Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell!

August 30, 2019 - Polydor/Interscope

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant’s sixth studio album as Lana Del Rey, Norman Fucking Rockwell! (often mistyped by me as “Normal Fucking Rockwell” and henceforward NFR) is a powerful record in scope, production, and narrative. Grant’s previous albums have existed in my world loosely; I enjoy select singles from all five, but NFR sticks the landing of a great full package. Considering and expressing thoughts on lyric-heavy non-electronic content is not my strong suit, but I don’t like to linger on my extensive list of traits-in-progress.

NFR exists comfortably in the sepia-tinted, uncanny-valley snow globe that Grant has spent over a decade carving and building and delicately distressing. Much of the hour+ runtime of the album is presented in individually-wrapped mini narratives; the overall theme remains the same throughout, but the eyes and the voice and the reflection float about more amorphously. It’s a theme heard before—California is dusty, love is dirty, life is difficult. The lyrical treatment is sharper this go-round. Grant is able to play out these narratives over three or four minutes, spinning autobiographical content tightly together with dreams, fantasies, misremembrances. Grant presents an immense ability to feel and, crucially, an ability to paint with those feelings in a way that is impossible to ignore or mistake. Emotion becomes a tool. She’s Carmen Sandiego, but instead of stealing precious monuments from around the world, she’s stealing hearts and memories from the past in order to ensure their existence in the future. 

There are a few moments on the project that pull me out of the valley of perpetual golden hour. The second half of ‘Venice Bitch’ melts into a dissociative psych-rock roller that only works to try and cheapen the strong first half. I never really cared for Sublime’s ‘Doin’ Time,’ and Grant’s cover manages to feel out of place even with all the California allusions present on the album. ‘The Next Best American Record’ has a build that almost releases into some sort of AWOLNATION/Imagine Dragons bastardization. I say almost because it definitely never does land there, but the potential of that landing gave me enough of a fear I spent 15 minutes looking up those two band names that stuck themselves in the back of my mind. These really are small complaints though. 

The project passes with ‘hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but I have it;’ the title alone hooked me, and the five-and-a-half minutes that follow are some of Grant’s strongest. The track along with the opener ‘Norman fucking Rockwell’ bookend NFR perfectly; two pillars of nostalgia-soaked modernity dripping with sadness and softly glowing with optimistic faith. Faith in Spirit. Faith in Self. Faith in Something. The world is better with the music and musings of Elizabeth Grant.🍍

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