'Lust For Life' - Lana Del Rey Review
32-year-old American singer-songwriter, Lana Del Rey, released ‘Lust For Life’ on 21 July 2017. Her music is classed as baroque pop, dream pop, indie pop and rock. Her voice gives me chills and her ‘Born To Die’ album is iconic, but I’m here today to review ‘Lust For Life’.
I’d summarise it as a summer-vibe album, which starts strong but perhaps loses it’s pace half way through. The introductory song, ‘Love’ provokes a lot of nostalgia for happy summer days. It’s a wonderfully chilled-out track, with a nice beat and sweet lyrics. ‘Lust For Life” continues this chilled-out vibe, injecting sensual lyrics with the syrupy voices of Lana and The Weeknd. It’s gorgeously retro and uplifting, with beautifully authentic lyrics. A real gem.
The next song ’13 Beaches’ is the start of a whole new level of retro. Lana’s vocals in this track are stunning. The first verse takes a while to kick in, and all of the verses are rather slow-paced, but the chorus is pretty blissful. The lyrics are so honest and so unashamedly melancholy (“it hurts to love you, but I still love you”) that they invoke feelings of sadness reminiscent of that invoked by her single, “Summertime Sadness”.
Following from that, ‘Cherry’ combines something retro with something from modern hip hop. It has a good, steady beat and romantic lyrics full of similes and metaphors (“real love is like feeling no fear when you’re standing in the face of danger”), and has an old-fashioned nursery rhyme vibe to it (“my cherries and wine, rosemary and thyme, and all of my peaches[…]/my rose-garden dreams”).
‘White Mustang’ is melancholy, but it’s a brilliant tune. The hip hop beats that pick up in the first chorus give the song a good rhythm. But Lana’s hip hop roots are really brought back in the next song ‘Summer Bummer’, which features A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti. The rap verses are somewhat vulgar (“her sophistication make you wanna quit the bitch you datin”) but the song is a stunning piece of retro hip hop.
The next song is less impressive. Titled ‘Groupie Love’, a name that already makes me squirm as I just don’t like the word ‘groupie’, the chorus is simply the slurred repetition of the words “my groupie love”. By this point in the album, I’m kind of over the retro hip hop vibe, but Lana seems to want to persevere with it. The next song ‘In My Feelings’ is…honestly, a lot like ‘Groupie Love’. It’s not a very impressive song and really doesn’t stand out to me. It’s a skippable song.
‘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’ are the next three songs, and boy are their titles a mouthful. All three of them are structured somewhat similarly, and I’m sorry to say they’re all a bit boring. The album just seems to lose its dynamic at this point, nothing stands out anymore.
Thankfully, Lana brings it back with ‘Beautiful People Beautiful Problems’, featuring Stevie Nicks. The soundtrack consists of chilled percussion and regular piano chords. The female duet makes for a stunning ballad, and I think Stevie Nick’s voice compliments Lana’s beautifully. Definitely worth a listen.
‘Tomorrow Never Came’ features John Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon. It is a rather beautiful blend of voices, but I do find the song a bit dull. It would be a lovely break in a more upbeat album, but in this album it simply exaggerates how melancholy the other songs are.
And it doesn’t get any better in the album’s three concluding tracks. They’re all pretty songs, especially ‘Change’, but I do get the feeling that they are stocking-fillers. And who can forgive Lana for how much ‘Get Free’ rips off ‘Creep’ by Radiohead?
In all honesty, the album is a little bit disappointing. In parts, it’s slow, melancholy, samey. There are a few tracks that are good, and the retro sound is interesting, but it just doesn’t compare to ‘Born To Die’, or even ‘Honeymoon’ and ‘Ultraviolence’. Sorry Lana, but I’m afraid that this album cannot be Apollo Approved.