Ultraviolence Reviews: 74 Metascore (DISCUSS REVIEWS ONLY)

[Jared]

Metascore 74 based on 29 Critics. 

 

Consequence of Sound 100

Entertainment Weekly 100

Pretty Much Amazing 91

Boston Globe 90

Sputnikmusic 86

Billboard.com 83

Spin 80

Now Magazine 80

Fact Magazine (UK) 80

All Music Guide 80

PopMatters 80

DIY Magazine 80

The Guardian 80

Los Angeles Times 75

Pitchfork 71

Rolling Stone 70

musicOMH.com 70

Drowned In Sound 70

Exclaim 70

Clash Music 70

Slant Magazine 70

New Musical Express (NME) 60

The Telegraph (UK) 60

The Independent on Sunday (UK) 60

The Observer (UK) 60

Chicago Tribune 50

The A.V. Club 42

New York Daily News (Jim Faber) 40

The 405 30 

 

 

http://www.metacritic.com/music/ultraviolence/lana-del-rey/critic-reviews

[rdp]

First reviews are up.

 

The Guardian - 4/5

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/12/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence-review

 

Your enjoyment of Ultraviolence may thus depend on how easily you can blot this stuff out. On the one hand, it's pretty persistently reiterated; on the other, the music does its best to make you ignore it. If it isn't exactly a radical musical departure from Born to Die, Ultraviolence can content itself with doing the same thing noticeably better. Del Rey and her new producer, the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, have toned down that album's tendency toward orchestral bombast, replacing it with a beautiful, gauzy shimmer of tremolo guitars and reverb-drenched drums, with a lot of attention clearly paid to subtle details: the scamper of brushed snare that propels you into the chorus of Shades of Cool; the tension caused at the start of Pretty When I Cry by allowing the vocal to crack and veer off-key; the way the queasy change of tempo in West Coast is heralded by a musical quotation from the Beatles' And I Love Her, as if to emphasise the gulf between that song's sweetly uncomplicated romance and the boozily dysfunctional relationship depicted here.

 

Gigwise - 9/10

http://www.gigwise.com/news/91745/album-review-lana-del-rey---ultraviolence

The album's title, a reference to Anthony Burgess's controversial novella A Clockwork Orange, is an appropriate marker for the album's tone. It's a dark, uneasy offering, and when it's at its best, it drips with a beauty that is as compelling as it is disturbing. Del Rey's vocals are at time angelic, at times haunting and discomforting - helped along by the carefully crafted mess of noise that accompanies them.

 

Slant - 3.5/5

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence

 

 

As on Born to Die, though, too much consistency can be a long player's Achilles' heel. Repeated listens reveal nuances, like the acoustic guitar bristling beneath the blues-rock verses of "Sad Girl" and the male backing vocals layering the final chorus of "Brooklyn Baby," but the album's steadfast narcotic tempo and Del Rey's languid delivery, doused in shoegaze-style reverb throughout, conjure a hazy picture of the singer swaying wearily in some sweltering sweat-lodge of a dive in the deep South. An appealing, cinematic image, no doubt, but one that, after 14 tracks, can prove to be enervating.

 

NY Daily News () - 2/5

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/lana-del-rey-new-album-bad-article-1.1826941

The new LP repeats both the decadent Del Rey persona and the murky sound of her breakthrough. But at least it varies the melodies some, and adds a bit more action. Then again, it's not like her sound could get more inert - or monotonal.

[KillKillQueen]

So The Guardian spends the whole review tearing her lyrics and general existence down, barely talking about the songs themselves, only to give her a 4/5? "lol you suck but this album is the shit"?

[MahaMaha]

So The Guardian spends the whole review tearing her lyrics and general existence down, barely talking about the songs themselves, only to give her a 4/5? "lol you suck but this album is the shit"?

She's talking with them about how she wanted/wants to kill herself because of the critics and journalists and then this irrational rating/review?! 

[Gangster Bitch]

So The Guardian spends the whole review tearing her lyrics and general existence down, barely talking about the songs themselves, only to give her a 4/5? "lol you suck but this album is the shit"?

 

Literally this, the review is downright insulting on a personal level, but the album gets a 4/5 ? I wonder what they write when they give a rating below 3. 

[DominicMars]

Ugh Guardian's wasn't as bad as NYT. Jeeze what do they have against this girl?

[Creyk]

That's it people give Lana more reasons to be bitchy and hate herself

[Coney Island King]

Keep them pressed, keep them angry, keep them polarized, the reactions of a star with relevancy, all eyes on her, keep em coming, keep the thirst alive yessssss.

[Sitar]

Guardian review is wild. Literally calls Lana a horrible woman by criticizing the supposed "characters" in her songs--all of which are actually her

[naachoboy]

Damn mess a 4/5 with mostly bash lol

[alltoowell]

How are these people even allowed near a keyboard? 

[Bekim]

I hope they all get aids ops 

[HEARTCORE]

I just hate how a lot of these reviewers personally vilify Lana. There's a difference between reviewing someone's music and explicitly attacking someone; I feel that a lot of Lana's critics overstep this boundary. I wonder what their views of her music would be if Lana released it anonymously.

[Coney Island King]

I actually don't care if a review hates the album, but at least TALK ABOUT THE ALBUM AND WHY YOU HATE IT.

 

So many bad reviews just go on and on about everything other than the music.

 

The Guardian review CLEARLY liked the album with the final score, yet the review was just a mumble of bullshit about Lana. Great, you don't like her, but you've rated the album well so you clearly have something positive to say about it, so....you know......can we....hear it, since its a MUSIC REVIEW.

 

 

[Mellollicious]

Slant Magazine: 3.5/5 (by Sal Cinquemani)

 

Leading up to the release of her glorified music video Tropico last December, Lana Del Rey declared that the 27-minute short film would be a "farewell." To what exactly was unclear at the time: Some speculated that the singer was leaving the business, a naïve suggestion given her preoccupation, however ironic, with the insatiable allure of "money, power, glory," or that she was simply retiring her stage moniker. Alas, it just marked the end of the Born to Die era, though returning to her birth name—Lizzie Grant, as she was credited in early releases—would have been an apt move, as Del Rey's third album, Ultraviolence, finds her stripping away much of the sonic, if not thematic, pretense...or at least substituting it with a new one.

 

The album jettisons the hip-hop-inflected baroque-pop of Born to Die and its follow-up EP, Paradise, though a few of the latter's songs, including the Rick Rubin-helmed "Ride," hinted at an impending evolution of this kind. There's still plenty of woozy atmospherics, and a synth line at the end of lead single "West Coast" sounds like it was lifted from an early Dr. Dre record, but these touches, courtesy of producer Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, are rootsier and less polished than the trip-hop-tinged flourishes of tracks like "National Anthem." Trip-hop is still a touchstone here, but only because of the mutual influence of jazz, blues, and film noir.

The ethereal chorus of the standout "Shades of Blue" is a decided contrast to both the song's bleak realizations ("You are unfixable") and expressive, deftly timed electric guitar solo, which more accurately captures the singer's angst, while the torchy title track puts an unexpected, and perhaps unintentional, twist on '60s girl group the Crystals' "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)." Co-penned by Carole King, the song was controversial at the time of its release for seemingly endorsing domestic abuse, the protagonist admitting to having been "untrue," suggesting that she got her just desserts—and liked it. It's an approach that's right in Del Rey's wheelhouse, but the ostensible offender in "Ultraviolence" could be read as not just justified, but a bona fide hero, striking Del Rey in order to save her from an apparent overdose: "I was filled with poison...I could have died right there...He hurt me, but it felt like true love."

 

Regardless of the interpretation, the song provides a revealing glimpse into the Del Rey Doctrine. Her disinterest in feminism—which she infamously declared in a recent interview—is, in effect, the ultimate act of post-feminism, or rather, humanism: Del Rey's lyrics present a woman who's unafraid of her feelings, no matter how politically incorrect they may be. And the LDR persona gives Grant creative license to do so without apology: She isn't condoning a situation, but simply describing one.

It makes the inclusion of "The Other Woman," a standard made popular by Sarah Vaughan and Nina Simone, an odd choice for a cover song given Del Rey is more believably cast as femme fatale than woman scorned. She's nothing if not self-aware, as evidenced by "Brooklyn Baby," in which she mocks holier-than-thou hipsters, but also counts herself among them (her boyfriend is, as she sings, "in the band"). The hook of the bonus track "Florida Kilos," co-written by Harmony Korine, is marred by Del Rey's Britney-grade vocal infantilism, and while that might make it the perfect theme song for the planned Spring Breakers sequel, the song's pop bounce doesn't jibe with the rest of the album's earthier qualities, which complement the Americana imagery Del Rey's been peddling for years.

 

As on Born to Die, though, too much consistency can be a long player's Achilles' heel. Repeated listens reveal nuances, like the acoustic guitar bristling beneath the blues-rock verses of "Sad Girl" and the male backing vocals layering the final chorus of "Brooklyn Baby," but the album's steadfast narcotic tempo and Del Rey's languid delivery, doused in shoegaze-style reverb throughout, conjure a hazy picture of the singer swaying wearily in some sweltering sweat-lodge of a dive in the deep South. An appealing, cinematic image, no doubt, but one that, after 14 tracks, can prove to be enervating.

 

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence

[Fusel]

I like that the above review actually talked about the music

[American Money]

I actually don't care if a review hates the album, but at least TALK ABOUT THE ALBUM AND WHY YOU HATE IT.

 

So many bad reviews just go on and on about everything other than the music.

 

The Guardian review CLEARLY liked the album with the final score, yet the review was just a mumble of bullshit about Lana. Great, you don't like her, but you've rated the album well so you clearly have something positive to say about it, so....you know......can we....hear it, since its a MUSIC REVIEW.

That's what kills me about the New York Daily News review, the guy gives it a 2/5 but doesn't mention a single song?

[dsvelca]

The guy from Slant actually gave BTD a higher rating.

[HausOfMark]

wow that new york daily news review :/

[ilovetati]

If one of my favorite indie bands made this same album, they would have received universal acclaim. Wild Nothing's incredible album, Nocturne, contains the same lyrical and sonic repetition but the critics adored it because of its apparent coherence. Lana did everything that the critics told her to during the BTD slaughter while simultaneously remaining true to herself, and the result was beautiful. The critics just don't want to contradict their former reviews and, as a result, give her lower scores than she deserves. It is also very discouraging that BtD was two years ago and critical reviews are still comprised of personal attacks. 

 

I already know that Rolling Stone's review will be a 3/5 at best solely because of their tone in obsolete articles about Lana. They simply cannot eradicate their personal biases from musical critiques.