Album Review: Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Lana Del Rey broadens her sonic palette and sharpens her lyrics on latest, and strongest, album

Two years ago, Lana Del Rey asked us a question on the album Lust for Life: “Is this the end of an era? / Is this the end of America?” She answered her own question almost instantly: “No, it’s only the beginning.” Lust for Life quickly became recognized as Lana’s most overtly political album, marked by grandiose statements and booming choruses. It was also her most collaborative effort to date, featuring a wide array of artists ranging from Stevie Nicks to ASAP Rocky. One would assume that her next record would be even grander, but on Norman Fucking Rockwell!, the “Video Games” singer shifts gears and opts, rather, to look inward. 

 

The result is stunning: NFR! is her strongest effort to date.

 

Del Rey’s writing has never been sharper, and new collaborator Jack Antonoff (who has worked on albums such as Lorde’s Melodrama and Taylor Swift’s 1989) broadens her sonic palette by adding lush, psychedelic-tinged sounds throughout. On NFR!, Del Rey reconstructs the classic tropes she so frequently employed on her previous works, molding them to create her own version of the American Dream. Gone are the perfect, dangerously addictive men that showed up on albums like Born to Die and Ultraviolence. From the start (“God damn, man child”, the opening line of the album, may be one of the best opening lines ever written), Lana tears them down, poking fun at the idea of a tormented, yet genius artist. Still, she finds herself drawn to them despite their flaws— “Why wait for the best, when I could have you?”

 

On Mariner’s Apartment Complex, she sets out to redefine herself and fight back against the label of ‘sad girl’ that has often been attributed to her. She expresses her frustration at the public, at critics, and at a man, all of whom believe that they truly know her. Interpolating lyrics from Elton John, she states that she “ain’t no candle in the wind,” asserting herself as an artist in charge of her own image. On the sprawling 10-minute long Venice Bitch, she’s an ice queen that’s “fresh out of fucks forever”. And yet again on Love song, she’s “a star, burning through you".

 

Much like 2015’s Honeymoon, NFR! takes its time to get to the point of things. Most of the songs hover around the 5-minute mark, allowing for them to unfold at a natural, relaxed pace. Venice Bitch, the longest song on the album, is a masterpiece. It starts out fairly conventionally, with Lana singing over gentle guitar strings. Around the 2-minute mark, fuzzy guitars and drums kick in and the song morphs into something else entirely: a psychedelic rock piece that eschews usual ideas about her sound.

 

The album reaches its climax 11 songs in on a track titled The greatest. A tribute to the 70s rock anthems that came before it (the song and its video reference The Beach Boys, Bowie, Elton John, The Eagles, and more), it also serves as the album’s emotional peak. “I guess that I’m burned out after all,” Lana intones over fuzzy guitars. She has resigned herself to the fate of the world today: Kanye West is “blond and gone,” “LA’s in flames,” and “Hawaii just missed a fireball”, but at the end of the day “the culture is lit”. It’s a glorious anthem that serves as a backdrop to the apocalyptic times we live in today. However, it is not all bleak. The album concludes with the succinctly named hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have—but I have it, a sparse ballad with subtle political notes.Touching on her experiences as a woman in the music industry, it is a deeply personal and emotionally charged send-off to what may well be her magnum opus.

One thing remains clear: with each album, Del Rey appears to be getting closer to her true vision. Constantly evolving, yet still remaining true to her distinctive sound, NFR! solidifies Lana Del Rey as one of the greatest artists of our generation.