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

Old favourite Cherry Blossom rumoured to be on the next one; she did an IG post quoting the lyrics. I do yearn for a ‘Best of the Unreleased Tracks’ compilation with Driving In Cars.., Serial Killer, Queen of Disaster, Yes To Heaven, Pawn Shop Blues etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZuT6ltpFKI

yeah it would be nice to see some of those officially released though so many of them seem like the work of a different person at this point. Driving in Cars is still one of her best pop songs.

xp at first I thought she was saying "mini music business conference." Would be pretty funny either way

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

it's her best album title!

Heard it first as Meta-Music Conference (or metal?), all of which (along with "men in music") sound like a title you'd see in a dream.

Ok on my third listen now and this might be the first LDR album since Ultraviolence in which I love more than 2 songs in it.

I’m actually surprised how much this one works for me. I know people loved NFR but I didn’t. This one was so easy to like in comparison. For starters it’s one of her shortest albums and it’s very intimate sounding. I love the vibes going on and how the instruments mostly provide ambience, waiting for the vocal hooks. I guess fans of her more “maximalist” side might find it boring.

Love these: White Dress, Yosemite, Dark but Just a Game.

Like these: Chemtrails, Dance till We Die, Tulsa Jesus Freak

Bored by these, haven’t really won me over: let me love you like a woman, wild at heart

Thoughts on the alternate cover (HMV exclusive vinyl)?

https://images.genius.com/9cdfa2ba25187376f756075ce635817d.644x644x1.jpg

wow, the original cover looks like a friggin masterpiece now

it's bad but in a completely different way to the regular cover

At this point there's only one song on the album that I don't like : "Breaking up Slowly" (it's funny because at first I thought it was a duet with Stevie which would have been a nice concept since in the following song she mentions her as well as Joni who she covers on the final song !).
The highlights imo are the first 3 and "Dark But Just A Game" which low end during the verses sounds HUGE on good headphones/hifi. One of my favorite moments of the album.

I like the cover of the album.It's certainly not worse than all her previous covers !

yeah "breaking up slowly" is just kinda melodically trite

I don’t find any of her album covers particularly offensive but they’re not great either. It has always seemed weird to me how clear her aesthetic in terms of sound is yet it isn’t quite mirrored in her artwork and music videos.

Yeah she's got the worst sleeves of a big act since Oasis.

NFR! is the only one I find actively repellent. I like the Lust for Life cover a lot.

I like all her album covers except for Born To Die and Paradise, even when I don't like the albums (e.g. Lust For Life). The Honeymoon cover is great, and I liked the NFR cover even more once I realized the background was a painting (which of course it is).

She has stated that she regards album art as a complete afterthought and for single releases would just use whatever picture she found on her phone. The alternate NFR cover with her friends sitting in a park with godawful fonts is a good example. I wish she had a better aesthetic sense for these things; I really only like the covers of BTD, UV (the original B&W cover, not the alternate cover of her knee which I assume was another iphone shot), and the alternate Honeymoon.

DArk But Just A Game is one of my favorite songs on here too, it's recorded really well, the guitar tone is really nice, and opening up the soundstage with the bridge was a great touch. Arrangement-wise it reminds me of the White Album or something.

Arrangement-wise it reminds me of the White Album or something.

hum. Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way but now I can totally hear that !

I have to admit the bad cover art might be part of why her music gives me weird nostalgia for the 90s cd era.

it's weird that she doesn't care about the album artwork when she seems to care very much about the visuals for her videos etc

alternate cover looks like she shot out just out of frame of this

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LNX-E07tXM8/maxresdefault.jpg

*shot it

Arrangement-wise it reminds me of the White Album or something.

Been thinking about how classic the arrangements are: Beatles, 3rd-album Velvets, "White Dress" gives me Laura Nyro vibes kinda. Maybe I don't get out enough but it feels kind of surprising in 2021?

I don't know, I think it's pretty in tune with 2021. Jack Antonoff just won album of the year with Taylor Swift, and the sonic palette is partly him.

“it's weird that she doesn't care about the album artwork when she seems to care very much about the visuals for her videos etc” true and I don’t k ow how truthful that statement was but it seeems to explain some of the tossed off nature of some of them.

Also important to note that there were videos she made (like video games) and videos that I’m sure were 100% other peoples ideas (like Born to Die). The video for Chemtrails is interesting because it seems like the former style until near the end when it turns into a vampire video out of the blue (and even that owes something to Bat for Lashes)

xp yeah listening again a lot of the arrangement is of a piece with the Taylor albums, what's interesting to me are the aesthetic choices that don't fit (Beatles outro in "Dark But Just a Game", VU guitar in "Not All That Wander Are Lost", I swear there's Nyro in "White Dress" but I don't hear it every time)

Tonight at a small country bar in South Austin, we saw @nikkilanemusic. She brought Ms. @LanaDelRey out to duet "Breaking Up Slowly" and then Nikki covered @rosannecash "Seven Year Ache." For our 1st live show in 13 months, it was a transcendent one-two punch of joy. pic.twitter.com/5GYojQDkAB

— MattShiv (@shivvy) April 5, 2021

Another on the way: https://variety.com/2021/music/news/lana-del-rey-new-album-blue-banisters-1234962009/

no surprise that she changed the title for it but given her history i doubt this will make that release date

oh reading up on it and people think this might be a separate project to rock candy sweet bc she mentioned having two more albums in the work not too long ago (one possibly a country covers album?)

If that font is not already on bistro menus everywhere, it will be.

truly, the stans will eat what they're given

I sort of get the impression she's not a fan of the traditional album/release schedule she's always been on (where the usual allowances are made for vinyl manufacturing etc) and might be hopping over to a more modern approach (aka "release as much whenever you can") which...I don't know, maybe it will result in more spontaneous/less "safe" material, but quality control is a real concern lol

Maybe she's guided by voices?

i feel like she's always announcing projects that inevitably get themselves delayed into more traditional release schedules

yeah it feels like once per cycle she gets a text from the same label guy to be like "what did we say about timetables lana"

I can't help but find her apathy/indifference about visual aesthetics sort of charming, like she's developed an early case of old man swag

Her album covers are the aural equivalent of thinking crocs with socks and a bathrobe is an acceptable attire to wear in public.

three new singles just showed up on streaming services: "text book", "wildflower wildfire", "blue banisters"

lol that they're all separate releases, her people really have no savvy about how to juice streaming stats

surprisingly the mike dean one is the least distinctive. she's improving as a singer. someone destroy her piano.

"Dark But Just a Game" shows how much she can do as a melodist when someone gives her a harmonically interesting structure with some key changes. Otherwise, I have to roll my eyes when two consecutive songs on this record ("Let Me Love You Like a Woman" and "Wild at Heart") begin with the same IV - I - V chord progression* played at the same tempo.

* If you're generous, you could say that "Wild at Heart" is actually a ♭VII - IV - I in light of the subsequent verse, but off the top it's the same progression.

Let the record show that Blue Banisters was not released last week.

Nice new song :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mECX60FVJQ

And a great beat at the end of the video !

Yeah I dig that coda (?) though sounds more like an interlude that will work great in the full album context.

that outro nearly rattled the decorative plates off my shelf

album is out in October.

oh damn i had only heard the version on Spotify and it doesn't have that extra bit at the end.

She's terrible.

Had to turn this off after the first verse. Words were bad, very bad words.