LANA DEL RAY's NEW album: "Lust for Life"

words by kyra bruce

Your favorite sad girl is back and breaking her tortured-pout-aesthetic to proudly smile on the cover of Lust For Life. This album seems to be a sort of rebirth for Lana where she moves away from the glacial love ballads dedicated to terrible boyfriends and moves into a cheerier state of mind. I know that you lifetime Lana lovers are scared that she is moving away from her classic haunting sound, but fear not!! This album still offers Lana’s usual old Hollywood chill-inducing vocals but this time they are laid on top of borderline deep house beats.

Instead of singing about her unhealthy relationships, Lana offers meaningful lyrics about the problems facing our country. “God Bless America - And All The Beautiful Women In It” is about the recent women’s marches, “When The World Was At War We Kept Dancing” is about Lana’s fear for America, and “Heroin” is about the opioid crisis in our country. Once again I assure you, don’t worry, this is not a political protest album, the songs are still just as fun and dreamy as her previous albums!

Lana also has several impressive and exciting features the likes of: A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Stevie Nicks, Sean Ono Lennon, and The Weekend on this album. Lana and Sean Ono Lennon have a dreamy Beatles-y song, “Tommorow Never Came”. While A$SAP and Playboi put a hip-hop twist on Lana’s classic sound on “Summer Bummer” and “Groupie Love” that can best be described as lazy hip-hop songs with a vintage aftertaste.

Lust For Life sound like an album that Berry Gordy would play if he owned a modern nightclub. If that interests you, I highly suggest you check it out!!!!

words by Nikita Satapathy

The name Lana Del Rey is synonymous with macabre and dream pop. In Lust for Life, Del Rey has traded her “Born to Die” era for romanticism and yearning for simpler days.

“Love” opens the album, reminding the listener of being young and in love and setting the tone by providing catchy choruses and heavy repetition. Tracks like “Cherry”, “White Mustang”, and “Coachella - Woodstock in My Mind” evoke images of Americana and summer days on beaches. With “Change” and “Get Free”, Del Rey contemplates the what the future holds while playing the game of life. 

The album features appearances by A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, the Weeknd, Sean Ono Lennon, and the legendary Stevie Knicks. This further shows Del Rey’s ability to connect the past with the present in her sound. For instance, “Summer Bummer” comes across like an out of place hip-hop song, but Del Rey uses her soothing vocals to bridge the gap between rap and baroque pop. “Lust for Life” uses the Weeknd’s sultry pop sound to complement Del Rey’s breathy verses. “Beautiful People Beautiful Problems” and “Tomorrow Never Came”, featuring Stevie Nicks and Steve Lennon, respectively, are matches made in heaven.

Old Hollywood glamour and nostalgia continue to reign in Lana Del Rey’s sound but Lust for Life proves that while being stuck in the past, Del Rey is constantly watchful of what’s to come.