I've never really understood Lana Del Rey. She is a figure that burst fully formed into the musical landscape more than a decade ago with a persona combining nostalgia for Hollywood glamour and classic Americana with a deeply contemporary melancholy — more Liz Taylor than Marilyn. She's broadly kept that persona going ever since, gaining a cult following among pop music fans. Three of her albums have gone to number one in the UK, a country which also gave her an Ivor Novello award for songwriting.
It can be hard to see the appeal. "Venice Bitch," the epic centerpiece of her most highly acclaimed record Norman fucking Rockwell!, epitomizes what makes her so ingratiating. Producer and frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff does his best Tame Impala impression with an extended psychedelic guitar outro lacking heft. Del Rey's lyrics rely on unoriginal, vapid clichés ("As the summer fades away/Nothing gold can stay") and inane wordplay like in the song's title (a play on Venice Beach), and her vocals, processed in the same overdubbed, distant style Antonoff would use on Taylor Swift's Midnights are solipsistic, disinterested, and monotonous. If she's California Dreamin', she might as well be sleepwalking.
