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Song of the Day #5,375: ‘Violets for Roses’ – Lana Del Rey

After a steady diet of an album every other year, Lana Del Rey surprised everyone by dropping a second record just six months after Chemtrails over the Country Club. The pair of folk rock releases drew a neat parallel to Taylor Swift’s folklore/evermore duo the previous year.

Blue Bannisters came out in October of 2021 with very little fanfare and almost no promotion by Del Rey herself. She says she designed the album as a response to criticism aimed at her over the years, and as a glimpse at the troubled human being behind the pop star.

The result is the most gorgeous therapy session you’ll ever hear.

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Song of the Day #5,374: ‘Yosemite’ – Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey had a tough act to follow after the orgasmic reception to Norman Fucking Rockwell and she responded to the challenge by delivering her quietest and most personal record yet. 2021’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club strips away any hints of modern pop present in its predecessor and doubles down on the atmospheric folk.

Some fans decried the continued move away from the trip-hop trappings of her early work, somehow unsatisfied with the bounty of beautiful songs Del Rey was delivering. I’ll take gorgeous acoustic melancholy any day over just about anything else, so this album is right in my sweet spot.

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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 #5,371: ‘Say Goodbye to Hollywood’ – Billy Joel

Just when I was dissing the Random iTunes Fairy for offering up a dreadful song yesterday, she bounces back with a sterling selection today.

‘Say Goodbye to Hollywood’ is the opening track of Billy Joel’s 1976 Turnstiles, his fourth album and the one released a year before he reached mega-stardom with The Stranger. This is one of my favorite Joel albums, even if several of its best songs sound even better on the 1981 live release Songs in the Attic.

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