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Lana Del Rey's Journal-like Discography

Lana Del Rey is most recognisable for her original visuals, poetically melancholy lyricism, and haunting melodies. Part of the hypnotic beauty of her work, I believe, also lies in how she ensures that her work remains an intimate and truly original art.

Her discography, particularly her recent releases, radiates an authentic home-made feel that nods to her original influences, such as Daniel Johnston, whose music is home-recorded and produced from cassettes.

Lana's released work nods to her vast, accessible portfolio of ‘unreleased’ tracks and demos that she is known for. Her discography, particularly singles, now more than ever features what appear to be self-taken shots or even selfies as cover art. They seem made for Lana’s archives of her poetry and secondly for release. Her current moment in her discography creates an audio journal that's scrapbooked by her album art. Combining this with lengthy, draft-like song titles feels like she is letting us into her private archives. It nods to her first break as Lana Del Rey; her home-produced video to her hit ‘Video Games’, provides visuals to the hauntingly beautiful song using home-video roll and outtakes taken on shaky, vintage, unprofessional cameras. This is continued in her music videos and visuals, with vintage film, settings, and makeup.

Her titles are also becoming ever more candid and seemingly ‘un-final’. ‘Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard?'s title and art could be plucked from a diary entry or from her anthology of unreleased tracks, with its journal-entry photo and title. It sounds like a line from a diary, and I expect the tracks will reflect the same intimacy.

Lana’s use of poetry, ballad, and orchestra mean her songs disrupt pop music expectations. They capture place, time, and feeling in a way that only a personal journal can. Her songs, more fittingly, ‘ballads’ or even ‘poems’, are populated more with poetic themes than pop. Filled with metaphor, imagery, and analogy, they are not written to be catchy and instead to capture nuanced emotions that can only be by poetic tools. She combines historical, biblical, and past and present culture references to create musical poetry that reaches out of the confines of music written for popular consumption. Listeners can’t help but feel there is something ethereal, deeply personal, reflective, or even other-worldly, about her word choice. Using half rhymes and singing in rhythms irregular to the music reminds a listener that the songs originally begin as written, personal art, and that the song is this art in its final form. Combined with her ‘homemade’ album covers, these musical factors make her art seem completely intimate and almost internal. A listener hears the lines being written.

Candidity and authenticity are becoming more desirable and consumed in every media. Take Emma Chamberlin, a poster girl for what is hot and what is not in popular media. Her videos have moved away from overly edited with click-bait titles to quiet videos accompanying her through her monotonous days. Her titles are less catchy and more descriptive, serving a purpose, such as ‘u totally caught me making soup’, ‘bed’ and ‘venice, italy’. Popular art and media are moving more towards serving as virtual, visual, and auditory diaries, and Lana is fitting the moment with her home-made, intimate-sounding recent releases. Fans feel like she is sharing her drafts or personal favourites from her unreleased anthology. 

Authenticity is reigning, and Lana is leaning into her old art form to master this.