Lana Del Rey covers Rolling Stone Germany - April 2021

[Elle]

Lana Del Rey graces the cover of the April 2021 edition of Rolling Stone Germany magazine.

To order this issue, shop here.

 

Article & Interview (Translated from German)

Spoiler

For a long time, there was no space for other women in Lana Del Rey’s songs. If one did happen to appear, she was “The Other Woman”, a romantic rival fighting for the attention of her lover. Del Rey’s aesthetic, a mix of old Hollywood melodrama, sixties surf culture and American Dream-Nightmares lead her back time and time again to her portrayal of problematic relationships.

When she now sings “God, it feels good not to be alone”, she is not celebrating a man, but a new found circle of sisters. Quite a respectable one, as heard on “Dance Till We Die”: She’s dancing with Joan Baez on stage, Steve Nicks is on the phone and Courtney Love almost burnt down her home. Three icons of three eras. 

One of them is above everyone else, the original Lady of the Canyon: Joni Mitchell. Del Rey has been loving her for a long time, and finally dared to cover her. She chose a meaningful song, “For Free”, released in 1970, a song about fame and professionalizing one’s passion. Mitchell sings she is standing at a traffic light, waiting for the walking green, listening to a street musician. He is gifting his talent to others, he’s playing good and for free. Nowadays however, she is only playing for money.

Del Rey is accompanied by two other musicians, Zella Day and Weyes Blood, each of them singing one of the three verses. Del Rey’s starting like “Now me, I play for fortune/ and those velvet curtain calls.”

 

Ten years ago, after the viral success of her debut single “Video Games” conjured up conspiracy theories to explain the hype about her person – with no one explaining her success by her being an artist with a clear vision and chutzpah to make it happen - almost no one would’ve taken the bet that the singer in her mid-twenties with her sad-starlet-sersona would become one of the most important pop stars of the decade. 

But she did, even without reinventing herself with every album era like Taylor Swift: Her aesthetic, her attitude, her vibe only varied slightly. Slow, dark ballads with a lot of room for her breathy vocals, sometimes arranged with cinematic production, sometimes with warm Laurel Canyon guitars, sometimes with sedated Hip-Hop beats. Her images, however, have gotten sharper over time, her songwriting more precise, her summoning of a mythical pop-art-America has grown stronger with each political crisis and culminated in praise over the masterpiece “Norman Fucking Rockwell”

 

The reason for the scepsis around the release of her newest album is due to Del Rey being some kind of publicity hellhole. One she dug herself. Rash utterances which lead to unfortunate headlines have been a recurring theme over her career, but the frequency in which she made herself unpopular during the past year has been astonishing. In one statement, she explained how she was treated unfairly by the music press and the general public and named a handful of non-white artists who, according to Del Rey, were praised with no criticism.

In one her statements, she found stronger words: “When I dance at a pole, I am a whore. If Twigs does it, it’s art.”

Sometime later, to celebrate the release of her first poetry collection, she invited fans to a book signing, wearing only a mesh mask. (After criticism, she claimed she was wearing a transparent plastic mask beneath).

Then, at the beginning of the year, she released the cover of her new album – a black & white picture of her and her friends around a table, laughing in a supposed country club – and added in a grumpy statement “if you look closely, you see people of color”.

 

With her statements, she has probably lost her status of the next national poet, a title many of her critics have given her before. But she has never been the compliant artist, the compliant person the recent praise made her out to be. Until recently, she was provocative by embodying the American dream come true and confronting white America with the fulfillment of her wishes. (I have no idea what this is supposed to mean)

Separating between art and artist, always illusive, is particularly hard with Del Rey and is getting harder and harder: A world full of decadent luxury, originally part of her persona, has now become her real life. 

Del Rey can now afford her privileged distance, which seemed like coquetry for a long time. On the title track, she is wearing jewels at the swimming pool, she’s watching the contrails over the country club, calling them “chemtrails”, playfully referencing conspiracy theories.

They’re not disturbing to her at all: “We laugh about nothing as summer gets cool.

A club is something exclusive, a country club even more so. Their doors separate the American dream from the American reality.

 

But “country” also refers to the music. Country is the subtle filter over the entirety of Del Rey’s new work. Of course, she has not recorded a country album, she can only record Lana Del Rey albums. But the country singer Nikki Lane is featured on “Breakung Up Slowly”, guitars and pianos dominate the album, especially its second half. Western guitars, classical guitars, wonderfully closely recorded electric guitars, earthy pianos. And she sings about country-themes, about setting out, breaking out, and the impossibility of actually doing it. Lana Del Rey has talked with Rolling Stone about her new album – she answered our questions via e-mail, probably to avoid talking herself into trouble again. 

 

What is a frequent assumption about you that is not true?

That I’m feeling attacked for no reason.

 

What’s happening to the American Dream, when it has come true?

For me, it means: You know, who you are, and move in the world accordingly. In my case, it is a mixture of content and activism. I fill my own cup, but I’ve also got a lot of people whom I support and like to watch grow.

 

What do you not get enough recognition for?

In public, recognition does not mean much to me. In the bed room, however, I give my best to earn extra points.

 

What kind of instruction have you given to your producer, Jack Antonoff, a lot?

“Let yourself go!” “Be wilder” “Go harder for the end of the song!”

And every time I was at a dead end, I asked him for chord progressions I could sing to.

 

In some new songs, you sing about sanctuaries, the possibility of change. Has it become harder for you to deal with fame now, compared to some time ago?

The weight of fame will always stay heavy. Anyone disagreeing is very fortunate. I believe it takes an extraordinary amount of inner balance to not take opinions of others too seriously. No matter whether it’s about my poems or my songwriting – I always try to remember times when I had been especially happy, to dive into this feeling whenever I am having a bad day. It is good to have an impression of how “easiness” feels like.

 

Who should direct your biopic, and who would play you?

Oooh, I like the singer Holly Macve. And I suppose, it would need to be done in a John Waters kind of production.

 

Do you use the notes app to write down your textual ideas? Would you tell us what your last one was?

I have never used the notes app, yet – I always dictate, even if it takes ten or twenty minutes. Last, I have written an 11-minute poem. It’s called “My Father Told Me If I Went Slowly, I’d Be Safe – But He Was Wrong”.

 

Do you have a recurring dream?

Years ago, I dreamt I was on a barge in the middle of a huge ocean, with quiet, radiant blue water all around me. I was alone and knew that I would never leave.

Obviously, it symbolized a feeling of loneliness, but many years later I realized it was also about existential thoughts, that I needed to get my feet back on the ground.

 

What do you like about Los Angeles the least, what do you like the most?

I don’t like how it is connected with negative headlines and scandals. What I love about LA, obviously, is the weather – today, the end of February, it’s 28 degress (Celsius) – and hiking. I love the surrounding land and all the animals.

 

What is your most precious possession?

I can not say anything about possession, but to see my brother and sister happy is the biggest joy for me.

 

What do you see when you look out the window?

Today, I am seeing a palm. I have spent some time in colder regions lately and seen a lot of glaciers. I‘ve gotta get out of the city more often to write about the city.

 

You mention God and Jesus in many of the new songs. Why were you thinking about religious themes a lot this time around?

I have always had many religious innuendos in my songs. A common misconception is that I am using them as a cliché. But I have lived in a strongly religious community until I was 23, so I have always kept that in my mind. Later on, I have dealt with existentialism. As much as I enjoy the little things, I always keep the bigger picture on the forefront: Why are we here, what we do here. That’s the interesting thing about Covid: People isolate and they’ve got to deal with these basic questions.

 

 

Del Rey was born as Elizabeth Woolridge Grant in New York in 1985 as the oldest of three children. Her parents worked in New York in advertising and, shortly after her birth, moved to the countryside, to Lake Placid, a small winter sports location in northern New York.

There, she attended a catholic primary school and was the lead singer of the local church. She liked philosophy and creative writing, other subjects less so. During her teenage days, she began to drink and was sent to a boarding school in Connecticut. After her graduation, she worked as a waitress on Long Island, an experience she is singing about in “White Dress”, the opening track of her new record. Her voice is like we have never heard it before: Built-up emotions coming through the surface, her voice, more urgent higher than ever before, break through the shield of coolness and lacony.

 

“When I was a waitress, wearing a white dress”, she sings. “Look how I do this, look how I got this”.

Del Rey sings about her 19-year-old self from a present perspective (“I wasn’t famous”), but lets herself get carried away by the feeling of freedom and self-empowerment, a feeling coming along with growing independence. In the context of an album about the price of fame, this memory about her first paid job is the starting point of a thought experiment about a different life. What if the waitress in her white dress never became Lana Del Rey? Maybe, she implies, it might not have been the worst.

 

She moved to New York and studied philosophy, majoring in metaphysics at Fordham University. On her first EP, “Kill Kill”, released in October 2008 under the name of Lizzy Grant through the indie-label 5 Points, the basic elements of her later aesthetic already make an appearance: The breathy vocals, doomed love, the self-stylization as an American icon. To find something real in pastiche, to cross the borders of artificiality to sincerity, that was her project from the beginning.

She only needed a new name. “Lana” is a reference to Lana Turner, an MGM-star out of Hollywood’s golden era, whose biography is as glamorous and violent as the one of a Lana Del Rey figure: Discovered in a milk bar as a teenager, she soon became the best-paid pin-up model in town. Throughout her life, she was married to seven different men, with actors, musicians and a hypnotist. A violent lover stabbed her daughter with a kitchen knife. “Del Rey” is pointing to L.A., a neighborhood in proximity to the harbor. Her gaze was clearly directed to the west coast, southern California, a place of longing, the creative community of Laurel Canyon, the ocean view of Malibu, this was the dream, and she was an entire continent away from its fulfillment: At this point, she lived in a trailer in New Jersey.

 

Video Games, the first song Lana Del Rey released in the fall of 2011, made her an overnight sensation, an attraction, the talk of town of the internet. Pop culture of the 2010s were not prepared for all the swelling strings, the bells, drums, the melodrama in her deep voice, the unconditional devotion to her lovers and the sincerity of how she appropriated the femininity invented by men of a past era. The readiness to hate her was incredibly strong. The accusation, probably the most pointless one a pop star could get accused of, was her not being authentic. The way she was accused of inauthenticity over and over again can only be described as sexist. Based on the intensity of the reactions, one could probably see how successful Del Rey was in triggering the mainstream with her hyper-submissive Stepford wive persona. She was the pouting, glamorous submissive woman, who, at last, showed the artificiality of the American dream through her flawless American artificiality. She built her own myth out of the vocabulary of the US-mainstream: “My pussy tastes like Pepsi-Cola/My eyes are wide like cherry pies.”

 

 

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Lake Placid?

Camp Sunshine. My grandparents owned a holiday home where we lived during the summer. Kate Smith used to live there as well, and she sang in our choir. She is the woman who wrote “God Bless America”. My family was pretty patriotic, so naturally I had always been very proud and happy whenever we took the motorboat and drove to our holiday home, which you could only reach during the summer.

I remember how we used to turn on the faucets and how all the bugs and spiders, who hid there during the winter, came out. I have found that incredibly fascinating. I also remember, how I got comfy in Kate Smith’s patio, wrapped in one of her old quilt covers.

 

What is your earliest musical memory?

Performing for my grandparents in our own living room in Lake Placid. And to sit with my grandmother at the piano and sing. She belonged to the Episcopal Church, and I was catholic, but we did sing in the same choir. I remember how we created our performances, I was the narrator of “Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, and I had a part in “Jesus Christ Superstar”.

 

In your new song “White Dress”, you are singing about your time as a waitress during your teenage years: “Kinda makes me feel like maybe I was better off”.

Do you often think about what your life could be now, if you had not become famous?

Yes, definitely. Feeling like the same person throughout the day is the most important thing to me. I don’t want to live a double life. I often think, if things had been a little easier when I was a child, I had probably also become a singer, but not on a global scale. So, most of the time, I try to make sure my real life and my “what-if-life” match. It’s all about following your own Dharma!

 

Why have you waited so long to sing as high as you do in White Dress?

I was just goofing around when I spit out that chorus, but I did end up liking it and just left it like that. In many of my lesser-known songs, however, I have already sang pretty high.

 

What movie have you watched more times than any other?

I’d have to say “The Princess Bride”, which was one of the only movies we could borrow when I was a kid.

 

Have you ever seen a ghost?

No, never. But I am part of a pretty big community of clairvoyants. I believe, people are starting to understand there is more to the world than we see and feel. Also, because of my work in metaphysics, I have always been interested in female healers. It’s definitely one of my passions, everything from herbal medicine to resolving family karma.

 

Which Elvis era do you like the most? And if you could ask him one question, what would it be?

I believe, all the “Blue Hawaii” things, although I know he had been very unhapyy at the time because he was shooting so many movies. I believe, I’d ask him if he is happy now.

 

Is Elliott Smith an important artist to you?

Elliott Smith has been extremely important to me between 18 and 25. I had never really heard his music before that, and right as I had discovered him, he committed suicide. I can still remember how I arrived at the driveway of my grandparents and heard about his death on the radio and started sobbing because I just couldn’t understand it. The only other time I have reacted this way was when I heard about Kurt Cobain’s death. I try to no longer listen to Elliott’s music, because it is quite triggering for me.

 

“Dark But Just A Game” is a particularly moving song. How did it originate?

I was at a party of Guy Oseary (a manager and investor). It was a party with a lot of stars. Jack (Antonoff) was also there, and  I had to laugh about how all these stars at this party, they all went through so many different phases. I looked at Jack and said “I don’t believe I will ever change”. He replied “Good”.

 

 

“Chemtrails Over The Country Club” consists of 11 songs, is about 45 minutes long and is Del Rey’s shortest album to date.

In the past, repetition has gotten dangerous to her, remaining on the same vibe, but here, she’s holding attention all the time: “Dark But Just A Game”, the best song on the album and maybe even her best song in general, is taking many unexpected turns. It is transforming form a trip-hop track to an Elliott-Smith-esque elegy, moves from a bass-heavy shaker-beat to a dark, descending chord progression and ends in a crescendo of piano and strings. It’s dark, but just a game, she sings. 

The gaze of the existentialist. She’s talking about the fame, but also life, for it’s the same for her. Glamorous biographies originated as tragedies, the fame’s got it’s price, “a tale as old as time”, but maybe, she implies, she is the exception of the rule – but then, refutes herself on the next line: “Pretty little fool”.

Fantasies of breaking out are running through her lyrics, the escape to the countryside, the escape into anonymity, the escape into the high. “What would you do if I didn’t sing for them no more”, Lana asks at some point, and shes singing the question. It’s dark, but just a game.

 

 

 

[Rust Dress]

[Fireffie]

I've found also this one on the website! 

[Marius]

Learning german is finally paying off 

[lover]

she looks incredible, one of her best covers 

[Brenda]

It’s incredible how she manages to look gorgeous even with no makeup on - and seeing her smiling makes my day ???

[Fireffie]

Apparently it's already out, so it would be cute if someone here who lives in Germany would show us what's inside ❤️

For who wants to order it online here's the link:

https://abo.rollingstone.de/produkt/rolling-stone-ausgabe-04-21/

[Deadly Nightshade]

Wow she looks so radiant  when do we think this was taken ? 

[ThirteenthBeach]

she looks so  beautiful... oh my  goodness

[Lustformoney]

Manifesting a spill about rock candy sweet

 

[x VB]

3 minutes ago, deadlyynightshade said:

Wow she looks so radiant  when do we think this was taken ? 

July 2020

[salvatore]

4 minutes ago, Fireffie said:

Apparently it's already out, so it would be cute if someone here who lives in Germany would show us what's inside ❤️

For who wants to order it online here's the link:

https://abo.rollingstone.de/produkt/rolling-stone-ausgabe-04-21/

 

@electra girlie its an addition

[electra]

honestly, damn, this no-make up look is stunning on her

[Gothicula]

they said shes finally answering "their" questions so idk i wanna know what questions they asked her

[electra]

@Dominikx4 get in here girl we need the translation stat your the only gay we trust!!!111 

[Elle]

Thinking that the cover shoot could perhaps be from the same day she was spotted at the Spadena House in August 2020?

[DLT]

I love love love that cover photo. She looks so beautiful, literally glowing! Low key was never the hugest fan of the blonde but the color here is really wonderful.

[Dominikx4]

1 minute ago, electra said:

@Dominikx4 get in here girl we need the translation stat your the only gay we trust!!!111 

Lana Del Rey - America's enigmatic dreamer

 

is the full interview out already?

[Rust Dress]

Just now, Elle said:

Thinking that the cover shoot could perhaps be from the same day she was spotted at the Spadena House in August 2020?

wait this makes sense.however if this is true, why did they wait so long?

[bluefiona]

Who's going to translate this one? lol