think when the Waffle House photos came out, everyone was so confused, there was so much speculation that it was a PR stunt, or some secret promo. But I think she literally just did it because she wanted to do it for a day.
Ryleigh: I feel like it was when she was leaning harder into the country, like Lasso. Waffle House is such a Southern staple. Like, this is country album-coded.
Elizabeth: Yeah. It kind of reminds me also of Trump working at McDonald’s for the afternoon. But kind of the opposite, because that was fully stunt mode, fully meant to be seen. And in the photos I saw, at least, of her as a Waffle House waitress she was not really glammed up. I don’t think she really wanted anyone to see her. It wasn’t her primary intent.
Michael: Yeah, I was just talking to someone too about Lorde in Washington Square Park, and how much lead time there was on that. And with Lana, it was just like, Lana showed up at a Waffle House! And obviously it was for a different purpose, but it makes so many of those choices seem organized around her fancy. If it’s PR, it’s like, is anyone actually managing this? I think part of her performance is that she’s a little bit messy, but I don’t really think that’s speculation on my part.
Ryleigh: Yeah. Like, is it, is it part of the persona, performative, or is the PR, whoever her PR person is, are they just really good at their job, and spinning it like, “Oh, she’s just a little messy and unorganized!” She’ll always have a job.
Elizabeth: Yeah. She first, like we’ve touched on, she got her start amongst this sad girl Tumblr counterculture. And I wanted to ask each of us, what does that mean to us as Tumblr users and young people in the mid 2010s. What was your guys’ exposure and engagement with that culture?
Ryleigh: Mine was the Effy Stoneman, ripped tights, flower crown era. Like the “Born to Die” video, she’s literally in a flower crown.
Elizabeth: Oh, same.
Ryleigh: When I think of that sort of aesthetic, and like finding her as the Sad Girl, I was also just a sad teenager with, like, the running mascara, I was watching Skins where teens were wrecking their lives. I was experimenting with drinking and smoking cigarettes and being like, “Oh, well, this is so relatable.” I think it all goes back to yearning and, like the want of
something. But also just escapism, wanting to leave, and it was kind of what all of her music was about. So I was finding her in these little spaces on the internet, like Tumblr, where you’re like, I’m literally escaping life! But yeah, the image of the sad, misunderstood character, it was something that I felt like she really nailed at the time. She just did it extremely well. Like, the reinvention of herself to become that kind of sad, cigarette-smoking, “I like the bad boys” kind of persona.
Michael: Also, her career started in a pretty disappointing way, I think. Born to Die wasn’t well-reviewed at first. She performed really badly on SNL, according to some, or many. And then a lot of that critique was revisited and revised, I think, when people saw what she was doing. Retrospectively, people started to say she was ahead of her time. I think the cultural reception also mirrors that ethos you’re talking about, Ryleigh. Like, “Oh, she’s doing something brilliant, and people don’t see it.” There’s some clip where she kind of roasts Taylor Swift saying, like, “she’s going around the world on her Eras Tour, and I just want to be in Oklahoma.”
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Michael: She obviously has a fabulous career at the same time, but that image is central to her work. I also love what you said about the yearning underneath it, too. I think having a big gap between Tumblr era and then coming back with Norman Fucking Rockwell, I felt that was what really pulled me back in: the rawer, somewhat little simpler but very melodic yearning in those lyrics. I think that is a different face of sad girl music.
Ryleigh: Yeah, the faces of sad girl. It’s so much of her music, and also like her personal life, like she’s her current relationship. It just reminds me of… I’ve seen friends who just want love and to be loved so badly that they just jump into the first thing, like bar is on the floor. You know what I mean? And I think that that is kind of like one of the peak of what her whole shtick is, the want and the want to be loved, like she wants to love, she wants to be loved. And that just comes out in so many ways in the songs.
Elizabeth: Michael, you noted that it didn’t get well reviewed, but Born to Die sold 7 million copies. So, this clearly struck a chord. And I think to understand why we, Catherine Vigier made the observation of, look what she’s a counterpoint to. In 2013, this was the era of female empowerment, Sheryl Sandberg, leaning in, these anthems. The biggest selling single of
2013 was “Roar” by Katy Perry, which is this milquetoast yeah, girlboss! And there was this narrative in mainstream that if you are a good feminist, you will put in the effort, work hard in this capitalist system, and challenge the patriarchy, and you will gain satisfaction from that. But real liberation and genuine satisfaction, to use Catherine Vigier’s term, was not hitting for many people. And Lana presented this alternative message; in the Lanaverse, you fuck your way to the top.
Ryleigh: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Labor, I noticed, is very absent from many of her songs, they’re all about video games, off to the races, pools, movies, partying, daydreaming, stillness or frenzy, fun or agony, but not labor. No one has a 9 to 5 in a Lana Del Rey song.
Ryleigh: God, I want to be there! Yeah, that’s a great point. She’s just doing whatever the fuck she wants and getting so much attention, good and bad, because of it. I’m pretty sure Azealia Banks called her songs “cocaine carols,” which is hilarious. But so many comments like that sum up her music. It’s all lounging and partying, a sad party.