Yet another artist who has previously topped a past Breaking More Waves album of the year list returned in 2015 with a new record that once again sees her sitting pretty in our top 10. Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die was our favourite release of 2012, but 2014’s follow up Ultraviolence found us a tad underwhelmed. Honeymoon however hits all the right spots. If anything it’s less commercial than her preceding work, but it also feels that this is where Lana is most at home. She’s created her most cohesive body of music to date, full of gauzy, highly sophisticated 60’s-styled ballads, mainly soundtracked by languid orchestral strings and horns. Don’t expect any bangers on this one; the songs on Honeymoon make Video Games seem like a happy-clappy-dancefloor-anthem. This is a record that if played live would best suit a residency in a theatre or a showcase at London’s Royal Albert Hall. In concept (rather than its sonics) it’s very similar to the Grimes record Art Angels, insofar as it’s still very much a pop record, but it’s far removed from the standard knock ‘em out by numbers mainstream electronic club anthems that the vast majority of our modern pop stars are churning out.
When Lana Del Rey first arrived on the scene the internet got caught up in the ridiculous argument of authenticity, somehow spending as much time discussing Lana’s lips, as the music. Thankfully time has moved on and now people are beginning to understand what Lana Del Rey is and what Lana Del Rey does. Some of that is to provide characterisation through her lyrics, which sometimes hint at being the real Lizzy Grant, and at other times don’t. “We both know it’s not fashionable to love me,” she sings on the album’s opening lyric, is that Lana singing or Lizzy? Frankly we don’t care who it is and if it’s fashionable or not. This is a wonderfully focussed record for which the word ‘timeless’ was invented. Let it smoulder its way into your life.
Lana Del Rey - High By The Beach (Video)
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