Revenge of pop diva Lana Del Rey
Taxed as a fake product in her early days, Lana Del Rey has established herself as an essential, very productive pop author, with two jewels in three years, Norman fucking Rockwell! and the recent Chemtrails over the country club. Between the two, the American even offered herself the luxury of a collection of poems – more difficult to access – set to music, Violet bent backwards over the grass.
Chemtrails over the country club, released in March by Polydor/Universal, continues the magic of Norman fucking Rockwell! (2019). Two albums co-produced with Jack Antonoff, sound architect who magnifies the melancholy of the singer-songwriter. In her latest opus, Lana Del Rey seduces the listener with White dress, sung in a beautifully chipped crystal voice, and the title track Chemtrails over the country club which ends on a breath of hypnotic drums.
The artist, who also covers Joni Mitchell (For free) in conclusion, has made herself as rare in interviews as she is prolific – she promises yet another album for 2021. A media withdrawal which is explained by the cruel reception at the time of his hit Born to die (2012), between mockery about his recourse to cosmetic surgery or the starlet label manufactured by the studios. “The way things started for me, in the way I was portrayed, was that I was feigning sensitivity and emotions. I really didn't like it, ”says the singer in Mojo, a British musical magazine, the only one to which she granted an interview for the release of Chemtrails over the country club. “The case of Lana Del Rey is very telling of the way women are treated in music as soon as they claim to have a minimum of culture. Since she is very dressed up, playing on a pin-up image, she was expected to only browse Variety. But she reads a lot, ”analyzes Sophie Rosemont, journalist and author of Girls rock.
Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, her real name, is not the first to suffer the macho wrath of some rock critics. “Rolling Stone had mapped all the men (known musicians) with whom Joni Mitchell had gone out at the start of her career,” recalls Sophie Rosemont. Joni Mitchell, the gifted Laurel Canyon (Los Angeles district), had even been nicknamed "Queen of El Lay", a sexist pun playing on the English sounds of "Queen of LA" and "Queen of sleeping".
Lana Del Rey was also flamethrowered by Kim Gordon, iconic ex-bassist of Sonic Youth. "Girls like Lana Del Rey don't know what feminism is and think it means... sleeping with nasty, older men," she wrote in her autobiography Girl in a Band. Even if, in this case, Sophie Rosemont nuances: "Kim Gordon, and that's why we love him, is very mean to everyone, one of the few who says that no one can laugh at the show -biz. »
But since Norman fucking Rockwell! , the review is unanimous and laudatory for Lana Del Rey (35 years old). "She explores more the North American territory, everything that's funny, from patriarchy to non-mixedness, she wonders", deciphers Sophie Rosemont. And Lana Del Rey still knows how to surround herself as well: when she started out, she called on Woodkid for her clips, which now benefit from the paw of the BRTHR duo. Joni Mitchell is also not the only one of her elders to whom she pays tribute, since Lana Del Rey often presents herself as a “Nancy Sinatra gangster”.
Source: AFP
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