#Nfr lana del rey album cover full#
NFR! is less like a novel and more like a journal full of scribbles, poems, questions and revelations, each more clear than the last. These are love letters and breakdowns and confessions, and while they don’t necessarily cohere to a single story, they’re all narratively rich. The references to music, art and literature, which include everything from Elton John, Neil Young and an actual Sublime cover to Sylvia Plath and Rockwell himself, are more vibrant in number. LDR isn’t presenting us with much new material on NFR!, but when those songs are all piled on top of one another, they sound new, or at least more at home.
Six of Norman Fucking Rockwell!’s 14 tracks were previously released as singles, while at least five others were teased in one form or another. Del Rey’s message of devotion, “The Next Best American Record,” is paired-down folk perfection that gradually builds to the final chorus when the sound of breaking glass shatters the formula altogether. Some vocal layering is the primary effect on the Laurel Canyon lullaby “Happiness is a butterfly.” But then another string-dominant serenade, “How to disappear,” features jingle bells and sounds like a chopped and screwed Christmas carol. Ballads have the space to just be ballads: The stunning title track has just enough cinema-score strings and harp flourishes, but smooth piano and Del Rey’s caramel alto are the main players. He’s an occasional maximalist, but on NFR!, he knows when to hold back-and when to occasionally crank it up. He’s the hooks master on Lorde’s Melodrama, a few songs on Carly Rae Jepsen’s Dedicated, and, most recently, Taylor Swift’s Lover. The latter achievement is thanks in part to Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff, who is slowly working his way up to Rick Rubin-level prestige in the producing world. You’ll know it’s something special about 15 minutes in-if not sooner-just as rusty acoustic guitars and electronic whirs mesh with stuttering psychedelia on the staggering nine-minute centerpiece “Venice Bitch,” which holds the album’s first great one-liner: “Fear fun, fear love / Fresh out of fucks, forever.” NFR! isn’t another slice of monotonous desert pop-it’s a lyrical triumph and a masterclass in pop production. Delivered with her signature slyness, this is a record that, while evoking decades of folk, rock and Americana traditions, feels so tightly woven into the fabric of today’s America that the word “classic” is an immediately obvious descriptor. But it’s so much more than an accessory for your Crosley Cruiser. You can still buy Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Del Rey’s long-awaited sixth studio album, at Urban Outfitters (in a $40 pink vinyl exclusive, no less). You were more likely to buy Born To Die or Lust For Life at Urban Outfitters than a local indie shop. Del Rey’s music was often synonymous with sameness, and her personal brand with a tired California cool-girl image. She went on to release five major label LPs that, while maybe singular within pop music, don’t really stand out in the context of her personal catalog.
Like Perry, Lady Gaga and Carly Rae Jepsen, she acquired leagues of stans-but also plenty of haters. She emerged in 2012 as the gray-eyed anti-Katy Perry, a pop star who preferred sultry sleepers over big hooks. From outside her corner, Lana Del Rey has always appeared more aesthetic than artist.
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