Culture

The queen of tumblrcore returns with her sophomore album boldly titled Ultraviolence, perhaps a reference to Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange? Thus, the pop culture collage that is Del Rey’s music continues. In all honesty, it’s almost easier to start asking what isn’t a reference when analysing the artistic output of Lana Del Rey. This is by no means a negative criticism, in fact Del Rey’s brand of retropop seems to thrive from this purposefully curated, almost-excess of nostalgia.

Shedding the hip-hop influenced percussion from her debut album, the songs sound now even more excavated from the heyday of baroque pop. With even grander instrumentation and huge, reverb drenched drums. This even deeper delving into the past could be due in part to Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys) producing almost the entirety of the album. Whatever it is, it definitely seems closer to the place in which Del Rey’s image was originally crafted. A manifestation of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. Young, tragic, helpless, jaded, doomed.
Now, whether or not her romanticisation of doomed love and dying young is a good thing is another story altogether. Lana Del Rey, however, does manage to re-imagine a few intriguing caricatures, and fitting soap opera fantasies to go along with them.

Ultraviolence starts off incredibly strong with a slew of singles. The stretch spanning from “Cruel World” to “West Coast” is undoubtedly the peak of the album. Del Rey has a knack for crafting beautiful, melancholic, infectious melodies and it is on full display during the first 26 minutes.

Lyrically there are some entertaining moments but a lot of it counts on you to buy into the drama. Title track “Ultraviolence” borrows an old line from The Crystals, “he hit me and it felt like a kiss.” The song seems to be about abuse, with a sort of Stockholm Syndrome scenario taking place. “Shades of Cool” is another take on a destructive relationship. “Brooklyn Baby,” as strong as it is, almost seems tongue-in-cheek. The song is centred around a girl who has a rad jazz collection and gets down to beat poetry. As hard as it may be to believe, it doesn’t really get any more interesting thematically, just slightly more annoying, as Del Rey starts really parodying her image with songs like “Money Power Glory” and “Fucked My Way Up To The Top.”

This is not a bad record by any means, in fact at times it’s good. It does, however, require an understanding of where Del Rey is coming from to really enjoy it. To view it in its most optimistic way, Ultraviolence is an interesting character study, with Del Rey playing either a doomed femme fatale or Lolita-type character.