Escapology

It’s going to be sad that this will be another middling album from her. Forgotten with low sales, no acclaim, zero attention from the Grammys.
 
It’s worse because she is trying it with these tracks length thinking that critics will eat it up because it’s anti-trends and anti TikTok. Now it’s getting middling reviews. The album being uncommercial as it is won’t be seeing good streams either.
 

I really want to know if it’s normal for critics to be put in a single room with bad speakers to review an album. 

Oh this is dipping lower than the new Miley album.
 
I said I was saving myself for release day but the reviews made me want to listen to it now . 

Why do you care about critics and scores? 

And thank u. 
But for example, it annoys me that the album is praised all the time and it didnt deserve. We need to forget about this disaster. 

I like Lana over 10 years, i like what she used to do, but this.... I can't. And i dont need to force myself to like something i dont like, like the others. This album is not that good, and thats all. 3/10

From last week during my first BB listen 

i trust mike. he will turn the next album into a dark trap summer night's dream. it's going to explode and she's going to freak out. she has already let out the mess on dealer and bbs.
 

the way i've been fearing this review. i just know he's going to destroy her for comparing herself to Picasso and percussion clusterfuckery on BBS
he said IYLDWM was "just ok" so idk. he does not historically have the most nuanced appreciation for her music
i kind of think lana just told him to do something weird on WW and he was like uhh ok ill add some cruncy drums. 
same energy as when she told jack to really go wild with them chemtrails production and he just like added audio errors and a little subtle autotune lol

So -
We have Young and Beautiful, and now Beautiful. Do you think she'll do Old and Beautiful in 25 years?

if this goes over 1m daily streams this will end up being the signature song from the era, like how Doin Time was NFR’s . her management needs to get a video out for it ASAP . in fact 2 videos ! get her to do a cute lil homemade one quickly and then have a high budget one being worked on while the homemade does it’s thing

The way Dealer could save BB’s charts 

guys she was always free falling  A SMASH HIT. 

I love that there's no equivalent to LMLYLAW on this album.  The only track I skip is the interlude and that's barely a song anyway.

I'm sure Interscope is already trying to convince her but I don't think she cares  but she seems to really like Dealer so maybe we have a chance 

Beautiful is a cute song but definitely the weakest in the album and possibly the only skip for me. I don't hate it like some do but it is the least interesting to look at 
 
 
 
Also if we didn't have WFWF, TB & BB 15 months early, think of how nice of a surprise those tracks would've been if heard together with the rest of the album for the first time 

Ha-ha. My friends are pretty disappointed too. And it looks like the videos are generating hardly any views. 
 
I'm glad you like it, but I don't think this album will be remembered as one of her best by the world at large either...
 
And what is WW if not a piano ballad? Do you think it's not because there's 30 secs of a crunching beat added? The song is a piano ballad through and through.

So, now that I've given this a proper listen, I'm sad to report it's one of my least fav LDR records.  There are no great songs or bops (at least Chemtrails had White Dress and Honeymoon had High By the Beach), and this is sonically her least adventurous record to date.
 
Like, Ultraviolence was rock-ish, Norman was surf-ish, Born to Die was pop-ish, Honeymoon - jazzy, Lust for Life - hip-hop-ish, and will someone tell me what Blue Banisters was supposed to be? Piano-ish?
 
I feel like this album is directionless and encapsulates all of Lana's recent bad tendencies: from recording vocals in one take, to lazy and unadventurous production, to recycling her old songs. Frankly, I wish she'd just called a spade and spade and called it LDR: Unreleased, or LDR: B-sides.
 
The closest she got to having a direction with this record was the confessional poetry style ala Anne Sexton or Fank O'Hara that you find in Blue Banisters, Text Book, Wildfire, Black Bathing Suit, and Sweet Carolina.
 
But then the rest of the songs don't fit with that concept at all, especially Dealer or The Trio, or the super conventional verse-chorus Violets for Roses, Thunder or Beautiful. It's a mess. 
 
Track ranking:
 
8/10
Black Bathing Suit
If You Lie Down With Me
Thunder
 
7/10
Wildfire Wildfire
Blue Banisters
Beautiful
 
6/10
Text Book
Dealer
Arcadia
 
5/10
Violets for Roses
Sweet Carolina
 
4/10
Interlude/The Trio
Living Legend
 
3/10
Cherry Blossom (the new "production" ruined it)
 
2/10
Nectar of the Gods (ugh, her most boring track to date?)
 
Album rating:
6/10
 
Album ranking:
 
1. Norman Fucking Rockwell! 10/10
2. Ultraviolence 8/10 (too frontloaded, needed more meat in the second half)
3. Born to Die 7.5/10 (disappointing album on the whole, but many of her best cuts ever are on it so it's undeniably inspired)
4. Lust for Life 7/.5/10 
5. Chemtrails Over the Country Club 7.10
6. Paradise 6.9/10
7. Honeymoon 6.5/10
8. Blue Banisters 6/10
9. Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass 5/10
10. Lana Del Rey (never listen to this) 4/10
 
I really hope she takes a break and goes in a new direction next time. NO MORE PIANO BALLADS, PLEASE. I need the epicness of tracks like Ride, Young & Beautiful, West Coast, The Greatest, etc. 
 

I don’t agree with everything you’ve said but it’s refreshing to see a fearless review that isn’t a 9-10 calling it the greatest album of all time. I think it’s a fan bias to want to score your faves music so highly every single time. 

Lana told in one of instagram captions that the album explains what it was like, what happened and what’s it like now. So I understand the placement of those tracks but I agree with you in a way that track placements could have been better. 
 
My concern is her older tracks has simpler song writing compared to her newer songs with heavier and deeper songwriting. So it made older songs out of place in that sense.

I really like a lot of the songs but as a whole the album isn’t really clicking for me yet. I think it’s because the content is very contradictory in some parts, which is prob bc some songs are so much older than others. 
 
Like we have a song like Blue Banisters about her finding solace and independence among her friends and family, and being okay without a man. 
 
then a couple tracks later we have nectar of the gods which is literally about her self-destructing over a man and losing her way. Literally I’m doing drugs and wanting to die because this man doesn’t love me the way I want him to. 
 
Are both songs great? Yes! Do they need to be on the same album? Maybe not. 
 
I’m all for complexity and working out mixed feelings in the course of an album, ofc, but this kind of thing is a little jarring to me. 
 
It feels like some of these songs were made by completely different people. In past albums, she explored lots of facets of relationships and herself and her life, but there was always a very consistent thru-line. A central character or point or storyline. Here it’s just like a collage of random shit lol 
 
2013 and 2021 Lana Del Rey have virtually nothing in common at this point so I just think it’s a little strange they’re on the same album. 

As long as Flopde stans don't go on twitter and call out the sales numbers....
 

Main issue is the vinyls being delayed. The social would have maybe helped some but the nail in the coffin so to speak is the lack of her primary physicals this first week. 

just moved into my new apartment, introducing myself to the neighbours by blasting BB over and over again, windows open