But really, these contradictions bring out many of Lana's best qualities. Also, there's the fact that she hasn't always delivered very solid live shows when compared to her studio performances, as well as the way her baroque pop stylings get mixed in with modern hip-hop-influenced beats. Her attempts to bring back the old-fashioned style of the old greats such as Nancy Sinatra or Leonard Cohen have been known to clash with overly melodramatic modern "bad girl" lyricism that many consider vapid. On a surface level, Lana Del Rey may seem to many like a living musical contradiction. Everything about her work plays into fantasies of a potentially fatal manipulation.” He concludes with the nonbeliever’s view of the LDR phenomena: “Ultimately, she’s milking classic male fantasies of the sad Marilyn Monroe, the babe in distress who can only be saved by you - and your dollars.Review Summary: Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh “Her nearly comatose vocals make it sound like she just slipped herself a roofie, saving whatever sicko she seeks the trouble … In Del Rey’s case, the sound is so dense it threatens to asphyxiate the singer, which may just be the point. Unfortunately, there’s not enough punch in the songs to make listeners care whether she’s joking or not.”Ĭontinuing in that vein, on the less forgiving side of the polarizing attitudes she evokes, New York Daily News‘ longtime pop scribe Jim Farber proves a hater. It also moves gracefully between heartache and sly humor, sometimes within the same song.”ĭel Rey became an actress as much as a singer, says Chicago Tribune‘s Greg Kot in his tepid review, describing her as the “gangster Nancy Sinatra,” calling Ultraviolence “all over-the-top, exacerbated by its narcotized atmosphere: druggy, draggy tempos and druggier singing… almost qualifies as a parody. The New York Times‘ Jon Pareles, in an interview piece, says Ultraviolence “reaches deeper into her slow-motion sense of time, her blend of retro sophistication and seemingly guileless candor. STORY Lana Del Rey Will be Your Mirror: Concert Review “She’s a pop music original full-stop, and there are not nearly enough of those around.” With Ultraviolence, Del Rey has found new synergy between the character she presents to the world and the content of the songs… sounds tragic and beautiful - darkly shaded ballads are what she was created to make, and this album is nothing but, a Concept Album from a Concept Human,” calling her singularity sui generis. He says, “She’s become a screen onto which we project our desire and/or loathing. If you’re looking for “authenticity” in Lana Del Rey, Pitchfork‘s Mark Richardson suggests you’ve come to the wrong place.
NEW LANA DEL REY ULTRAVIOLENCE SERIES
No one else sounds like her.” He calls the album “a kind of willfully woozy series of contradictions that combine to create a convincing argument.”
… Musically and lyrically, Del Rey possesses a pure kernel of individualism that’s not only admirable, but worthy of celebration.
Times‘ Randall Roberts claims, in his three- (out of four) star review, Ultraviolence “preaches a cut-throat approach to finding and retaining bliss.
NEW LANA DEL REY ULTRAVIOLENCE FULL
Bill Harford from Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut … Ultraviolence is the masked bacchanalia that finally unleashes the full potential lurking beneath the hype.” In his A-review, he says Stanley Kubrick - who adapted Andrew Burgess‘ dystopian fantasy A Clockwork Orange, from where the album presumably gets its title - would have “loved Del Rey … a highly stylized vixen who romanticizes fatalism to near-pornographic levels, creating fantastically decadent moments of film noir melodrama.” He goes on to say, “Del Rey’s dark urges - for love, for money, for pure pleasure - don’t evoke the Clockwork droogs as much as they do Tom Cruise‘s Dr. This time around, Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach is producing, and his “back-to-basics rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic serves these tracks well … a more sedate take on the Born to Die template, lightening the orchestrations, ditching the hip-hop beats, and presenting Lana as a perpetually scorned pop-noir fugitive - part Neko Case, part Katy Perry.”Īs always, though, the pouty diva, offering a blank facade for the rest of us to fill in our own desires, has polarized the critics.Ĭount Entertainment Weekly‘s Kyle Anderson as one of her admirers.