Lana Del Rey album review: She’s a good songwriter, but an even better singer

Lana Del Rey has been named as one of America’s best songwriters by Bruce Springsteen but she’s an even better singer

Lana Del Rey                Chemtrails Over The Country Club              Out now

Rating:

If pop went in for peer reviews, Lana Del Rey would be a professor. She has been named as influence by Billie Eilish, as a favourite lyricist by Taylor Swift, and as one of America’s best songwriters by Bruce Springsteen.

She is also industrious. In the 18 months since her last album, she has released a hit single with Ariana Grande, an audiobook of her poems, and a version of You’ll Never Walk Alone, sung unaccompanied, that was breathtakingly good.

She could easily issue a collection called Video Games: The Best Of Lana Del Rey and watch it conquer the charts. Instead she has made another new album, her fifth in seven years.

If pop went in for peer reviews, Lana Del Rey (above) would be a professor. She has been named as influence by Billie Eilish and as a favourite lyricist by Taylor Swift

If pop went in for peer reviews, Lana Del Rey (above) would be a professor. She has been named as influence by Billie Eilish and as a favourite lyricist by Taylor Swift

The persona remains the same, all damaged glamour, little white dresses and big black eyelashes, as if she had found herself in the pages of an old magazine. The titles are so typical – White Dress, Wild At Heart, Dark But Just A Game – that you wonder if she got them from a Lana Del Rey song-title generator.

The sound, though, has shifted a little. Some of these songs, co-written as usual with Jack Antonoff, are almost folk, and one is almost country. But not quite, because those traditions are about straightforward storytelling, whereas Del Rey’s muse is more of a post-modernist.

The song that flirts with country, Breaking Up Slowly, discusses a real-life relationship between two country singers. ‘I don’t want to end up,’ she sings, ‘like Tammy Wynette.’

Dance Till We Die begins ‘I’m covering Joni, and I’m dancing with Joan.’ That’s Joan Baez, now a friend of hers. Four minutes later, the cover of Joni Mitchell comes along: For Free, from Ladies Of The Canyon, done as an elegant three-hander, featuring Weyes Blood, Zella Day and plenty of piano.

Like her previous covers, it makes you wish she’d do a whole album of them. Her own songs are always interesting, but there’s nothing here as piercingly beautiful as You’ll Never Walk Alone. 

At the risk of contradicting The Boss, I’d say she’s a good songwriter, but an even better singer.