What does Ultraviolence mean to you?

[renaissance 8,329]

For a project I'm working on, I'd love to hear your conspiracies and ideas about what you think the album Ultraviolence is about. Do you think there is a cohesive story throughout the album as it is, or do you think that when the tracklist is rearranged it is more cohesive? I'd love love love to hear what you think as the album to me remains very mysterious

[delley 215]

Buy Ultraviolence on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ultraviolence-deluxe/id880747579

[renaissance 8,329]

Buy Ultraviolence on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ultraviolence-deluxe/id880747579

Thx for your input  

[delley 215]

But for being serious now, I really think like UV is about summer, tough love and being limitless. Especially West Coast which shows us how nice it is to be in love, especially when it gets very hot. 
Pretty When You Cry is a nice song too, because at least for me it imitates how people need you, only when they have no one else around and we are just pretty in their eyes, when they need somebody for a moment, to make themselves better. um, Shades Of Cool is a very intense, when you're one of the many, and yet you remain the best of them. Brooklyn Baby is about her and Berrie which is my OTP and I will love this song for it forever so maybe it's a song about how good relationship is, when you meet your soulmate? UV shows itself how desperate we are for love, like literally we do everything just to be in it. Basically this record gives me attitude like I am the dragon and the others are just whores. Hope I helped. x

[PARADIXO 32,943]

I think it's about her feelings towards the two most important/relevant things in her life back then - her career and Barrie. Those two themes are all over the record; she's being sarcastic and plays with the media/critics acting the way they negatively described her (Brooklyn Baby, Money Power Glory...) but at the same time she's suffering over this depressed man and she loves him so much to the point the absolute sadness becomes mutual (Black Beauty, Is This Happiness, Shades of Cool...). I don't think Ultraviolence is a concept album though. These two topics aren't the only ones; her past is still an important subject throughout the project-- West Coast, Old Money, the title track, etc. It's much more conceptual sonically. It's angry (hence the dark and dense atmosphere, the heavy drums on Cruel World or Pretty When You Cry) and basically about being completely lost and mind-altered by the plurality of things happening at the same time (hence the elements of psychedelia, a genre that tries to go deep into the human psyche and emulates the effects of multiple drugs: a constant metaphor on Ultraviolence).

[annedauphine 35,905]

I think it's a big part of why I love it so much, I particularly enjoy music that tells a story and I can't help but think of UV as something like the soundtrack to a movie, the trailer video is one of my fav Lana vids ever because it synthetises this, like it's a story in black and white that could be a documentary à la Let's Get Lost or a sort of film noir that tells the boredom and the escapades of a fallen rich starlet in Los Angeles nights. It could be Lana how she dreams herself to be mixed to who she really is, inspired by her own life, it could be someone totally else, romanticized, it could be something else totally, but for me, rearranged or not, the whole album is a story that makes sense in any way it's looked at. Some songs feel like a drug trip, some like sex, some like depression, some like boredom, some like ecstasy, and it's them all put together that makes the beauty of the album. I said it before but each song as its place, I can't imagine UV without like Flipside, and I think that musically it's one of the extremely rare Lana songs I don't care about. I can count on my fingers the number of albums that have this cohesiveness. It takes all the violent and numb aspects of a restless mind and mixes it all in a swirl and the rawness of the voice, the repetitive lyrics as well, the bare boned production all contribute to it intrisincally. It's not just my favourite album because of the music, it's because the aesthetics, the red line, it just falls into place with extreme accuracy in regards of the overall vibe. It's not one aspect, as Paradixo was saying, it's several aspects that completely stand by themselves separately but create an immense work when put together. I could talk about it endlessly, I discovered Lana with West Coast and Money Power Glory and this album changed my life forever

[zedler 16]

Ultraviolence to me is very cinematic. Its inspired a script as well as an album for me and I think the tracks were placed in a very specific way. She has nothing, gains everything and then questions if its worth it.  Small details or references to songs throughout the album. On Ultraviolence she sings 'lay me down tonight' in the background which we know is on FMWUTTT. Loose tie sure but worth the notice. I could write an essay on it, but for now ya thats what I think lol 

[missdelreyxo 3,786]

solve et coagula 

[trayertrash 7,211]

violence that's ultra, like ur favs violence is kinda meh, but lana's is ultra. it slays 

[missdelreyxo 3,786]

I hope no one finds this offensive. But I'm thinking about this era from an artistic perspective. Ultraviolence is the crescendo of a toxic true love story. This is a theme common in my favorite movies who ill leave to the imagination. Summer 2014 the peak of my teenage years, the album was just released and I quickly went onto spotify. Literally four seconds into cruel world, I knew this was her artistic magnum opus. It spoke to the deepest layer of my soul. This album was very rough. Visually a burning white rose. Love letter ripped in half. A burning home. Closure on a relationship that was so bad it was good. Everything was in ruins. by Shades of cool not to be tmi I literally mentally climaxed. This album vocalized, visualized, dignified my intrigue in this type of relationship. The breaking point. In born to die she was his ride or die, he beat her, broke her, left her. She was blind in love. Then in ultra she was in the realization period. This is very much modern grunge. Very plush. The best of bad. 

[theviolence 5,837]

I hope no one finds this offensive. But I'm thinking about this era from an artistic perspective. Ultraviolence is the crescendo of a toxic true love story. This is a theme common in my favorite movies who ill leave to the imagination. Summer 2014 the peak of my teenage years, the album was just released and I quickly went onto spotify. Literally four seconds into cruel world, I knew this was her artistic magnum opus. It spoke to the deepest layer of my soul. This album was very rough. Visually a burning white rose. Love letter ripped in half. A burning home. Closure on a relationship that was so bad it was good. Everything was in ruins. by Shades of cool not to be tmi I literally mentally climaxed. This album vocalized, visualized, dignified my intrigue in this type of relationship. The breaking point. In born to die she was his ride or die, he beat her, broke her, left her. She was blind in love. Then in ultra she was in the realization period. This is very much modern grunge. Very plush. The best of bad.

YES GIRL :deadbanana: THIS IS ALSO MY VERY SENTIMENT

[Your Venice Bitch 39]

I love Ultraviolence so much. I feel the summer vibes and its magical. At first, i knew that It as talking about a love story, but it is a sad love story.... I loved the concept of the album, the beats, the melody and her voice which is so hypnotic and trippy. I find it different from Honeymoon and Born to Die-Paradise in all the aspects possible, even the lyrics.

[reputation 6,321]

Being in a relationship, which all has its ups and downs

[Shadowheart 3,813]

being in the most shittiest moment of your life, everything for you is so ultra violent

[WaitForLife 5,238]

For me it's a really personal album. It has a theme and I think it has something to do with depression or lost love. Every song tells a different story to this theme.

The reason why i love it, is that i can relate to it. It means freedom, pain, strenght, anger, confident, fear and hope.

[graham4anything 2,859]

I do believe that a times, Lana Del Rey was going to be a concept that Born to Die began and the immediate thoughts that Paradise completed the Born to Die aspect

also was, at that very time, the thought that that would be it for the "Lana Del Rey" concept. (which is why some repeat wrongly that Paradise wasn't meant to be a stand-alone, when indeed it was the link between heaven and hell and the link between 1-2-3rd album (Honeymoon would be the 4th and the new one the 5th proper Lana Del Rey album, although the 6th or even 7th or 8th Elizabeth Grant chapter

 

Ultraviolence also shows Lana moving to be THE leader of her "cult" (but in actuality, cult being the leader of Lana Del Rey, where everything and anything is coming directly from her, and she became the power trendsetter trailblazer leader in the industry through it.

 

Genius is handing over the production to one of her bitter enemies, and allowing Dan (and also using Dan at the same time) to give her the ultimate- that is

critical love and admiration from "the industry"  and the people that under their breathe slurred her in the past.

 

And also showed she was head and tails above the copy-cats that were stealing from her (Lorde in particular and Sam Smith) both attempting to gain their fame from her,

and (mimicking me's a f-ing bore, to me).

 

However, it was also the beginning time, that having tasted that fame, it was also something that was intruding on her life in a negative way and taking way too much

time and effort (as Adele has mused how much she admires Lana for putting product (album) out there, and shortly disappearing for a year only to do the same thing the next year, instead of having to run for a few years with no rest and no life)

 

Paradise, Ultraviolence, Honeymoon are total concept albums. Paradise and Honeymoon have on purpose, zero filler.

Ultraviolence had extras, but they all are not part of the official album, nor the official story (which somewhat sometimes gets people confused)

 

Story wise, the Other Woman, was what Ultraviolence was portraying, the seedy dark side of Hollywood exposed, the viewpoint never before heard from the girls point

of view in all the great film classics and also, the girl being the hero after all here (most of the 40s/50s/60s Hollywood the girl was there for show but the guy was the focus

(especially in the film noir categories).

 

So in essence, Lana=Robert Mitchum and Bogart in the reversearound rolls

and not only that, shows how the Mitchum's and Bogart's tossed around their woman and used them

Lana gave voice to those women

(it so cried out that Mad Men on TV should have used Lana's "Other woman" on their last or second to last episode of the series to show all the girls

Don 'ed and left behind, it would have been perfect placement).

 

It is also the lead-in to the Honeymoon, which was (as stated) the internal battle between Lana vs. Elizabeth and whether to continue or part ways

(with circumstances leading to continuing as it gives a separation allowing the time to just be what Adele was wishing she could do).

 

Which again is why the photography by Chuck of Elizabeth looking at the Homes of the Stars on that Bus of the stars trip (and theoretically passing by the home

of the star Lana Del Rey is so great (so great that many have not seen it).

 

now awaits the next chapter the continuing saga, one that might have ended had the Paradise album concluded the entire saga, but thankfully was a stand-alone

that the next standalone Ultraviolence, then Honeymoon has given the world

 

----- to break it all down in 4 lines-

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm ready for my close up Mr. DeMille"  Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.

b/w

"It's strange calling yourself" - Betty Elms....in David Lynch's masterpiece "Mulholland Drive"

 

"And now, I am Elizabeth, I am your wife" ("dream" Courtland has awakening to find his Elizabeth#2 has been kidnapped in DePalma's homage to Hitch:) and Vertigo in "Obsession"

 

"You know, the Chinese say "once you save a person's life, you're responsible for it forever"- Scottie in Hitch's masterpiece Vertigo

[Kommando 3,264]

I feel like it needs Flipside (and Black Beauty too) after TOW to tell the whole story, to me the narrative feels complete this way. I think it's just her most brutally honest work. It's so obvious how she is aware that her cheesy references and highschool worthy self dramatization are vain, on tracks like Brooklyn Baby where she's being really deceptive and ironic (and in ITH where she's literaly mocking Barrie, who thinks he's Hunter Thompson, the same way critics do with her). Yet these are everywhere, from accolades to underground jazz movies to 60s hippie romance. They are the lens which she filters the world through to sustain her existence. I think it's really comparable to A streetcar named desire in fact, she's like Blanche, who needs to romanticize her life through awkward quotations and manierism in hope that they will transform her otherwise repetitive, gloomy and plagued life. Because from Cruel World to Flipside, it all feels like a loop : all these nameless male characters who come and go, her attachement to the past, her inability to come through, her bipolar shifts between an aggressive, almost wicked attitude (Cruel World, Sad Girl...) to utter despair (Old Money, The Other Woman)... As if she was stuck, unable to communicate, to keep sane, to escape this dreary life without resorting to useless romanticisms or "going wild" (which, we all know from the lizzy grant & may jailer works, usually ends up really bad for her). So yeah to me it's like her resignation to this confusion, this morbid fatality. Which is also interesting because Honeymoon is slighty more hopeful, and I think the next record will narrate how she overcomes it all.

 

There's also this dialogue between her and her fame, her career... That she had since BTD but it's harder to decipher. Joy of music too.

 

Popmatters' analysis is really interesting too u should check it out

[Veinsineon 76,885]

Ultraviolence is One of the greatest albums of all time. Cinematic, dark, and gives off this old vibe liek you just blew dust

off of an old record and put it on the player. It makes me feel like I'm caught in between the hardships of a relationship so

I turn to easier means of relaxation ex. Drugs, sex, and alcohol, and then sometimes even running away from my problems

all together. When i get about to track 6 i start feeling an overwhelming sense of loss and heartbreak but when i get to around track 11

I start feeling like I'm better than what i lost and that I'm better without it. But if im listening to the deluxe version i never get over the sadness and eventually wish that i could. Then the album starts over in a loop format with Cruel World. Showing the real struggles and

Feelings and Emotions are cruel and not to be ignored. The entire album makes me feel Nostalgic as well for soemthing I've never experienced.

[Wild One 3,306]

The other woman

[floridashore 88]

To me the album is a juxtaposition between the hardship and heart break of love to the beauty of it. Both are expressed to extremes in the album, in nearly every song, and even through the visuals of the music videos. And though there are all these extremes- violence and tenderness, beauty and bitterness, etc, all the edges are blurred. It's all hypnotic and trance-like, as if all apart of a dream or a drug-trip, which, both sonically and visually, gives it a soothing tone as well as a chilling one that lingers. Although most of the lyrics are about some lost lover, there also seems to be a lot of introspection (especially in Old Money and Is This Happiness), which to me also resembles a dream, as they always feel like personal journeys in which you're completely on your own for, which I think this album is in some way. 

 

I love UV so much. The whole era is a masterpiece. It's just like it's own little world- like each one of Lana's albums, but something sets UV apart especially.