Contemplating Lana Del Rey: Chemtrails Over the Country Club and Beyond
In May 2012, five months after Lana Del Rey’s breakout debut Born To Die, a 2006 demo album Sirens by May Jailer leaked online. With no known album cover, seldom-known track titles, and a still-uncertain release status, the fifteen-song compilation made as little splash six years after its inception. One thing was clear, however—May Jailer was Elizabeth Grant’s first stage name before landing on the now infamous Del Rey. Even more striking is how recognizable Grant’s artistic vision is in both projects, so many years and an entire career apart.
In contrast to the luxurious and cinematic soundscape of Born to Die, the exclusively acoustic Sirens sees Lana playing with the six cords she taught herself on guitar. She remains in her high and feathery vocal range throughout, only adding her future-signature reverb on one song. While in 2012 few would associate such an acoustic sound with Del Rey, if you were presented with only the lyrics of Sirens, it would be hard to place whether they were new or old songs.
Indeed, this first project plants the seeds to the themes and imagery that Lana would build her discography on: relationships with those on the wrong side of the track (“Is this what you wished? / To commit a crime?”); recognition of her darkest demons (“I’ve got a bad disease / will no one help me, please?”); her adventurous, American spirit (“Have a big degree in philosophy / But I don't know what I want to be / So I'm going into aviation”); and putting herself in the shoes of the married men she was seducing (“I have a great wife / And I'm tired of making / Decisions without thinking”). While later discussions of Del Rey’s narrative revolve around her submission to toxic men, May Jailer often argues for her own ambitions and desires, singing “My dreams are bigger than your junky pride.” Finally, in one of alternative music’s greatest premonitions, then twenty-year-old she declares, “Well, you know it and I know it, I'm gonna be a star.”
Elizabeth Grant would eventually find her way to the moniker Lana Del Rey, and even in the 2011 single “Video Games” that made her known to the world, Lana notes that she’s, “Livin’ for the fame.” But how has that worked out for her? Being the most successful alternative female artist of the 2010s and having Bruce Springsteen call you “one of the best songwriters” must certainly feel nice. But right off the heels of Born to Die, there were already inclinations that fame’s glamour was chipping away.
“I’ve been trying too hard with one pretty song,” Del Rey sings on “Ride” about the massive hit “Summertime Sadness” (albeit in its remixed form). By her sophomore record, Lana seemed to try and retake control of her narrative by sarcasticly singing, “I f**ked my way up to the top.” From there, however, the road continues to toughen for Hollywood’s “saddest, baddest diva”. In 2015’s Honeymoon, she admits, “I’ve got nothing much to live for ever since I found my fame.” By 2017, she was driving up and down the West Coast looking for a paparazzi-free shore to relax, eventually going through “13 Beaches.” In 2019’s critically-acclaimed Norman F**cking Rockwell, we find Lana buying a truck so the same paparazzi can stay away from her and her “Bartender” lover.
It is hard to talk about Lana and fame without bringing up her various... interesting moments that have drawn as much public attention as her music. From her hard-to-watch SNL performance, cultural appropriation accusations, to her (according to her) out of context, “I wish I was dead” interview, as well as her more recent tone-deaf “Question for the culture” and mesh-mask outings. She cannot let the music speak for itself, as the music is essentially the diary of Elizabeth Grant. It’s no wonder that lines like “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” have drummed up a frenzy from listeners.
Time and time again, however, she has refused to back down. There is no mystery as to why she covered Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” but it’s fair to say that people actually understood Lana Del Rey quite well. Regardless of how well-intentioned she may be, the spotlight continues to burn Del Rey again and again. Either way, fifteen years after putting herself on a path to stardom, on Chemtrails Over The Country Club, Lana Del Rey continues to wonder if she can handle the firestorm of fame.
Straight from the opener, Lana places herself thinking about the good ol’ days of being a waitress at nineteen: “I wasn't famous / Just listening to Kings of Leon to the beat.” While Del Rey is often characterized for her nostalgia for bygone eras, here the nostalgia is vivid and grounded. Her strained, high-register and whispery vocals struggle to fit some syllables into the melody. The instrumentation is sparse but builds into a stunning bridge. Despite its oddity, you get exactly what Lana means when she sings, “Somehow it made me feel / Made me feel like a god.”
From there on, the album’s title track is similarly nostalgic—though it is present-day Lana with her jewels on and under the chemtrails. There is a tinge of self-awareness about her privilege, and Lana continues to battle popular conceptions as she proclaims, “I'm not unhinged or unhappy, I'm just wild.” I don’t think anyone knocks her for being a free spirit, but the track serves as a dreamy encapsulation of the bubble Del Rey inhabits.
Lana then rides her “little red sports car” to new frontiers. The sultry “Tulsa Jesus Freak” continues the album’s growing sense of uneasiness with an interesting use of autotune and heavier instrumentation. The track’s layers of vocals and giggles are a sweet contrast to the oddness, quite fitting as Lana reassures her lover to not “be afraid of our love.” Although the next track, “Let Me Love You Like a Woman,” was the album’s first single, its piano-driven simplicity best fits within the context of the record. Lana is clear in her desire to leave LA and “talk about the good ol’ days.”
And so the record continues its trek across the Midwest with “Wild At Heart.” More than looking for new scenery, it’s clear Lana is running from fame’s exposure, as she croons, “The cameras have flashes, they cause the car crashes / But I'm not a star.” Lana’s versatile voice shines over the track’s country-tinged guitars. The chorus sums up her polarizing career aptly: “If they love me, they'll love me / 'Cause I'm wild, wild at heart.”
Jack Antonoff’s touch is best demonstrated in “Dark But Just A Game” with lovely percussion and synths. Lana battles with the “price of fame”, promising that, “I'm not gonna change/ I'll stay the same.” It's up to you to decide if that is a positive statement. The beat switches up into the more folky chorus is a stunning continuation of the album’s sonic themes, and from there Antonoff and Del Rey continue with the fragile “Not All Who Wander Are Lost.” Despite its bumper-sticker title, Lana manages to stray from too-cliche lyrics (though “'Cause every time I said no / It wasn't quite what I meant /If you know what I mean” certainly requires a doubletake).
The album continues to slow (stall?) with “Yosemite.” There is certainly a beauty to the track’s simplicity, as Lana manages to boil down love to its most tender sentiments. Even so, lyrics like, “We did it for fun / We did it for free / I did it for you / You did it for me” would not pass if it were not for Del Rey’s phenomenal melodies. However, sometimes such raw feelings don’t need the most complex lyricism to capture. To this end, “Breaking Up Slowly” is a simple country ballad that cuts straight to the point: “It's hard to bе lonely, but it's the right thing to do.” Nikki Lane and Lana sound beautiful together in the chorus, which makes the track’s short length a bit of a letdown.
On the other hand, “Dance Til We Die” goes on for long enough, particularly for being so far down the tracklist. Still, on its own, the track offers some of the album’s most beautiful moments. The chorus’ sax and optimism is fantastic. Carrying on the album’s themes, Lana is clear about feeling “burdened by the weight of fame.” Finally, the track’s bridge picks up with the best country twang, so good in fact that you wish the entire track had been that tempo.
Throughout the record, Lana namedrops many of her inspirations (Joan Baez, The White Stripes, Stevie Nicks, Tammy Wynette, etc.) so there is no surprise that Lana chooses to end an album about fame with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “For Free.” Lana hands the mic over to Zella Day and Weyes Blood for most of the track, with the latter having the last word of the entire record. While the track is by no means a standout cover, the original’s classic beauty is undeniable and both Zella and Weyes outshine Lana (though it seems that is Lana’s intention). Certainly, for an artist seemingly at one of the most bright moments of her artistic journey, Lana is happy to share the spotlight with rising female singers. It’s a nice gesture given that she was not afforded the same in her early career.
I began this piece with an overview of Sirens not just to show off my Stan-level knowledge of Lana Del Rey, but in large part to demonstrate the full-circle moment that Chemtrails Over The Country Club is for her career. While it is easy to say that Chemtrails is artistically richer and more complex than Sirens, at its core is an artist that has promised to never change. To her point, I really don’t think she has. For an artist that has often been labeled inauthentic and lyrically shallow, the past two records that have been thematically not that different from her earliest work have nevertheless garnered her best critical reception.
Aside from the autobiographical nature of her work, it’s hard to separate the art from the artist with Lana Del Rey. I don’t mean to minimize the artistic merit of her past two records, given that I agree that they are stunning pieces of work. At the same time, however, Lana Del Rey received lashings from both the broader culture and critics for a significant part of her career simply because of who they perceived her to be. Still the same blonde, privileged girl at heart, it is puzzling to see the confusion around her statements and music. The theatrics of Born to Die now seems like a projection of her desires to be seen within the music industry that had cast her out for so many years. Seeing how much it backfired, Lana’s feelings that “maybe I was better off” make more sense and why her sound has naturally swung back around to the folkiness Sirens.
Chemtrails Over The Country Club finds Lana rejecting the fame that has enveloped her life, yet she is at once proving her songwriting and melodic talent, fifteen years into an unimaginably grand career. What Rock Candy Sweet, tentatively due out this summer, may dish out is probably already mirrored somewhere in Lana’s past work, but this does not make the future of Del Rey’s discography any less captivating.
Unedited featured photos all sourced from here.
