Should this be a review? Lol
Lana Del Rey is my background sound for almost 5 years now. Her being so elusive of the mainstream spotlight makes her music even more intriguing, somewhat eccentric. But the honesty in her sound that is so independent of the formulaic pop industry is somehow strangely relatable.
Her new album, Norman f****** Rockwell (yup that's an explicit there) is her most successful yet, critically. I couldn't really comment on the production apart from the liberal use of piano because f it, what do I know about music writing, but I would rather describe on how each song evokes different optics and emotions for me.
To be honest though, there are 4 songs that I'm most excited about in this album. Starting off with Norman f****** Rockwell, this song reminds me of the sweetness and naivety of a first love, of accepting who they are as a person (your poetry's bad and you blame the news), the frustration of not being able to change their ways (I can't change that and I can't change your mood) and of being frustrated of each other (your head in your hands as you colour me blue) to realising their shortfalls and still wants them nonetheless (why wait for the best when I could have you?). This is a prom song that I could agree to playing at the imaginary prom I'm attending.
I anticipated Cinnamon Girl the most before its official release, having listening to its snippets that got leaked months prior by Lana herself. The first line, cinnamon in my teeth/from your kiss serves as a double entendre, though the subtle meaning is deeper than its more indecent lyrics - it's usually the other way round; an innocent sounding lyric usually referring to something obscene.
Being loved by someone leaves a bittersweet taste in you, is the gist that I got (not necessarily means that's what Lana meant though, sometimes it was just something shallow she wrote that she hadn't thought of deeply as people would interpret)
When the beats drop at 0:40, the whole feel of the song was tremendously elevated.
'The greatest' covers a wide range of proper nouns and introduces me to a whole lot of cultural references. The fact that it references David Bowie's Life on Mars had me hooked even more. This song for me is about reminiscing a bygone era, and being simultaneously afraid and hopeful of the future. Without context, the title itself sounds like a boast, until you realise that she is singing about the greatest loss of leaving behind a beloved time in her life. Those nights were on fire/We couldn't get any higher reminds me of those younger time in life spending weekend nights so recklessly young and stupid, but the lines that come after: we didn't know we had it all/but nobody warns you before the fall brought us back to the reality of life, of how those moments were the pinnacles of our life and whatever comes afterwards are a part of the journey downhill.
But perhaps one line that hits closest to home in this song is 'miss doing nothing, the most of all'. Do you remember those nights doing nothing, just enjoying each other's presence in silence? Of everything that has gone, this is the one thing that she misses doing the most, which is quite ironic but sad, and yup, relatable - that the thing we miss doing the most is doing nothing.
'Happiness is a butterfly' (written in sentence case) reminds me of the drama that we learnt in secondary school, Jangan Bunuh Rama-rama, though both are total opposites in terms of themes. I guess both conjure the same image in my head - of a hand trying desperately to capture a fleeting, colourful butterfly. 'Happiness is a butterfly' was uttered in the song during a crescendo, offering you an uplifting sense of hopefulness you rarely get from Lana.
I anticipated Cinnamon Girl the most before its official release, having listening to its snippets that got leaked months prior by Lana herself. The first line, cinnamon in my teeth/from your kiss serves as a double entendre, though the subtle meaning is deeper than its more indecent lyrics - it's usually the other way round; an innocent sounding lyric usually referring to something obscene.
Being loved by someone leaves a bittersweet taste in you, is the gist that I got (not necessarily means that's what Lana meant though, sometimes it was just something shallow she wrote that she hadn't thought of deeply as people would interpret)
When the beats drop at 0:40, the whole feel of the song was tremendously elevated.
'The greatest' covers a wide range of proper nouns and introduces me to a whole lot of cultural references. The fact that it references David Bowie's Life on Mars had me hooked even more. This song for me is about reminiscing a bygone era, and being simultaneously afraid and hopeful of the future. Without context, the title itself sounds like a boast, until you realise that she is singing about the greatest loss of leaving behind a beloved time in her life. Those nights were on fire/We couldn't get any higher reminds me of those younger time in life spending weekend nights so recklessly young and stupid, but the lines that come after: we didn't know we had it all/but nobody warns you before the fall brought us back to the reality of life, of how those moments were the pinnacles of our life and whatever comes afterwards are a part of the journey downhill.
But perhaps one line that hits closest to home in this song is 'miss doing nothing, the most of all'. Do you remember those nights doing nothing, just enjoying each other's presence in silence? Of everything that has gone, this is the one thing that she misses doing the most, which is quite ironic but sad, and yup, relatable - that the thing we miss doing the most is doing nothing.
'Happiness is a butterfly' (written in sentence case) reminds me of the drama that we learnt in secondary school, Jangan Bunuh Rama-rama, though both are total opposites in terms of themes. I guess both conjure the same image in my head - of a hand trying desperately to capture a fleeting, colourful butterfly. 'Happiness is a butterfly' was uttered in the song during a crescendo, offering you an uplifting sense of hopefulness you rarely get from Lana.
Lana yet again makes me yearn for a place that I've never been to, a time when I weren't even born yet, and transported me to somewhere that only exists in between the lines of her songs. I'm excited to see where she's heading to after NfR.
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