Released: 24/03/23 (delayed from 10/03/23)
Lana Del Rey is the quintessential post-modern pop icon – her persona a fluid, knowingly (de)constructed mix of Hollywood Babylon-esque fatalistic glamour, B-movie tropes, the faded Kodak of 70’s Cassavetes films, and the digital hyper-kitsch of David LaChappelle; even her name is a fabrication, combining cinema’s ultimate femme fatale Lana Turner and the Ford Del Rey car, which was only ever available in South America (a fact which, for some reason, I find very interesting indeed). There are, then, ghosts to be found everywhere in LDR’s work, and I’m sure it’s only a mater of time before some enterprising PhD student writes a thesis on the reflexive hauntology of her oeuvre. But it’s not a matter of style over substance, for her style is the substance – the medium is the message – and the masterclass in baroque pop that is Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd proves once again that LDR is one of the most talented and mercurial pop stars that we have.