Track Attack- "National Anthem"

"It's a love story for the New Age," Lana Del Rey coos on the bridge to the rousing "National Anthem." Since the career-making "Video Games" dropped a year ago, Del Rey's been offering up her own take on the love song. Del Rey's tracks are The Ronettes with a rebellious sneer, "gangsta' Nancy Sinatra" as she refers to herself. They're the kind of tunes everyone could relate to one minute and despise the next. After the SNL "debacle," Del Rey's performance was called the worst ever and shamelessly manufactured. Then Born to Die debuted and ascended the Billboard charts, stalling at the summit behind pop royalty Adele. For "manufactured music" the album was the perfect product, littered with love songs from the "New Age."

Nowhere is that "New Age" better defined than on "National Anthem." "Money is the reason we exist," Del Rey declares without so much as a snicker in the intro. At first the statement passes as a half-baked joke, or an indictment that misses its mark. But in a time where cash rules everything, its unimpeachable truth. As much as we long for love, we lust after money. It's the ultimate siren. Even as Del Rey shares an intimate moment with her man on the song, she can' help but ask "do you think you'll buy me lots of diamonds?"

Despite the indelible hook and stirring strings, the song would be nothing without the recently released video. The video is tailor-made for the commercialism as patriotism idea Del Rey posits. In typical Del Rey fashion, the visuals are paint-by-numbers where the palette's all sepia. Gone though are the nostalgic "found" videos, replaced with a riveting recreation of the JFK/Jackie O/Marilyn Monroe "love triangle." At the beginning, out trots Del Rey doing her best Monroe and coyly wishing President Kennedy (played by NY-rapper A$AP Rocky) a Happy Birthday. A$APs calm and collected as the round of applause dissolves, replaced by far-off cries from the assassination. 

We soon see Del Rey and A$AP hand-in-hand as the Kennedys out on the lawn enjoying a summer day as the sun beams into the camera. What follows is a montage of: the couple in a makeshift war-room, running along the beach, cutting a rug, and out on the lake. This image in particular is moving, as Del Rey stares into the camera and begs A$AP to call her his "National Anthem." At the time, the heaven in his eyes isn't enough, in a world run by money it's never enough.

Eventually the "anthem" becomes a nightmare for Del Rey as her husband's blood is spilled. "I loved him I loved him I loved," Del Rey affirms as the strings play a funereal figure. All the questions of real and fake are gone for her, the lines no longer "blurred." The blue in the skies means more than green ever could. For all the glitz and glamour, it's Del Rey's love that lasts the longest and has the greatest value. If the song's a love story for the "New Age," it's an aberration, conspicuously cast against type. 

In Revue- "Born to Die"

Face it you’re here because of one song, "Video Games." From the moment you heard those somber strings and mournfully plodding piano you were hooked, I know I was. It was an unmistakable melancholy, delivered by a voice that sounded strangely familiar. The harp bursts suggested a magical land of enchantment, free from burden, but we know better from singer Lana Del Rey’s words. “He holds me in his big arms, drunk and I am seeing stars,” she sings. Into that hypnotic world of love and hate, sex and rejection Del Rey brought us and we were powerless to leave.

Muted drum kicks buoy opener “Born to Die” and clatter into a shimmering static during the chorus. It’s a lucid opener, one that misses the mark, but still has us following Del Rey down the rabbit hole. As we continue on the journey, we see Del Rey fitting perfectly into Nancy Sinatra-sized boots on “Off to the Races” playing the ultimate femme-fatale. She revels in this on the magnetic hook, as her “old man” luridly watches her in a glass room.

That empowerment fades away on “Diet Mountain Dew,” where Del Rey breaks into faux-show tune singing over a propulsive drum beat. Wearily she sings, “You’re no good for me, but baby I want you.” Fully aware of her problems, but powerless to resist.

"Born to Die"

It’s been said that the string sections supporting Del Rey on the album sound the same. “National Anthem” dispels that notion, bearing a welcome resemblance to the string section of “Bittersweet Symphony.” It’s a song tailor-made for a summer day, gazing at the crackle of fireworks in the night sky, longingly staring into the heaven of a lover’s eyes. The celebratory ecstasy of the track lifts Lana into “Radio” where she gleefully mocks ghosts of lovers’ long-since-past. “How do you like me now,” she snidely asks, her “cinnamon sweet,” life a bitter pill to swallow for all those former friends.

“Carmen” is “Hot Child in the City” for the Y-Generation. An elegiac violin sets the stage for Del Rey’s haunting narration. “Darling, darling, doesn’t have a problem. Lyin’ to herself cause her liquors top shelf.” Carmen’s mean streetwalkin’ takes her to a host of beds, but none that she can call her own. At the song’s end, nothing has changed and she’s still “all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

Since the album dropped, a litany of critics has lined up to declare the record “dull” and Del Rey’s image manufactured. To which I can’t help but ask, when has great pop not been manufactured? The Ronettes were entirely a product of Phil Spector and are still attributed the pop splendor that is “Be My Baby.” They bemoaned that the brilliant “Video Games,” was a ploy. They piled on with the SNL performance, labeling it the “worst ever.” And what did Del Rey do? She took it all in stride, delivering an austere album of pop brilliance, rarely letting up. “The road is long, we carry on, try to have fun in the meantime,” she reminds us on “Born to Die.” Though that road is littered for Del Rey, she throws caution to the wind, cruising down a dark highway. Her golden hair blowing in a warm summer breeze.

"Video Games"