reflections and musings on "ocean blvd" (issue 7)

review (??) on lana del rey's ninth album

Lana Del Rey’s greatest strength has been her ability to pull from the past. A career initially started as a reflection on America, love, violence, and the human condition slowly morphed into a modern look at the death of Americana on her sixth studio album, “Norman Fucking Rockwell!” Left in the rubble, her subsequent two albums, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” and “Blue Banisters,” offered a reflection of herself and her purpose. The image and idea of Lana Del Rey turned away from the beaches of Venice or the rises of Brooklyn; instead, she’s focusing on what lies underneath herself and her home.

“Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd?” is a desolate and fragmented meditation on memories, identity, love, and self-preservation. If “Norman” painted portraits of rapture like the album cover slyly suggests, “Ocean Blvd” is the silent stroll with nothing but the wind blowing. The album is an inward look at where Lana comes from, where she is, and where she can hope to go. “Ocean Blvd” shows Lana Del Rey as the eternally traveling soul on the road, war in her mind. She decides that her purpose — for now — is to experience, feel, synthesize, and recreate those emotions.

The human condition remains Lana’s sole fascination. Like the poet slash songwriter she is, she takes her experience to try to make sense of the meaning of all of the chaos. Arguably, the two centerpieces of the album directly reference life itself and how to understand it. Not applicable to all, but to Lana herself. Instead, she opts to wander for herself.

“Kintsugi'' derives its name from the Japanese art of reassembling broken pottery to make something new. Lana directly states this definition at the halfway point of the song. Lana uses the sparse instrumental to ramble, both lyrically and vocally. During the climax of the song, she slips into a higher range and begins trembling like Stevie Nicks during her later career. However, the lyrical sprawlings are the drawing point. She details her lost love, her family, and her longing for days she doesn’t have. However, she remains steady in the belief that hurt eventually leads to healing, and darkness leads to light. Isolation could lead to those mountain tops where you can run to. The breaking of the soul means one can experience happiness in ways never before. 

These ideas are stripped and boiled down into “Let the Light In.” Borrowing lyrics from the chorus, her and Father John Misty take the monologue of “Kintsugi” and press it down into folk-pop transcendence. She sings of her aimlessness and the joy she finds. She also finds her Lanaisms through, from the “love to love you, hate to hate you” bridge to the references to driving, drinking, and the Beatles, who seem to be the chief inspiration for the song.

“Fingertips” borrows the same choruslessness of “Kintsugi.” Lana opts to speak her mind freely, as a voice memo or her poetry found in “Violets Bent Backwards over the Grass.” She deftly discusses her family, her future motherhood, alcoholism, her relationship with her mother, suicide, and death. There is no fear of death, but acceptance in a different way than the nihilistic “Born to Die.” Rather she says “it’s a shame that we die,” a simple disagreement with life’s only confirmation. Some of these topics Lana has held tightly to her chest before she plainly stated her deepest fears, regrets, and memories in this song. It is a towering track amongst her discography for its honesty and rejection of regalia.

“Paris, Texas” and “Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing” both take beautiful piano instrumentals from other artists, yet leave Lana’s stamp so clearly, it’s like they were made for her voice. While “Paris” offers a glimpse at Lana’s wanderlust in finding where she belongs, “Grandfather…” begs that someone looks over her while she makes her journey. The song also has arguably one of her funniest and most self-aware lyrics, “regrettably also a white woman,” breaking the somber self-reflections from the past few tracks. Lyrics like this also act to remind her audience that she is in on the joke, she’s aware of the self-aggrandizing artists of her talent and caliber.

Lana also revisits many of her older themes in a way that reconciles her past. “A&W” and “Taco Truck x VB” are both double songs. On “A&W,” Lana directly deals with the treatment of women in America by using herself as an example. She pokes holes directly in the mythos of Lana Del Rey, questioning the Tumblr/cherry emoji Twitter/coquette culture that has been following her for years. It begs questions of what existing as a woman of Lana’s experiences even begets. The song switches halfway into a song reminiscent of early Lana, calling back to “Lizzy Grant” or “Born to Die.” However, a moment comes where the opening strings from “Norman fucking Rockwell” cut through the trip-hop beat, reminding her listeners that Lana Del Rey always has been a crafted image, even at her most personal stages.

This is not the only time “Norman” makes an appearance on this album. From the “Cinnamon Girl” reference in “Candy Necklace” to the “Venice Bitch” demo ending “Taco Truck x VB,” it feels like Lana is reconciling that she will always exist as this construct. She will always carry the love and pain of Lana Del Rey as much as she carries the love and pain of Elizabeth Grant.

“Taco Truck” closes the album with another reflection of who Lana has been and who she is. She remembers those who hate her, who do not understand her. She does find reconciliation in her past self, shown through “VB,” but also where she is now, vape in hand, happy with herself, Lanita.

“Peppers” and “Fishtails” musically harken back to “Born to Die” and its growing collection of leaked demos. However, like “A&W,” “Fishtails” directly questions audience expectations by abruptly asking why “you wanted me sadder.” “Sweet” is reminiscent of an animated Disney film score, but asks questions once again related to Lana’s future journey. She contemplates her own identity, her purpose, and her future love, asking for marriage in one of the (no pun intended) sweetest, cutest deliveries of all of Lana’s vocal history. “Candy Necklace” traces similar territory: youth and recklessness. Hiwever, rather than the glamorization found in “Ultraviolence” or “Honeymoon,” the song is somber and haunting, like the ghost someone too reckless luring someone to similar fate. It may seem to unexperienced fans like Lana is going over the same terriority, yet these songs are tesiments to not her seeming lack of versatility but how she changes and how her ideas regarding these topics influence the past, present, and future

The “Judah Smith Interlude” acts as one of the album’s most contentious songs. Featuring a megachurch pastor preaching for four and a half minutes, it seems jarring to come after “A&W.” However, the interlude acts as a juxtaposition to entertain Lana’s split ideology and the irony of a woman in her position. First, women can be heard laughing throughout the track, making fun of what the pastor has to say, despite Lana attending this pastor’s sermons before. It acts to say that Lana can both entertain these ideas of religion, like she has in numerous songs before, yet see through the way it has been packaged. Similarly, Lana as an artist must do the same with herself: see through all scatteredness to create a concise message yet see it packaged and chewed on by the masses. The interlude ends with the pastor admitting his preaching is not for the congregation, but for him, once again reflecting Lana’s own art being an extension of her rather than the masses.

However, one of the most unique songs is “Margaret.” Borrowing lyrics from “Paris, Texas,” Lana and Bleachers sing of love. In contrast to most of her discography, this love is simple, uncomplicated, and meandering in day-to-day life. She has no grandiose musings of love; rather, “when you know, you know.” By using “Paris”’s lyrics, she believes that home and love are intrinsically understandable, universal relationships one just understands. She asks the audience to waltz with her and sings of a party invite like she is unaware she’s being recorded for millions to hear. While Lana is reflecting, retracing, and remembering throughout the entire album, she is simply asking the audience to be a part of the journey, not as a participator, but an onlooker. She reminds us she’ll do the heavy emotional lifting for her cathartic emotional release, but we can be invited to the party.