Ocean Blvd on Variety's Roundup of The 20 Best Albums of the Year (So Far)

[Louise 1,473]

Chris Willman's brief review left me crying . . . so elegant and understated . . . It is a summary of how the fans feel. At least the older ones, like me. I looked up Chris Willman on twitter, and he is not just out of college. This review is finer than any AOTY award. So beautifully expressed, what is in this Lana stan's heart from start "There's dynamite in this tunnel" to finish: "Lana Del Rey, accused for so long of striking a pose, may ironically have established herself as the most naked, least affected pop superstar we have right now":

If the mods want to place this post in the Ocean Blvd Post Release thread, I can appreciate that. But this summary captures Ocean Blvd album so well, I thought it deserves its own topic . . .

Let me quote "Is this her masterpiece to date? It might be."

The 20 Best Albums of the Year (So Far)
https://variety.com/lists/best-albums-2023

[Blackcloud 410]

I think Lana lays her soul bare like no other artist I’ve heard. Pain, euphoria, tragedy, all bound by enchanting poetry and wrapped in the most captivating vocals I could imagine 🙏♥️🤩.

[bluechemtrails 26,554]

this list mixes some of the truly best albums (including Ocean Blvd, Caroline Polachek or boygenius) with some of the worst like from Ice Spice or Sam Smith, so I don't know what to think of this list

[Louise 1,473]

6 hours ago, Blackcloud said:

I think Lana lays her soul bare like no other artist I’ve heard. Pain, euphoria, tragedy, all bound by enchanting poetry and wrapped in the most captivating vocals I could imagine 🙏♥️🤩.

Thanx! What a response! You said it lovely, too. Love Lanaboards, love ya.

Another quote I appreciate from youtube is: "A&W is a masterpiece for the feminine pain."

4 hours ago, Good Intentions said:

this list mixes some of the truly best albums (including Ocean Blvd, Caroline Polachek or boygenius) with some of the worst like from Ice Spice or Sam Smith, so I don't know what to think of this list

Lana is the only one I listen to . . . but I am happy Caroline Polachek made the list, because I respect her as an artist. Caroline posted an acoustic set to youtube during the pandemic. Caroline's untreated voice shines! Happy Chris made the list, but I can't read or listen to or watch anything by Chris for a while! Some artists I feel I have an emotional connection with . . . Even if it is only in my mind (full delulu), if the relationship goes south, I have to take a time-out . . . Also heard good things about other artists on the list . . .

Finally I listened to SOS via Jayll. I guess SOS came out last year. Sza isn't my cup of tea, except Nobody Gets Me, the folky guitar song . . . Not to detract from fans of Sza. I can't listen to auto tune vocals. That's why Charlie XCX I tried, I gave her a shot when she performed for PBS. She has the ABILITY. She can sing. She can hit notes. But she messes up her sound with auto tune. Nasty. Auto tune sounds offensive, to me.

Nobody Gets Me lyric mirrors Lana's experience with her almost fiance:

Took me out to the ballet
You proposеd, I went on the road
You was feelin' empty so you lеft me

This has to be what happened! It is rarified to be as successful as Sza and Lana are in the music business . . . yet keep their authenticity . . . and to contemplate a life-changing proposal! Because so few women are successful on that level - good AND original - they owe it to their public to not trash their careers. Yet the male ego is fragile - tough as men may want to appear. They crumble if it takes time to get back with an answer! Glad I am not in Lana's or Sza's shoes!

[PARADIXO 32,925]

I'll add these to this thread:

 

Rolling Stone, Best Albums of 2023 So Far

 

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The core of Ocean Blvd is Del Rey trying to get a closer look at herself, flipping the story as we have come to understand (and maybe even misunderstand) about what she’s trying to tell us. Through stories of her family, a failed relationship, her conflicting desire of being both seen and hidden, Del Rey exposes more than just who she is, but why she is who she is. Songs like the excellent “A&W” — named in reference to the phrase “American whore,” not the root beer — and “Fingertips” are two sides of the same life-storytelling coin. Each ponders sexual development, an estranged mother, and the harrowing reality of carrying trauma deep into adulthood. —B.S.

 

NME, The best albums of 2023... so far!

 

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In a nutshell: Beautiful, near-transcendent songs that revolve around the push and pull of love and its myriad forms
What NME said: “‘…Ocean Blvd’ might deal with some major existential questions, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had and cements Del Rey’s status as one of modern music’s most intriguing songwriters.”
Key track: ‘A&W’ (SW)

 

The Guardian, The best albums of 2023 so far

 

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Did You Know … rivals Norman Fucking Rockwell for making Del Rey’s claim to the Great American Songbook, yet it’s also one of her most formally inventive records. Elegant, moving future classics such as Sweet and Kintsugi sit next to deep familial interrogations that find Del Rey reckoning with her lineage as a daughter – and as a musician. She both considers the construction of her myth – addressing the rumours of “Some big man behind the scenes / Sewing Frankenstein black dreams into my song” early in her career – and resamples several of her own songs, as if to say: if critics can use her own oft-contested narrative as raw material to reshape as they will, why can’t she? Best of all is the haunted, defiant A&W, which writhes from the shadows into bitchy jump-rope rap, toying with perceptions of older women and imperfect victims, and revelling in ambiguity. Read the full review. LS

 

Consequence of Sound, The 30 Best Albums of 2023 So Far

 

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Lana Del Rey is a deeply interesting storyteller. Very few pop artists are willing to soak in melodrama, malaise, and yearning the way Del Rey does on …Ocean Blvd. While it’s hard to rise to the level of her 2019 masterwork, Norman Fucking Rockwell, her latest is easily one of her most fascinating collections of music and one of the best listens of the year so far. Even looking beyond the strength of “A&W,” there are some lyrics on “Sweet” and “Kintsugi” that are hard to shake. — M. Siroky

 

Billboard, Best Albums of 2023: Our 50 Favorites So Far

 

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As the name implies, Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd reveals the deeper realities of the singer-songwriter’s personal life, making it being one of her most sincere and well-crafted albums to date. Arriving eleven years after debut album Born to Die, Del Rey’s Ocean Blvd excels in its self-referential postmodernism. She places her family at the set’s central axis and calls back to melodies, themes and images from albums past, with songs like “Taco Truck x VB” (weaving in elements of 2019’s “Venice B–ch,” and perhaps even callbacks to earlier favorites “Lolita” and “Radio”) and “Fingertips” (continuing stories begun in 2021’s Blue Banisters) further expanding her world-building. Ocean Blvd shows how Del Rey has her own distinct universe of songs, one that’s increasingly well-defined with each project and constantly building on top of itself. — K.R.

 

Vulture, The Best Albums of 2023 You Need to Listen To

 

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2021’s Blue Banisters felt like a concerted effort at fitting the divergent moods and quirks of Lana Del Rey in the same space, but it was more intriguing as a series of snapshots of the artist at different points in her career. This year’s 78-minute follow-up, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, achieves what the previous album set out to do in earnest, melding stark folk songs, gloomy pop tunes, skeletal trap production, dour Disney energy, and deep California lore as it stages an unsubtly religious jettisoning of the pettiest concerns, the better to reinforce the artist’s bonds with faith and family.

 

Slant, The Best Albums of 2023... So Far

 

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Lana Del Rey spent the early days of her career folding American iconography into her precisely penned and lavishly orchestrated stories of tortured love. Gradually, she came to embody America’s deep-running contradictions, promise, and troubled history. In recent years, her imagery has become less symbolic and more specific, her songs populated by hidden Southern California locales and vivid discussions of her personal life. Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd captures Del Rey’s omnivorous stylistic influences and mixed feelings about family and fame. On what other artist’s album could “Peppers,” a hazy, surf-rock-sampling trap-pop banger, coexist with “Fingertips,” a loosely constructed, deeply devastating slowcore song about mortality and suicide? Ocean Blvd’s centerpiece, “A&W,” can stand in metonymically for the entire album as it morphs from a sullen, self-excoriating folk song investigating rape culture to a sneering playground taunt. The song, like the album, is expansive, internally conflicted, and a testament not only to Del Rey’s multifacetedness, but to her staying power as a visionary pop autobiographer. Mason

 

Stereogum, Best Albums of 2023 So Far

 

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Lana Del Rey really freaked it with “A&W,” but Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is also her most consistent album in years. It’s an intoxicating head-rush that sprawls out through her own family history as she navigates her place within that legacy with poignancy and depth. It feels luxurious and melodramatic in the best way. —James Rettig

 

Oh the album and A&W will be devouring year end lists

[Louise 1,473]

Thanx, @PARADIXO inhaled those nicely worded reviews! How cool is it to have the Best Albums of 2023 So Far summaries in one place! I didn't read some reviews where Ocean received less than five stars, because I thought they're phony, condescending. So I enjoyed your synopses.

[prettywhenimhigh 49,302]

so proud to be her fan for this entire decade  beautiful words about her work indeed, hope she read them 

[PARADIXO 32,925]

43 minutes ago, Louise said:

Thanx, @PARADIXO inhaled those nicely worded reviews! How cool is it to have the Best Albums of 2023 So Far summaries in one place! I didn't read some reviews where Ocean received less than five stars, because I thought they're phony, condescending. So I enjoyed your synopses.

 

Yes, initial reviews were rather mixed but not because of the music, the bad reviews were so poorly written, they discussed everything but the music, and still pushed the narrative of "Lana born Elizabeth Born to Die SNL 10 years have passed NFR classic Ocean Blvd dense and long"

 

It could easily be at 89-90 on Metacritic without those...

[Louise 1,473]

2 hours ago, PARADIXO said:

It could easily be at 89-90 on Metacritic without those...

Thanx, that!