Manhattan-born Lana Del Rey has divided critics and audiences since the single, “Video Games”—first released online and then within her second studio album Born to Die—introduced her signatory brand of haunting, sultry RnB-soul sounds to the mainstream in 2011.
Increasingly, there was speculation over her authenticity as a person and an artist, initially stemming from her use of an alias rather than her real name, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Grant, then stretching into conjecture over whether she’d had plastic surgery and criticisms of style over substance. It’s nothing new for women in music, of course, nor beautiful and talented women in the public eye more generally. As Zimbabwean author and philosopher Matshona Dhliwayo wrote, “As a bird with beautiful feathers is the target of hunters, so the gifted are targets of the envious.”
Del Rey’s ninth album, Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2023), follows two acclaimed LPs in 2021: Chemtrails Over The Country Club and Blue Banisters. At a time when artists feel pressured to take strong political stances or to adhere to Spotify algorithms, Del Rey simply creates the sort of beautiful, glimmering, transient ballads that sweep like rolling waves deep under our cynicism and exhaustion with life. Ocean Blvd is vulnerable, throbbing even, with a volatile emotional pulse.
Her collaborators represent a constellation of stellar musical talent spanning genres from rock, pop, country and RnB: Jon Batiste, Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift’s go-to producer), Father John Misty, Judah Smith, Tommy Genesis and SYML. For this latest album, Del Rey is once again accompanied by her long-time creative partner, Los Angeles photographer and artist Neil Krug, who first met Del Rey in 2014 when he was invited to shoot imagery for Ultraviolence.
Lana Del Rey. Courtesy of the artist
Visually, everything for this latest album was captured in a single night-time session. “There are always several conversations beforehand and then a few listening sessions when we blast the music in the car—or, she’ll have me cruise over to the studio to hear it live in the room,” Krug explains to StyleCaster. The artwork is sexy, revealing and romantic. It celebrates a woman’s body while evoking the nostalgia of 60s and 70s photos where the colors are highly saturated and there are dust speckles, the fading of time and big hair lavished with ribbons atop Del Rey’s classically beautiful face: big eyelashes, bold lipstick and a distracted side-glance. She evokes 1940s film stars Lana Turner and Ava Gardner with her alabaster skin and perfect face, albeit with a sexier mood more akin to 60s-era models like Sharon Tate or Playboy model June Wilkinson and their va-va-voom, confident womanliness.
The music of Ocean Blvd is not va-va-voom though; the inherent darkness of Del Rey’s dreamy, acid-haze synth-Americana-pop ballads is a trip-out in itself, not unlike Britney Spears once singing “Baby, hit me one more time” or Kylie Minogue returning to a cheating, potentially abusive ex on “Better The Devil You Know”. The devil in Ocean Blvd‘s detail is hidden in plain sight: we are singing along to songs about violence, abuse and loss of self and it seems so natural, so human, that we’re not even questioning pop songs juicy with the blood of grief, infidelity and heartbreak. Whether on a minor or major scale, we are questioning our faith in ourselves and each other, seeking validity and approval, and trying to balance how much sacrifice we make for the rewards we gain: in love, in work, in our art, as friends or family.
Of their easy rapport, based on improvisation, Krug says, “The only time I can remember Lana and I having specific reference imagery was when we first met and made the Ultraviolence artwork. We were finding our way into the creative and the references were a part of the getting-to-know-you process,” he explains. “Those reference decks were heavier with the type of imagery I’m well versed in; drugged-out ‘60s AIP [American International Pictures] meets Repulsion [directed by Roman Polanski film in 1965] under the Los Angeles skyline; where the sun is eclipsed and the birds can be heard chirping above our heads. That kinda’ vibe.” He continues: “There’re always one or two things from the past that we might reference, but truth be told, once shoot day arrives, those references are almost always forgotten about. Especially Honeymoon era onward.”
Ocean Boulevard in Golden Beach epitomizes both the reality and the iconography of Florida’s tanned, rich, beautiful Americans at leisure. What would a tunnel under the sandy, palm-tree-speckled highway look like? With increasingly savage storms, hurricanes and fires taking place along the highway trailing Florida’s East Coast Barrier Islands, it might be significantly safer than the lucrative real estate above ground. The idea that there could be an invisible world, one we can only access with the right knowledge, is the key to appreciating Del Rey’s ninth album. In listening to her crystalline voice, we too can envision a tunnel under Ocean Blvd and dream up all the other imaginary places that might exist for us if we want them to.
Image: Amazon
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