Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd by Lana Del Rey

CW: Mentions of sexual assault and rape

Lana Del Rey is widely considered the most influential pop star of the last decade. Her carefully crafted aesthetic and persona has captivated the minds and ears of many and inspired bigger-name copycats since she burst into mainstream relevance in 2012 with her first album Born to Die. Since that first album, Lana Del Rey has been gently pushing her sound to new places under new influences. She has also embarked upon gradually dropping the artifice and character that is Lana Del Rey that was created by her early work. This is to say that, in 2023, the pop star Lana Del Rey is becoming less and less distinguishable from the person Elizabeth Grant. This idea is perpetuated in her newest album, Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, in which Del Rey’s lyrics are sharper, cut deeper, and get more personal than ever before, while also incorporating new sonic influences that represent something new for the experienced artist.

Del Rey’s more intimate and personal direction on this project is obvious from the opening track “The Grants,” which is her family’s name. This track also immediately showcases Del Rey’s main stylistic experimentation on this album with the refrain, “I’m gonna take mine of you with me / Like Rocky Mountain High the way John Denver sings,” sung by three women in a gospel style. This is one of the many notable incorporations of religion that will emerge as a theme throughout the record. In this track, Del Rey reflects on her pastor telling her that “when you leave, all you take, is your memory.” She takes this line and uses it to reflect lovingly on her niece (“sister’s first-born child”) and her “grandmother’s last smile” and how she’s going to take those memories with her. As the piano gently plays against the soaring gospel backing vocals, Del Rey closes the song with, “It’s a beautiful life / Remember that too for me,” hoping to leave her own legacy and memories for people to take with them through their lives.

The title track is next and it explores ideas that show up later in songs like “A&W.” In the chorus, Del Rey channels a well-trodden path from her previous work on a need for self-worth and validation through sex with the lyrics: “When’s it gonna be my turn? / Don’t forget me / When’s it gonna be my turn? / Open me up, tell me you like it / Fuck me to death, love me until I love myself.” On this album, though, she views this issue through the lens of what it is like to be a woman as she ages out of her twenties as she sings about being forgotten (like the titular tunnel), and about being unable to love herself without external validation that becomes more difficult to acquire with time. 

Much of this album places Del Rey in the precarious transition period from young adulthood to the real thing, which is best exemplified by “Sweet,” asking her partner, “Do you want children, do you wanna marry me?” It seems he is actively avoiding the important questions about what direction in life they are to take together. The moving lyrics are placed center-stage and highlighted by subtle production, consisting mostly of piano and light percussion, as she delivers a strong vocal performance. Her haunting and breathy vocal stylings fit the foreboding and, at times, sublime content of her lyrics so well. “A&W” is perhaps the darkest song on the record, as Del Rey reckons with her destructive relationship with sex and her survival of rape: “It’s not about having someone to love me anymore / This is the experience of being an American Whore.” She goes on to ask probing questions: “Do you really think that anybody would think I didn’t ask for it? / I didn’t ask for it,” an incredibly powerful moment of vulnerability that also manages to subliminally take aim at critics who frame her previous work as glorifying toxic and violent relationships. The second half of this song is quite a change-up, with a harsh electronic beat backing Del Rey as she seemingly reverts to her former self, speaking to a man named Jimmy and maligning the fact that he only cares about her when he is high. 

The collaboration with Jon Batiste, “Candy Necklace,” features some great piano work from the Grammy winner and former right-hand man to Stephen Colbert, but the next standout track is “Paris, Texas.” It’s a gorgeous vocal from Del Rey as she speaks of packing up and leaving –– an allusion perhaps to the opening track –– but eventually returns home to find things have changed. The song is simpler than previous ones, which only adds to its appeal. The next track “Grandfather please stand on the…” is a song written in opposition to allegations of the singer being an industry plant. These allegations have followed Del Rey since the sudden breakout success of her first album “Born to Die.” The unsubstantiated argument states that no artist could simply rise to prominence in the way she did organically. Some ulterior motives of the industry, like Del Rey’s supposed connections, stacked the deck in her favor. This theory coupled with some shaky debut live performances, most infamously on Saturday Night Live, have left a scant few people suspicious of Del Rey and her success. However, instead of responding to these allegations with aggression, she responds in the only way she knows how to: weaving a poetic tale, thanking her family for building the platform upon which she could flourish into a whole, honest artist. On “Let the Light in,” Del Rey and Father John Misty match each other’s energies effortlessly. Though Misty only comes in during the chorus, he provides a nice harmony to a song about two lovers’ clandestine meetings in the early hours of the morning. “Margaret” is a nice track, blighted somewhat by the unnecessary inclusion of Bleachers.

The last three tracks are a relative drop in quality, and feel out of place. The interpolation of “Venice Bitch” on “Taco Truck” is particularly lazy and disappointing. But those last few songs don’t take away from the fact that, overall, this album is at the level of Del Rey’s highest-quality work on “Norman F***ing Rockwell,” “Chemtrails Over the Country Club,” and “Blue Banisters” that she has put out over the past four years. On this record, Lana Del Rey proves she remains artistically a step ahead of the rest, even if, in her eyes, she is “looking like a side piece at thirty-three.”