I was one of the millions of people swept away by Lana Del Rey when I first heard the opening church bells and plaintive piano chords of "Video Games" nearly a decade ago. Despite the spite-filled hot takes and lukewarm reviews, the earworms on her debut album, Born to Die, burrowed in me. I was an immediate fan. Every new release delights me, and I sincerely count her as one of my very favorite recording artists.
But this?
This is bad.
Very, very bad.
The trouble with stan culture, though, is that diehard fans are not supposed to (nor are they encouraged to) question the output of an artist they love. Everything is perfect. To say otherwise invites the rage of fellow "stans". Bring on stancel culture. Buh-dum-ching.
Fellow LDR Stans: this collection of "poetry" is bad.
Very, very bad.
Lana Del Rey writes song lyrics that recycle the same shopworn themes over and over again: high glamor and unfathomable wealth never conquer unshakeable sadness or fading beauty. It's melodramatic. It's a little cliché. But it's served on a bed of sumptuous choruses and captivating melodies that can distract the listener from lines like "baby, you're so ghetto/you're looking to score" ("Art Deco", admittedly one of my favorite tracks of hers).
I read a batshit insane review of Norman Fucking Rockwell! when it was released that likened Del Rey's writing to that of Nobel Prize-winning Bob Dylan's. Pump the brakes, everybody. I don't even like Bob Dylan, but even a vague awareness of his output will dissolve any perceived similarities between his writing and hers. It's astonishing to even suggest that Del Rey is anything more than workmanlike in her writing. At her best, she is good. Just good. At her worst, she is laughably bad.
Further, no writer defends why they are a writer. They just are. The sheer volume of times Del Rey refers to herself as a poet in this book is borderline satire. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
In the description on the hardcover's flap, Del Rey writes, "...I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are... the spirit in which they were written was very authentic.”
Don’t get me started with the rage I feel whenever I hear the younger generation blather about how important it is to be your “authentic self”. I don’t know where this obsession comes from aside from the fact that social media systematically dehumanizes people so much that they don’t know how to live by their own code.
Anyway. Stop using that word. You don’t need to advertise your authenticity or lack thereof. Especially you, multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated Lana Del Rey.
Let's instead tackle the first sentence about “making the perfect poem” with an anecdote:
Being an LDR fan, I bought both the book and the "audiobook" on vinyl. I thought it would be fun to listen to the record while reading the poems. So that's what I did.
The audiobook itself is a curiosity. For one, the poems are presented out of order (why?) and Del Rey doesn't read every poem in the slim volume (again, why?) and each "track" features producer-of-the-moment Jack Antonoff doodling around with beatnik-y guitar licks, mellotrons, and an abundant overuse of a distortion pedal. Del Rey ramrods through the poems as if she's reading them for the first time, sometimes veering into overwrought flair that sounds like some high school student's dramatic audition going off the rails.
But more curiously: the poems are different. Neither audiobook reading nor printed "final" form are alike on... well, any of them. Sometimes Del Rey eliminates an entire stanza. Sometimes it's a word, and there's no meaningful effect (tone, sound, or otherwise) for the change. On "Paradise is Very Fragile", "60 years succumbed" (print version) becomes "80 years succumbed" (audio version). That change hints at nothing: no deeper meaning, no added value. It merely hints that the poem is unfinished and still in its draft stages... which is what nearly every poem in this volume feels like. Unfinished or whipped up on a whim and doled out for the stans to gobble up (which, judging by the reviews on Goodreads, they have).
If your poems boast perfectly picked words or “came to you in their entirety”, why change them? Because they’re not finished. Go back. Write seven or eight or forty more drafts and then publish your book.
What's frustrating, though, is that, buried in all the meandering fluff, there is some really solid writing:
"Sportscruiser" begins with a compelling snapshot of dissolution only to tumble into literal paragraphs about Del Rey taking flying and sailing lessons. Conversations are dictated, emotions unpacked on a surface level, and actions told rather than shown. It comes across less as a poem and more as a rambling diary entry. But even within the rambling, there are some pretty lines: "...captains aren't like poets [!!!LDRisapoet!!!]; they don't make metaphors between the sea and sky". That, to me, is a lovely line. It is surrounded by self-indulgent nonsense. Therefore, this poem is not finished.
"In the flats of Melrose" has a central stanza that presents a snapshot of domesticity with an underpinning of uncertainty. It's lovely. It's also immediately followed by an inane line about her lover becoming "hell-bent on being some indie director". This poem is not finished.
"Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass" has an evocative image of a child behaving childlike in the backyard, which would've been sufficient on its own except Del Rey chooses to parallel it to the banal platitude of "do[ing] nothing about everything forever". Jesus. Christ. This. Poem. Is. Not. Finished.
Sandwiched between the poems are ruminating photos that add some texture while also being completely meaningless. The book, therefore, is well-made and pretty but ultimately empty and far from novel. In fact, Del Rey recycles ideas from songs like "Ride" and "Old Money" and outright cribs a line from "Cinnamon Girl" as if her fans wouldn't notice.
I’ll end on this: the hilariously bad "Sugarfish”, which gifts us this record-scratching gem: Sugar sugar lips and teeth/fingertips touch emojis/hard forever/hearts on fleek/bb please come over.
That's... just awful.
Gosh, I don't know, you guys. What was I expecting? Pulitzer Prize-worthy poetry?
After all, this is the same woman who wrote and sang (in deadpan, no less), "My pussy taste like Pepsi cola."
Come at me, stans.
Update: October 25, 2021
Ok, y'all. Blue Banisters came out on Friday, and I've listened to it pretty much on repeat.
I have some exciting news. Lana Del Rey's lyrics are getting better: less clichéd, punchier, and often damned emotional. "Blue Banisters", "Text Book", "Black Bathing Suit", "Sweet Carolina", "Thunder"... powerful, unexpected stuff.
I'd like to say she had it in herself this entire time, but I wasn't certain. In my eyes, she's redeemed herself from this still-garbage collection.