Lana del Rey, Loretta Lynn evoke wildly different worlds in new albums

You can’t ask for two more dissimilar divas than the pair who released new albums this past week: Lana del Rey with her seventh album (she’s long disowned the first), and Loretta Lynn with her 50th. Musical differences aside, there’s one distinct contrast between them: Del Rey provides glimpses of a world you’d love to live in. Lynn sheds light on the one you probably do.

If her last album (with the title we can’t mention) didn’t make that clear, the new “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” underlines that Lana del Rey is a literary character — the tragic and decadent alter-ego of singer/ writer Elizabeth Grant. The songs on “Chemtrails” find her getting restless, taking off for new surroundings, meeting old ghosts and new partners. Call it a road novel set to music.

Musically, this is her subtlest album yet, with slow tempos, layered vocals and a general sense of languor; coproducer Jack Antonoff brings the same sonic knack he added to the last two Tayexactly lor Swift albums. It’s got echoes of vintage Kate Bush and early Joni Mitchell; the disc ends with a cover of Joni’s “For Free,” whose cool irony fits right in. There are some great pop hooks — opening track “White Dress” is full of them — but it takes a couple of listens before they grab hold. This is the kind of album where even a song called “Dance Till You Die” has almost no drums on it.

The latter finds her dancing all night at a Louisiana roadhouse, one of a few memorable scenes here. As usual, there is a lot of sly humor: On “White Dress” she recalls waitressing at the “Men in Music Business Conference” (which didn’t technically exist, but music-biz women will know what she means). But the story takes an emotional turn toward the end, with the possibility of a new relationship. It ends with the couple doing some karaoke at the roadhouse (hence the Joni Mitchell cover), setting up the story’s next chapter — which will come when the next album, the already recorded “Rock Candy Sweet,” drops later this year.

At age 88, Loretta Lynn is long past needing to reach out to a new generation — though she managed that in 2004, when high-profile fan Jack White produced her comeback album “Van Lear Rose.” On her latest album “Still Woman Enough,” the pressure’s off: She kicks back, duets with some friends, and revisits old songs with pride. It’s ironic that Johnny Cash’s son John R. Cash is co-producer, since the mood is

the opposite of the dark, mortality-themed albums Johnny made in later life.

Following a stroke three years ago, Lynn sounds remarkably feisty here; there’s enough joy in Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light” to light up a few country churches. She also revisits her very first single, “Honky Tonk Girl,” and it doesn’t sound as if that honky tonk has quieted down too much in the past 60 years. Another remake, “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man,” is done as a friendly catfight with Tanya Tucker. The new title song is a sequel, making advanced age sound like it’s actually fun.

The best track here is a generation-spanning duet with alt-country artist Margo Price: “One’s On the Way” is about trying to survive as a mom while the husband’s out drinking, another child is coming soon and the TV is talking about women with more glamorous lives — women, in fact, like Lana del Rey. It’s a completely timely, relevant song that proves Lynn is still in touch. And by the way, she wrote it in 1972.