★★★★☆
Four Stars
Elizabeth Woolridge Grant is a lady of many guises: ‘Gangster Nancy Sinatra’, ‘Lolita got lost in the hood’ and Lana Del Rey are amongst her most famous self-christenings. Persona is a ductile concept for this singer, and whilst she has grown from YouTube sensation to Glastonbury headliner, her identity remains ever ephemeral and romantically mysterious. Her latest studio release, Honeymoon, exhibits the usual saccharine recipe of bad boys, blues and sunsets, but in true femme fatale style, something sinister lurks beneath the porcelain sweetness. This album plays host to an intriguing collision between Del Rey’s signature retro-mania and the darker contemporary concerns of media pressure and identity.
In Del Rey’s latest Radio 1 session, she couldn’t decide whether Honeymoonwas ‘far out’ or conservative. I choose conservative, simply by listening to the first and titular track. ‘Honeymoon’ is divine, immaculate, and the closest the album gets to the ‘Video Games’ anthem we all adore. omplete with sighing violins and tingling echoes of film noir, the song guarantees goosebumps. You could be forgiven for thinking Henry Mancini is alive and kicking, not least that he helped produce this epic track, one that wouldn’t go amiss on an old Hollywood film score. ‘Salvatore’ is also distinctive, transforming Del Rey from crooning Californian Queen to purring 1940s Latina, teasing her elder Mafia amore, whilst eating “soft ice cream”. ‘Art Deco’ likewise has a vintage gleam with its fragrant whispers of Great Gatsby jazz (allegedly, the song is about Lana’s pal Azealia Banks).
It’s Lana’s lustrous contralto vocal range that binds this album; switching from syrupy, ‘mademoiselle’ timbre to deep, husky jazz seamlessly – occasionally bolstered by synth-organs – her singing is tremendous, as is her delicate handling of language. “Pink flamingos always fascinated me”, the opening lyric of ‘Music to Watch Boys To’, colourful as it is, is teased out sumptuously as Lana lingers deliciously over each syllable. But some lyrics miss the mark: “my past seems stranger than a stranger” in ‘Freak’ and “it’s not simple, it’s trigonometry” in ‘Blackest Day’. Yet Lana’s acrobatic voice conceals such droops; she is able to transform something so simple – “I like you a lot” – into a rich and haunting lullaby.
Honeymoon is a hybrid album though; a chimaera of velveteen Lana and psychedelic Lana. The yoking of Born to Die’s tender, warbling strings with Ultraviolence’s electro-pop pulse bequeaths us nihilistic trap-pop numbers like ‘High by the Beach’. The song’s ‘fuck you’ mantra, with Lana’s dissonantly gutsy lyrics – “the truth is I never bought into your bullshit” – has earned it comparisons with Rihanna’s ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’. Her video, less shocking and controversial than RiRi’s bloodstained spectacle, still surprises.
An undoubtedly baked damsel in distress whips out a large firearm from a guitar case to shoot down a paparazzi-laden helicopter. Though ripe for metaphorical interpretations, this video ultimately personifies the paps as an abusive lover, with the “weird drone” (Lana’s own words) of the chorus conjuring up an incredibly trippy atmosphere. Exchanging the genre’s trademark grit for her personal nostalgic glitz, resisting media scrutiny has never looked so glamorous.
‘God knows I tried’ and ‘Swan Song’ similarly depict this struggle. Lamenting stardom’s curse, Lana serenades, “I’ve got nothing much to live for ever since I found my fame” in the former, and declares “I’ll never sing again” in the latter. Citing the “white tennis shoes syndrome” – excuses made to avoid work, a quaint term for procrastination – Lana entices her lover to put his white tennis shoes on, follow her, become lost and be free. What with a swan song typically denoting the final performance of one’s career, many were left convinced this melancholic melody was Lana’s retirement notice. But since a cover of Nina Simone’s ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ ends the album, we can relax a bit.
Honeymoon is peppered with artistic legends: Bowie, Simone, Dylan, T.S. Eliot, The Eagles, Billie Holiday. This could be dismissed as a kudos-quest, but Lana’s originality sparkles. The tracks aren’t individually as distinctive as previous albums, but as with any release, closer inspection reveals depth. Satisfying expectations of innovation and imitation, Honeymoon is a winner: “I could drink it like tequila sunrise”.
