An intimate, beautifully crafted Chemtrail
LANA Del Rey has been making headlines for unfortunate reasons. There has been some questionable online commentary around women of colour and an incident that involved wearing a mesh mask to a book signing during a pandemic. It looked pretty, but didn’t stop too many respiratory droplets.
Tone-deaf with lashings of white privilege would be a broad strokes summary of her recent social media faux pas. Nothing unforgivable, but her staunch self-defence and refusal to acknowledge the things she said could be perceived to be problematic (at the very least) may yet be her undoing.
It’s familiar territory, she’s courted controversy for much of her career. Accused of glorifying abuse early on, she also wore First Nations’ headdress in one of her videos and said some nasty things in a public spat with rapper Azealia Banks. So while she’s probably not sweating the plethora of think pieces she’s generating, she might be a little concerned it will have a negative impact on the reception to Chemtrails Over the Country Club.
However history remembers Del Rey, her prowess as a songwriter is unequivocal. Her last album was widely lauded as a masterpiece and topped many people’s best-of-2019 lists. The intimate, introspective new record begins with White Dress and whisks us back to when the budding star was working as a waitress with stars in her eyes, while being leered at by music industry men. The flirtatious title track follows and she’s wearing jewels in the picket-fenced pool, lapping at luxury, whispering astrological signals in your ear (her moon is in Leo, but her Cancer is sun).
It only gets better from there. A tender plea to be loved for who she really is,
Wild at Heart details her move from Los Angeles and the camera flashes that cause car crashes. It’s not the only Diana reference; the princess pops up again during the brooding nostalgia of Yosemite. Dark But Just a Game and Not All Who Wander Are Lost are surprising and tantalising, steeped in navel-gazing philosophy, yet so beautifully crafted, they’re hard to resist.
Speaking of white privilege, Justin
Bieber’s new album is called Justice, despite none of the 16 tracks bearing that title. But it does open with a clip of Martin Luther King intoning: ‘‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’’ after which Bieber goes on to sing about missing his girl – so there’s that.
There’s a longer speech from Reverend King later, where he speaks on the meaning and value of human life, before
Bieber sings on Die For You: ‘‘I would walk through burning fire, even if your kiss could kill me.’’ It neither rhymes nor makes sense and, without wanting to take anything away from Bieber’s talent as a popstar, it does sit a bit on the nose.
Still, not my circus, not my monkeys. His music isn’t designed for me and King’s daughter came out in his support, so I guess he means well and, to be fair, Peaches is a banger.