Category Archives: deep dive

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Song of the Day #5,373: ‘Happiness is a Butterfly’ – Lana Del Rey

In 2019, Lana Del Rey closed out the 2010s with her fifth — and best — album, a stunning collection of folk pop titled Norman Fucking Rockwell.

As the cheeky title implies, the record again finds her tweaking traditional American ideals and iconography. It’s a darkly romantic soundtrack to the end of the world, with Del Rey yearning for connection against the backdrop of a Los Angeles that’s literally on fire (I’m talking about the music, but the gorgeous album cover depicts exactly this as well).

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Song of the Day #5,372: ‘Change’ – Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey’s big smile on the cover art of 2017’s Lust For Life is the first indication that this collection will differ from her previous work. Would the melancholy queen actually sound happy for a change?

I don’t know if I’d go that far, but this is a brighter and more optimistic record than its predecessors. Sonically, it reaches back to the hip-hop influences of Born to Die and comes the closest to a traditional pop album that Del Rey is likely going to get. She even has features on five tracks.

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Song of the Day #5,369: ‘Freak’ – Lana Del Rey

Just a year after the release of Ultraviolence, Lana Del Rey was back with her fourth album, Honeymoon. The record split the difference, musically, between Born to Die and Ultraviolence, blending the trip-hop elements of the former with the moody balladry of the latter.

It was her most fully realized work yet, and the one that turned me from a casual listener into a superfan.

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Song of the Day #5,368: ‘Shades of Cool’ – Lana Del Rey

Though her first album was a big hit both commercially and critically, Lana Del Rey was often the target of sexist attacks and questions about her authenticity.

Detractors suggested she was a pre-packaged studio product, apparently unable to accept that a woman could look like a model and be a great songwriter. Some critics even jumped on the fact that she had changed her name as evidence of some deception, presumably without lobbing the same attack at Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder or any number of modern pop stars.

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Song of the Day #5,367: ‘American’ – Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey piggybacked on the success of Born to Die by releasing an EP titled Paradise in November of 2012. She included the EP in a special edition of the album as well.

The eight-song Paradise finds Del Rey delivering more of the baroque pop featured on her debut and fewer of the trip-hop beats. On opening track ‘Ride,’ she channels Bruce Springsteen, one of her more surprising influences.

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