Lana Del Rey is an intriguing star. In so many ways, she’s one of the biggest singers and musicians around, a performer at the absolute peak of her creative powers. And in other ways, she seems to very deliberately eschew exactly the sort of fame and status this would otherwise bring her.

Perhaps this is because of the amount of flak she has often come in for during her career (the fairness of which depends on your viewpoint). Even before her debut album Born To Die was released back in 2012, she was already attracting a backlash for her apparent re-brand – Del Rey, otherwise known as Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, had performed as ‘Lizzy Grant in the mid-to-late noughties. Many felt this was a re-writing of her past was a gimmick – but when has image not been a part of pop music?

A social media spat last year erupted around allegations leveled at Del Rey that she is in some way an anti-feminist figure. Her response to the attacks, a post in which she namechecked several of her favourite artists including Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, and Cardi B, led to further attacks that Del Rey had selected these artists to cite as they were women of colour. To most this level of scrutiny and criticism could seem quite petty, but whatever your own take on these incidents is, it’s easy to see why Del Rey might prefer to stay out of the limelight.

It’s telling, then, that Del Rey’s new and seventh studio album Chemtrails Over The Country Club opens with White Dress, an achingly gorgeous piano-backed affair that sees her pining for a time before fame. Singing about working night shifts as a waitress as a nineteen-year-old, she pushes her vocals to the limit of their range on the track, as if the song itself reflects the pressure cooker environment of life in the public eye.

Fame is a theme that runs throughout this record, with the title track another song that celebrates the everyday – “washing my hair, doing the laundry, late-night TV” – and burns with a desire for a life lost as Del Rey sings: “It's beautiful how this deep normality settles down over me / I'm not bored or unhappy, I'm still so strange and wild”. Wild At Heart explores Del Rey’s life the other side of the door, and the intensity of fame, as she laments “But I'm not a star / If you love me, you'll love me / 'Cause I'm wild, wild at heart”, while Dark But Just A Game sees her reflect “I was a pretty little thing and God, I loved to sing / But nothing came from either one but pain”.

Sonically, Chemtrails Over The Country Club has a wonderful Americana feel, but with some sinister undertones (the album’s title references the conspiracy theory that condensation trails emitted by aeroplanes are deliberately contaminated with dangerous chemicals for a variety of sinister reasons). Built predominantly around piano and acoustic guitar, it’s a record that evokes feelings of some of the great female artists who have come before her. Indeed, the album closes with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s For Free.

Yosemite is a gentle, finger-picked beauty of a song, perfectly framing Del Rey’s exquisite vocals, while Breaking Up Slowly is a Whiskey-dripped, dark and brooding country number that is a surprising delight and Tulsa Jesus Freak is an atmospheric, almost ghostly number that makes use of some stylised vocal effects.

Del Rey’s previous album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, was a huge hit, and considered by many a career highlight for the New York artist, but Chemtrails Over The Country Club is just as compelling. It’s a more personal record, that’s for sure, one that sees Del Rey dive deeply into her past. Both were produced by Jack Antonoff, and his work deserves mention, the production both here and on her last record are outstanding.

“Life doesn’t always work out like we planned,” Del Rey sings on the penultimate track Dance Till We Die, neatly summarising this album in the process. As a character study, an honest account of the highs and lows of fame, Chemtrails Over The Country Club is a deeply compelling offering from a truly intriguing artist.

Chemtrails Over The Country Club is currently charted as the UK's number 1 album. In November, 2019 we reviewed Del Rey's gig in Nashville. 

Chemtrails Over The Country Club tracklist:

1. White Dress
2. Chemtrails Over The Country Club
3. Tulsa Jesus Freak
4. Let Me Love You Like A Woman
5. Wild At Heart
6. Dark But Just A Game
7. Not All Who Wander Are Lost
8. Yosemite
9. Breaking Up Slowly
10. Dance Till We Die
11. For Free

Watch the official video for White Dress here.

Author: Joe Sharratt

Joe Sharratt is a writer and journalist based in the UK covering music, literature, sport, and travel.