4/5
Lana Del F#####g Rey.
I still like Lana Del Rey...is that OK? How can one of the most eagerly anticipated albums of 2020 become part of NPR's secondary segment on their 'New Music Friday' release schedule today...in...erm, 2021? Well, for one Jon Batiste's 'We Are' and a new album from classic country legend Loretta Lynn ('Still Woman Enough') come out today. And for two, did you hear about 2020? It was a year were people even got s### for wearing masks. But still with 'Chemtrails Over The Country Club', is Lizzie Grant AKA Lana Del Rey still woman enough for you with another black and white classic like the 'Brooklyn Baby' to the 'West Coast' of 'Ultraviolence' follow up to 2019's expletively epic 'Norman F#####g Rockwell'? They're coming at her when she's still young and beautiful. No wonder the world is an aching soul. She's being 'Doin' Time' for long enough like her 'Attack Of The 200 Foot Woman' old Hollywood homage video for your billboards. Ever since this self-dubbed "gangster Nancy Sinatra", bang, bang doing it her way with her own boots made for walking all over the charts was 'Born To Die' like running off a Springsteen "suicide machine". Remember SNL? Harry Potter does. These Moaning Myrtles gave one of the best singer/songwriter storytellers s### for a live performance when they were just at home playing their video games. They said the cinematic singer was wrong for saying, "he hit me and it felt like a kiss", but this isn't a portrait of domestic bliss. It's a story of domestic 'Ultraviolence' that takes in to account all the black and white, black and blue and grey areas of abuse and the stuck at home, Stockholm like syndrome that comes with it. If you can read between Dylan's lines for musics message, or the true 'hood tales real hip-hop artists are telling, then why not this? Why disenfranchise an artists strokes? Is it because she's a woman? Well...admittedly that may be a middle of the night reach and a man playing the sexism card at that, but still. She doesn't get the respect her peers that do don't deserve. Sure she didn't do much for her fellow female artists with that Instagram post that wasn't as harmful as Mr. West bum rushing the Grammy's swiftly every time Taylor won (and they still used to celebrate that), but didn't exactly stay in its place after years of making her own lane. Women in music like Haim and the album of last year (sorry Tay, Tay I don't mean to sound like Kanye, but hey, you won the Grammy) should support each other just like a woman and it was sad to see the fallout with pop icon Ariana Grande. Especially after their mega 'Don't Call Me Angel' big-three hit 'Don't Call Me Angel' anthem for Elizabeth Banks' 'Charlie's Angels' reboot shot with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska playing Cam Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore. They said the 'Country Club' cover was like a Trump supporter dinner, but they're wrong and this cover of friends feels so right, not white like the Oscars. Look closer to the monochrome of this meditative, mesmerizing minimalist music. They even give her grief for dating a cop, but not all those who vow to protect and serve are bad. My Mum used to be a member of the police and a by the book, just and right one at that. You want to give her s###? I'd like to see you try. With so many turning against her this year, maybe it's time to turn a page. Now I may get flack for this, but just to let you know I'm reviewing the Snyder cut of 'Justice League' tomorrow, so why not wait for that? Everyone makes mistakes and hers weren't malicious like some they support. You don't listen to R. Kelly anymore, but how about Miles Davis? Cancel culture keeps people in check, but some have paid their dues already. We can seperate the art from the artist here, or better yet give her a break. We've all been through it last year. I know I'm missing something, but maybe everyone else is too. I thought we were meant to start fresh this year? Now the real toxicity belongs to the trolls. Talk about 'Chemtrails'.
So let's do that now, because it's all about the music and her signature sound is set for the stone of history, not a social media crowd that looks for the one for their heart by soullessly swiping. The 'Honeymoon' California cool period with her 'Love' smiling 'Lust For Life' may be over, but track for track, these 'Chemtrails' follow the 'Violence' that was 'Born To Die' from her best work. Something to kiss...no "f###" you hard in the pouring rain of a dark paradise every time you close your eyes. This seventh seal is the real deal from Lana Del Rey's self-titled moniker beginnings...and to think she hasn't recorded her magnum opus yet (but she's probably already at work at her next album like she was this 'White Hot' one after 'Rockwell'. Even if her American songbook standards of Christmas classics were missing under the tree...she did record a version of the iconic and symbolic 'You'll Never Walk Alone' for Liverpool football club though). From the album title single 'COTCC' and its controversy addressing video, Hollywoodland (like her and The Weekend running across the sign) signature sealed and delivered, mask and all to keep her at a social (media) distance. To the lead one from this leading lady that says 'Let Me Love You Like A Woman' (when all the IG fallout dropped) live in a Late Night like Jimmy, with a music video for Fallon that makes bar backgrounds on tap as movie making as the greatest musical director, The Boss. But its the first song we try on, 'White Dress' that is the holy best like Sunday for the singer who used to listen to the White Stripes of Jack and Meg when "they were white hot" (us too). Now a Seven Nation Army couldn't hold her back. Staying close to the almighty on 'Tulsa Jesus Freak' like a Rey of dark light classic or, "candle in the wind" flicker she sings like an old flame, "You should stay real close to Jesus/Keep that bottle at your hand, my man/Find your way back to my bed again/Sing me like a Bible hymn/We should go back to Arkansas/Trade this body for the can of Gin/Like a little piece of heaven" "white hot forever." Again thematically singing about getting closer to the Lord by f#####g, all in. Body and soul. Amen. All for the one who, "left Calabasas, escaped all the ashes, ran into the dark" as she adds, "What would you do if I told you/You made me crazy/To see your pretty pics on Sunset Boulevard?/And it makes me lazy/So I smoke cigarettes/Just to understand the smog", 'Wild At Heart'. Born to be.
Undeniable like the bass line of the new perfect paradise, 'Dark But Just A Game', she ain't playing now. Instrumental in the inspiration of her iconic influence on sonic sound styling like the way we used to dress, this fits perfectly. And after a turbulent twenty, twenty, with new vision, its a new year and day for Del Rey. The 'Country Club' is open to all...even the 'Chemtrails' of the haters. By way of 'Yosemite' were she hits it out the national park. Referencing white hot candles in the wind again like Elton John for Lady Diana, but this time singing, "the only thing we'll turn is the pages of all of the poems we burned" like the 'Norman' who blames the news on his bad prose. But Lana isn't playing victim to the headlines here, making her own one on the billboards. Because like 'Not All Who Wander Are Lost', this one sounds all familiar. But not all things that are familiar are not fond and we love to have the feeling of this old thing back. Her sounds isn't just timeless. Like 'Ultraviolence', her actual albums are too for the Hall of Fame record of this stellar songwriter. With the country star Nikki Lane, 'Breaking Up Slowly' like making love beautifully the same way (she broke up with me and it felt like forever), Lana laments with Lane on the same road, "Breakin' up slowly is a hard thing to do/I love you only, but it's makin' me blue/So don't send me flowers like you always do/It's hard to be lonely, but it's the right thing." All before we 'Dance 'Till We Die'. Hand-in-hand entwined with lyrics like, "I'm coverin' Joni and I'm dancin' with Joan/Stevie is callin' on the telephone/Court almost burned down my home/But God, it feels good not to be alone". And she really isn't like when she sang for the Liver birds, or the time she sang with John's son on the ("isn't it crazy now I'm singing with") Sean Ono Lennon 'Lust' assisted 'Tomorrow Never Came'. Never alone. No matter how many are ganging up on her online. Because after these epic name drops, her famous friends join her for a swan song, place set like the mats of the album artwork in classic Americana cherry red (we presume...it is monochrome). 'For Free' sets it off perfectly for the curtain close with Zella Day and Weyes Blood for a big-three Grande like a friend we hope is made once again and Miley. Just don't call her done. 45 minutes for your new 45...in no way supporting 45. Melancholia hasn't looked or sounded this good since Kirsten Dunst in a white dress of the 'Infinite Sadness' of the Smashing Pumpkins tonight, tonight. Now if you're still in your feelings call her any name under the sun as we call it like it is, but "whose doper than this b####"? One of my favourite artists...but maybe I'm biased. Or maybe like no one right now in the industries generation, she's all-time. I still LOVE Lana Del Rey...is that...ahh you know what. I don't give a f###! TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'White Dress', 'Dark But Just A Game', 'Breaking Up Slowly'.
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