On Mar. 19, Lana Del Rey released her seventh studio album titled Chemtrails Over the Country Club. The album consists of 11 tracks and features the two singles, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” and “Let Me Love You Like a Woman.”
The album’s announcement came with harsh criticism as the singer/songwriter took to her comments to make clear that she was not racist. However, in doing so, she came off as cocky and not much less racist as she wrote, “My best friends are rappers, my boyfriends have been rappers… I’m not the one storming the capital, I’m literally changing the world by putting my life and love out there…”
While by far not the best way to introduce an album, Del Rey still managed to debut at #1 on apple music charts and peaked at #3 on the billboard 200. However, beneath the controversy, a meticulous body of work was assembled.
Produced by Jack Antonoff, the album shows a new angle to Del Rey’s evolving character as she navigates love, fame, and controversy. The mellow songs are easy to relax to, making it perfect for the open road. On the other hand, the lyrics make a myriad of references to her previous works and past icons, making the listener put the album on repeat until they can make sense of the complexities.
Del Rey opens the album with the much-anticipated piece, “White Dress.” Before its release, Del Rey’s sister and many others expressed that the song would be sadder than her song “Pawn Shop Blues,” a melancholy song that perfectly expressed the hardship of letting go. However, this fell flat on release day and left many fans confused on why the two were even comparable. The rock-inspired piano ballad features Del Rey singing with a breathy tone as she describes her years before fame.
The song is possibly in response to the criticism that she is just a rich white girl with no other substance or merit to her. It was most recently sparked with the release of her poetry book, “Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.” Del Rey’s lyricism attempts to dismiss these claims by exemplifying hardships the singer has had getting to where she is, as the chorus sings, “Look how I do this, look how I got this/I was a waitress working the night shift.”
The subsequent and title track finds Del Rey singing about the complacency and ignorance Americans are increasingly falling into. The almost hypnotically parallel and clean-cut melody of the chorus changes its lyrics from two kids contemplating god to that same couple growing old and falling into “normality.”
The song serves as a social commentary on the way society sees conspiracy theories. Del Rey is not necessarily saying theories like Chemtrails are true, but that they need to be questioned. With the incredulous reputation conspiracy theories have taken over the past years, western culture is losing its once-abundant skepticism that has kept its power systems in check.
“Dark but Just a Game,” is reminiscent of the singer’s darker era, under the Ultraviolence album. The song shifts stylistically between mysterious yet alluring and indie-rock. It starts with the mysterious style and takes a subtle shift into indie-rock, only to abruptly relapse back into the mysterious style, starting the cycle over.
Lyrically, the song is focused on a conversation Del Rey had with Jack Antonoff, in which they discussed the tragic endings famous musicians find themselves in. The contrast in style reflects Del Rey’s realization in the two verses and the ramifications found in the chorus. Because of the ill-fate the famous meet, Del Rey expresses that she is content with where she stands with fame and does not want to conform to society’s wants at such an expense.
“Yosemite” is another lovely song, this one focusing on her love for her fiance. It is a sweet pop-country-styled love song. The song carries the story of Del Rey’s love life with the use of the motif, “Candle in the wind.” The motif is taken from the title of an Elton John song, wherein he describes the media’s pressure on Marilyn Monroe. The song portrays the media as the wind that would inevitably blow Marilyn’s flame out, signaling her untimely death.
Lana would first use this motif in her previous album where she naively states, “I ain’t no candle in the wind” to come off as independent. However, in “Yosemite,” she admits that she was once a candle in the wind, and in the discovery of her fiance, she understands how to love just right, without burning herself out too fast.
The rest of the album was riddled with love songs just as meticulous as the ones I previously mentioned. They all linger around pop-country, indie-rock, and bedroom-pop genres while Antonoff’s production aides in the message Del Rey’s trying to get across.
However, the production is at times lackluster. Although it is, for the most part, unique, there are several chord progressions and instrumentations that seem a bit too familiar to Del Rey’s previous collaboration with Antonoff, ”Norman F*****g Rockwell.” However, if the listener is not frequent to Del Rey’s music, it is likely to go unnoticed.
Despite being overcast by the artist’s poorly worded social media posts, Chemtrails Over the Country Club does well at expanding the ever-evolving web of connections and references that is Del Rey’s lyricism while also providing gentle melodies perfect for long retrospective road trips.