Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club (2021)

the piano was pretty

I disagree with all of you haters, this is a very good album, but that's a predictable reaction from me at this point. I think it's arguably better on the whole than NFR, though as someone else pointed out, it doesn't have any individual tracks that are better than Venice Bitch, though the title track is close, for me.

I was a Lana sceptic for a long time, but I absolutely loved NFR. Waiting for my copy to get here tomorrow, but if this is even half as good as NFR I'll be very happy.

"haters"

hey im just trying to get hip with the kid lingo

Yeah this album is much better than this current thread lets on. "Tulsa Jesus Freak" and "Dark But Just A Game" are top tier imo

i don't know what the narrator is trying to show me w this album

the only thing I don't like on the album is the boogie down bit in "dance til we die". I know what that song is about; when she played Berkeley a few years back Joan Baez came and they talked about how they had had dinner, I'm sure that was a really great experience for her, but I could have done without the meta commentary on it, and the middle portion just bugs me aesthetically.

i don't know what the narrator is trying to show me w this album

"i don't know what the narrator is trying to show me w this album"

you have to pay extra for the commentary track

lol the lana defense squad has logged on

seriously

There’s skywriting here in LA saying “LANA DEL REY CHEMTRAILS”

Into it except for the Joni deepfake at the end.

i feel kinda confused by the way NFR was held up as a masterpiece by a lot of people and then the reaction to this one has been much more lukewarm (both here and with critics more broadly) when it seems obviously stronger to me idk

none of the bloat of NFR and nearly the whole album captures the atmosphere that made "venice bitch" such a highlight. the only real weak points are "let me love you like a woman" and "breaking up slowly" which are just ok compared to the rest

I don't think Weyes Blood sounds like Joni, or do you mean the cover in general?

Weyes Blood sounds nothing like Mitchell.

yeah, hence me not getting the deepfake comment. someone else did think it sounded like joan baez I guess, maybe?

I was driving and listening to the album and didn't even know the last song was a cover, so when "they knew he had never been on the TV / so they passed his music by" came in, and the "o" sound in "took over" and then the last "free," I wondered for a moment if it was a Joni cameo, maybe from the original recording.

David Crosby (with the Byrds) also covered "For Free", I sense a duet coming.

Apparently there will be another album, Rock Candy Sweet, in June.

Lana Del Rey just released her new album Chemtrails Over The Country Club yesterday. And now she’s already announced a follow-up album, Rock Candy Sweet, which she says will be out on June 1st — and responded to a Harper’s Bazaar article titled “Lana Del Rey Can’t Qualify Her Way Out Of Being Held Accountable.”

“Just want to say thank you again for the kind articles like this one and for reminding me that my career was built on cultural appropriation and glamorizing domestic abuse,” Lana wrote on her Instagram story. “I will continue to challenge those thoughts on my next record June 1 titled Rock Candy Sweet.”

Alongside a screenshot from the article discussing her recent online controversies, she added, “You’re right it would have been unnecessary if no one had significantly criticized everythin about the album to begin with. But you did. And I want revenge.”

oh nooooooo

her making an album where she Responds to Her Critics is surely going to take her lyrics from 'uninteresting' all the way down to 'insufferable' and fuel another wave of equally exhausting thinkpieces

the album won't be out june 1st though she's never been good with planned release dates

Lana's next album:

https://tenor.com/view/half-baked-fuckyou-gif-5926484

Oh well, that didn't work. It's the "fuck you...fuck you...you're cool...fuck you, I'm out" GIF from Half Baked.

I love that line; my wife and I quote it a lot.

responded to a Harper’s Bazaar article titled “Lana Del Rey Can’t Qualify Her Way Out Of Being Held Accountable.”

I'm wary of artists who feel the need to respond to their critics directly (and I dread the results) but come on no way this article isn't completely insufferable

also yeah no way that comes out this year

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a35311661/lana-del-rey-appropriation/

this is the article and it's a bit of a mess yeah

it makes plenty of fair criticisms (the same ones i'm sure everyone is familiar with) of her weirdly defensive album cover announcement post and that 'question for the culture' post she rightfully got a lot of flack for last year. there's also mention of her wearing native american headdresses early in her career (obviously bad) and using "he hit me and it felt like a kiss" as a lyric in ultraviolence as an example of her glamourising domestic abuse. all reasonable

then it delves into a messier critique of her whole persona being 'cultural appropriation'. like there are certainly criticisms to make of her relationship to race (and the article does make some fair ones) but i think reducing that down to 'cultural appropriation' is clumsy and totally unhelpful. an example given of her 'cultural appropriation' is her hairstyle in the "fuck it i love you" video was popular among latina subcultures in LA in the 90s and then more recently became a celebrity fashion trend, which on its own isn't really indicative of anything but the article seems to imply this is an example of her being problematic. as part of the broader point about the way she borrows significantly from black & latina culture while not fully including actual black & latina people, or being weirdly defensive about it etc., sure i guess, but then the article reduces that all down to 'cultural appropriation' which to me fumbles the whole point.

ugh why did i think this much about a ldr thinkpiece

there are so many actual genuine predators and villains in music, why waste column inches going after the merely dunderheaded, is my only real take on this subject

A previous version of the article incorrectly stated Lana Del Rey's father was a millionaire, which has been corrected.

I think for me it's just getting to the point where it's like Arab Strap or the Ramones, like I just don't really need any more albums like this

I’m just here to show off the display name fgti gave me

i agree with simon, upthread.

I think for me it's just getting to the point where it's like Arab Strap or the Ramones, like I just don't really need any more albums like this

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

This is how I'm feeling. There's nothing particularly bad about this album, but there's also nothing to really convince me this is anything more than just another Lana Del Rey album. Listening to Chemtrails at work the other day, when it ended it went straight on to NFR and just 30 seconds of that first song sounded so much more compelling than anything here. Honeymoon is the only one that took time to grow on me, everything else was really instant and I've gone back to them all a lot. I'll probably give this another chance to see if anything sticks.

it feels pretty distinct to me as far as her albums go, much more folk-y and atmospheric than before & her vocal approach has changed too with much more falsetto than before

First 2-3 tracks are great, maybe her best lyrics. The rest is kind of a featureless blur (though the line "I love you lots/Like polka dots" always makes me smile).

Yeah, I'm in the "this is kinda boring" camp. As background, it's unobjectionable but mostly doesn't distinguish itself. The production does achieve a consistent vibe, but it kind of flattens her melodic instincts, which really carried NFR imo.

flattens her melodic instincts

This. Her weakest since Honeymoon.

Late with this, but...

ugh why did i think this much about a ldr thinkpiece

^^New board description?

was really looking forward to the djp livetweet of this record but i also couldn't survive the falsetto in "white dress"

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson),

Oof the falsetto in the chorus is the thing I liked the most on first listen. Love how thin and powerless it sounds, it’s a nice break from the usual Lana vocals. Maybe it just stand outs to me because at this point in her career every song of hers fades one into another for me.

Yeah, exactly, I love "White Dress" and specifically the way she sings the chorus (also the video makes me want to go out and cruise the sunny spring Paris streets on rollers !).

I also hope the awkwardness of fitting way too many words into a line like she does in “white dress” or Ariana Grande on “positions” becomes a trend in pop.

Yeah, I think my favorite moment on this record is when she does that in the second verse of "Wild At Heart"

the forced phrasing was really bugging me the other day, like "swim-MING pools" in the title track and "schoo-ellls/joo-ells" in for free

the one that is driving me nuts is the "every time I said 'no' it wasn't quite what I meaned / if you know what I mean" in "Not All Who Wander", just c'mon.

Overall I'm feeling pretty middling on this, feels like a kid sibling to NFR - starts out pretty great, but much of the rest of it just feels like lesser versions of what she did more interestingly on NFR.

Okay, I have to retract part of that, hadn't made it to the last two songs. I really like the vibe on "Dance Til We Die".

it hadn't really occurred to me until just now how funny the phrase "The Men In Music Business Conference" is

it's hilarious, one of my favorite lines on the album

I haven't listened to this but the title is awful, so awful, I can't bear it

Here's a Lust for Life-era interview with Nowels that I ran across the other day, where he talks in detail about the songwriting process with Lana (it's kind of cute, he defines very precisely for the reader what a bridge is...).

But it seems like maybe around ... Madonna maybe(?) that women singers began receiving some credit for songs for which they weren't the primary songwriter (kind of an interesting reversal from how the Morris Levy's of the world used to just assert credit for songs they had nothing to do with outside of making mob payments). My guess is that the justification was something along the lines of "if the woman vocalist is going to be the brand responsible making these songs valuable that they deserve a cut of the publishing royalties."

Poor example. Madonna absolutely is the primary writer of her material. (So is Mariah Carey, for those who don't know.)

Also, my (limited) understanding is that when an artist receives credit, they have contributed to the lyrics or melody in some way (just like the other credited songwriters)… it’s not like the credit is just handed out as a sort of consolation prize

Madonna since 2008 has written with phalanxes of writers, but that's the state of affairs in pop in the last dozen years, especially since the "Blurred Lines" case. Up until that point, though, she almost always co-wrote with her producer; in the case of Music it's clear Mirwais had the production ideas and could play guitar but not much melodic talent (as his own album showed). She brought the melodies, song structure, and lyrics.

But I agree with your large point, NTI.

even in those most recent madonna albums a good portion of the tracks are just credited to her + the producers she's working with

fwiw swift's first songwriting partner was a woman (liz rose). she's said she finds it much easier to write by bouncing off someone else's ideas, usually just writing to someone else's instrumental sketch these days.

It’s interesting that Lana was 27 when she finally got her break (after recording EPs and stuff for years)… like, she’s four years older than Taylor, but didn’t get on the map until over 5 years later.

(I started a thread for the new album, FYI: Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2023))

And the album is 77 minutes long, which is...too much.

This is just her coded nod to ILX.

I fell into a YT/SoundCloud rabit hole with her early demo EPs and other unreleased stuff... holy moly. She has clearly been super talented from the beginning.

Some of the demo tracks are not entirely different from Liz Phair's Girlysound material — just as a point of comparison that I wouldn't have expected, based on Lana's later aesthetic.

This is my favorite of the three(?) extant versions of "Brite Lites"... what a banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57oYg3mhJXM

...and here's an example of how strong her earlier acoustic stuff could be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hecdLBfl8z8

some of those may jailer songs are really good

"Let Me Love You like a Woman" (from Chemtrails) has become one of my favorite songs... like, by anyone. Don't really know why, but it's like my anthem, lol... I don't do karaoke (and can't sing), but it makes me wish I could passionately belt it out in a karaoke booth.

I know this is a trite observation, but I think it's so clever how the first two lines in the chorus –

Let me love you like a woman
Let me hold you like a baby

– are grammatically identical; but "like a woman" and "like a baby" have opposite meanings, in that they're referring to different people (her, and the person she's singing to, respectively). Language, man... far out

you might like this, the original version which didn't make Ultraviolence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UgdhObcwbE

(lots of people seem to prefer this version but to me her vocals sound pretty strained, she's grown immensely as a vocalist since this)

I had no idea about this earlier version. Interesting that the opening verse on the finished version is new and is so 2020 (the idea of leaving L.A. for, wherever, Ventura County or Joshua Tree.

Don't really know why, but it's like my anthem, lol... I don't do karaoke (and can't sing), but it makes me wish I could passionately belt it out in a karaoke booth.

Totally cosign with this (other than that I love doing karaoke). I can listen to this song on repeat 5-10 times.

Thanks for the link, akm! I read about that version in "Lanapedia," but didn't think to look it up (she has so many demos / unreleased songs floating around, it's bonkers).

Yeah, I'm not so fond of that particular "voice" she was using in that era. It is fascinating to hear how she reworked the song.

She probably has as much leaked unreleased stuff as she has officially released, it’s kind of crazy. A lot of it is very good. She seems to have allowed it to happen as well; stuff has been on YouTube for years.

Fwiw now think the title track to Chemtrails is my all time favorite song by her.

She has so many unreleased traxx, I've had to kind of stop digging into them, b/c it fries my completist-oriented brane. (Just today, I discovered this entire fan-compiled album consisting of Ultraviolence outtakes.)

oh yeah I found that last night too. FWIW I think most of those outtakes are pretty subpar; that version of Diving in Cars with Boys sucks balls; the original version, particularly the one without the truncated lyric, is still one of her greatest songs

This version?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCfvH0h2_SU

yes, this has the full prechorus. for some reason there was subsequent mix that edited it down and it sounds stupid

i really dont' know why this was never released officially, I guess maybe she felt it never really fit on an album (true, other than BTD it doesn't fit with anything else) and she doesn't really release non album singles (I do appreciate that she remains very album focused).

anyway "miss america with the blue mascara on" is a wonderfully delivered line

BTD could have been so much better, considering what else she had to work with. Some of the creative choices seem so bizarre or rushed to me... like how the first line of "Born to Die" and "Radio" have very similar lyrics and the same melody; or the phrase "take (your/that) body downtown" being used in two different songs. And "This is What Makes Us Girls" is such a bizarre choice to end the standard edition - it feels so random and abrupt as a final song (the bonus tracks obv improve the landing).

I also think it's funny how, for an album (and artist) so heavily steeped in "Americana," she pronounces the word "vitamin" (in "Radio") a way that no American has ever pronounced it – just for the sake of a (corny) rhyme.

You guys, I’m at a party where there’s a karaoke hookup – I asked the host to pull up “Let Me Love You Like a Woman,” and I did it, it was awesome and so much fun even though I sounded like ass #noragrets

P.S. I’m actually wearing my LDR T-shirt from hot topic

Ooh ooh!

Ahah

Just realized I'd love to hear The Magnetic Fields cover "Let Me Love You Like A Woman."

dang. good call.

From "Arcadia":

I'm not from the land of the palms, so I know I can't stay here
I'm not native, but
My curves, San Gabriel all day
And my lips like the fire licks the bay

It strikes the listener that palm trees also aren't native to Southern California (except one variety) – instead, they were mostly planted for symbolic reasons, and to lure visitors and new residents. So the couplet sets up this inherent irony: calling SoCal the "land of the palms" (not a common phrase), and then declaring "I know I can't stay here." Plenty of other folks move to L.A., but many put down roots and stay (you know, like palm trees). It's a fascinating (and I think intentional) contradiction, in a song where Lana presents her own body as so deeply ingrained with the local landscape that it's a kind of living figuration of it (literally, "a map of L.A.") – but then she skips town at the end, because ppl got mad at her Instagram posts or whatever.