Moody Lana’s still glad to be sad
WHEN Lana Del Rey announced herself with the torch ballad Video Games in 2011, few would have expected her to be singing the same, sad songs six years on.
But fourth album Lust For Life deviates only marginally from the smouldering, melodramatic template that made her a star. There are hazy, R&B trimmings, but this is largely business — and that means ballads — as usual.
She opens by gently mocking younger peers. ‘Look at you kids with your vintage music,’ she chides, before rattling through her own allusions to classic rock. (The album title is stolen from Iggy Pop.)
The rub is that Lana, 32, is too smart to have to rely on such retro-rock references. She duets brilliantly with Stevie Nicks and Sean Ono Lennon, the latter sounding a lot like his dad.
She remains a glass-half-empty kind of woman — prone to ‘sobbing in my cup of coffee because I fell for another loser’ — but finishes with unaccustomed brightness: Change is slow but rousing; the harmony-driven Get Free even sets toes tapping.