When I laid out my March posts awhile back I planned to dedicate this week to my first reactions to Lana Del Rey’s new album, which was due to drop on March 10. That release has since been pushed back two weeks, so I’ll have to do the same with my posts.

The adjustment is actually quite simple. I had planned to follow up the new album content with a two-week retrospective of Del Rey’s career to date, so instead I’ll just flip the order and do the discography deep dive first. I actually wanted to do it in this order but the Oscars airdate prevented it. Perhaps Del Rey heard about my predicament and pushed the album release for my sake.

Del Rey started her recording career in the late 2000s, releasing a three-track EP titled Kill Kill in 2008. The songs were selections from a full-length album she had recorded earlier that year. The EP received strong reviews, so a release was planned for the album more than a year later.

In January 2010, a digital release of Lana Del Ray hit iTunes and Amazon. The title reflected the initial spelling of Del Rey’s stage name. To complicate matters, some versions of the album cover displayed the title as Lana Del Ray AKA Lizzy Grant, acknowledging Del Rey’s given name.

The album was available for download for just three months before it was pulled from streaming services and plans for a physical release were shelved. That’s because Del Rey bought back the rights to the release, reportedly wanting to go in another direction for her debut. She vowed to release it a couple of years later but that still hasn’t happened.

Listening to the album, which is available on YouTube, it’s hard to see why Del Rey wanted it pulled. Granted, it doesn’t have the culture-rattling immediacy of her next release, but it’s a very good album that sounds a lot like the Lana Del Rey the world would come to know and love.

Only one song on this album has received an official release — final track ‘Yayo,’ which was re-recorded for an EP two years later. The rest survive in bootleg form through YouTube recordings with distracting audio imperfections. I’d love to hear these tracks either remastered or rerecorded.

Album opener ‘Kill Kill’ has the distinction of being the first song ever released by Del Rey. It finds the then 23-year-old in fine form right out of the gate.