Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd - Lana Del Rey: Review
Lana Del Rey
is an artist who really needs no introduction at this point. The pop auteur has spent over a decade growing a distinctive brand of mature nostalgic pop music infused with her irresistible personality and flare. After releasing what was essentially a B-sides collection in Blue Banisters quickly after her critical smash Chemtrails Over The Country Club in 2021, Tunnel is Lana's 9th official album.
Review by Lav:
My love for Lana Del Rey's music is the worst-kept secret I have on this blog. From the relentless praise I've dished out to her music as it's been released and even the various nods I've given to her discography before I began reviewing it should be clear to just about everyone that she's one of my favorite artists around. That's why after three amazing singles I was pretty much expecting this to be one of my favorite albums of the year. At the end of the day Tunnel is a very good record, maybe the best I've heard so far this year. But with a rut in the middle caused by some self-inflicted wounds, its full potential as a transition from her most vulnerable side to her most confident side isn't realized.
Let's start with the singles which all come in the first four tracks and are all some level of amazing. The title track has only grown on me since I loved it as a single last year and has a hook that I find more catchy every time I hear is with a cloudy mix that feels perfectly nostalgic. The Grants opens the album up with a heartfelt piano ballad that sees Lana showing off her sentimental side with a hook highlighting all the memories of others that she'll take with her wherever she goes. The real highlight is her gentle but utterly beautiful vocal performance. I won't fully get into detail on A&W since I'll do a much longer breakdown somewhere in the top 10 of my songs of the year list in December. It really is THAT good and has quickly become one of my favorite Lana songs ever.
The whole first half of the record really is just as thematically tight and consistently good though. The closest thing it has to a hiccup is a sermon interlude from Judah Smith that actually does sound great with Lana's little splashes of narration over it and it also works to clarify some of the intent behind the record's lyrical themes. Unfortunately, in line with Lana's history of being slightly controversial, she doesn't really seem to have taken into account any of the controversial stances on abortion or LGBTQ rights that Smith has expressed in the past.
Beyond that, it's a good run including Sweet which is all about how Lana isn't like other girls but with an instrumental and performance that feels much more stately and inspired by some dignified pop classics. You can also go ahead and add cany necklaces to the long list of things Lana has aesthetically heightened with her opulent metaphors on the song of the same name. Jon Batiste lends his piano playing and vocals to he song which have the right amount of flourish without overpowering anything.
Kintsugi is a pretty interesting track that sees Lana bearing her heart over a very stripped-down instrumental. It has the kind of imaginative songwriting you'd hope for, setting up the metaphor of putting herself back together like a cracked plate and then paying it off on the hook by diving into the ways that light can still shine through. I do enjoy the song quite a bit but it also represents the start of a bit of a slump on the record where some of the most indulgent and occasionally somewhat tedious tracks are placed back to back to back, but we'll get there later.
The record also ends with a killer run of songs that begins on Fishtail which sees Lana once again reflecting on her own past and interactions with family where the double meaning of fishtail is a nice touch. It's also yet another killer hook, a trend that continues onto Peppers which borrows its hook from a great Tommy Genesis song that I had kind of just assumed everyone forgot about. It fits perfectly with Lana's more sensual side and it's been a while since she's sounded this uncompromisingly sexy.
Closing track Taco Truck x VB is a mash-up of a re-purposed early version of one of my favorite Lana songs Venice Bitch with a fan favorite previously unreleased track. While I could debate the merits of including a song like this on a studio album and putting it in as thematically important of a place as the final song, the track itself sounds absolutely fantastic so even if you just take it as a bonus track it's a nice touch.
We aren't even done with highlights yet as the hilariously titled Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he's deep sea fishing has become a standout deep cut with this wonderful building arrangement and lyrics where Lana is surprisingly candid about the long-debated "character" of Lana Del Rey. I also think that Let The Light In with Father John Misty is another example of how under-utilized this collaboration is because the two fit so well together both vocally and lyrically.
Unfortunately, though the album chucks up very few misses some of the weaker tracks do come one after another and it makes for a bit of a touch-and-go listen in the middle of the record. Fingertips is a GREAT idea in concept, seeing Lana Del Rey take a Mark Kozelek spoken word approach to songwriting and unfolding a narrative across a long series of verses. The biggest mistake the song makes is failing to play into the directness of its format. With how poeticized the lyrics are and what instrumental flourishes there are I think it kind of misses the appeal of why a song like this can be so compelling. It also immediately follows Kintsugi which while great is also on the slower, longer, and more indulgent side. This leads into the next track Paris, Texas as well, the record's most boring deep cut with swaying melodies and pretty keys that it feels like Lana has done dozens of times.
With a few exceptions in the form of some duds from Blue Banisters Lana doesn't tend to REALLY miss the mark very often. Which is why I'm so confident in saying that Margaret is easily one of the 5 worst songs she's ever released. I was worried as soon as I saw the word Bleachers, which is of course Jack Antonoff's outfit to cosplay as a rockstar that has always been pretty hard to swallow. Turns out that terribleness translates perfectly into this song where he makes a truly awful contribution on the second verse which completely derails what was already easily the album's weakest cut.
Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd has the one thing an album needs to be good, a lot of great songs. What holds it back from reaching the highs of a Norman Fucking Rockwell or a Born To Die is that the thematic consistency occasionally comes at a cost and when those less compelling and more indulgent songs come one after another it can start to drag. But Lana is held to a high standard for a good reason and there's plenty to justify those expectations all over this versatile, beautiful, and thoughtful album. 8/10
For more great pop music check out my review of Caroline Polachek's Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
