Last Sunday, I asked for thoughts on how to proceed with weekend posts as Random Weekends passes its 11th anniversary.
The consensus was nearly unanimous: a return to Ron Sexsmith Weekends. Stay tuned next week for a deep dive into his earlier, unreleased material.
All kidding aside, so far I’ve heard suggestions to keep things as they are, to serve up a ‘classic rewind’ feature, or to limit the random selections to new artists rather than music already in my collection.
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.
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.
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.
Given that Lana Del Rey’s first album was removed from circulation after only a couple of months, her 2012 sophomore release Born to Die is widely considered her debut. It’s certainly the album that put her on the map.
Released in January of 2012, Born to Die was boosted by the unexpected success of lead single ‘Video Games.’ That song, a dreamy ballad featuring Del Rey’s mournful vocals over a bed of piano and strings, sounded like something from a bygone era.
Meet Me In Montauk 