Chemtrails Over the Country Club

terrible

Mid table Lana Del Ray for me. The first couple of songs are quite arresting and lyrically interesting but it's not as satisfying a whole as Norman Rockwell. As ever with Lana it would be nice if she mixed it up a little with some different tempos, moods and textures.

Phew. While listening to the first track I thought I was about to suffer through a one star album. Luckily she then reigned in the falsetto and was climbing towards the stars before she threw in av Joni Mitchell cover at the end which got an instant deduction.

This album reinforced how much Taylor Swift has been inspired by Lana. Those vocal inflections, the runny deliveries, the artsy lyrics. It's a very soothing album, less intense but more cohesive than "NFR!".

I may not be much of a Lana Del Rey enthusiast, but I know "Born to Die" is the indie-pop 'i listen to something more obscure than Taylor Swift' pick, "Norman Fucking Rockwell" is the fan favorite, and "Did you know that there's a tunnel under ocean blvd" is the underground critic choice, but I've never ever heard of "Chemtrails over the country club".

And it's no wonder, it is quite dull.

The jazzy music compositions are actually pretty good, and occasionally her voice really shines through enough to push this just above a 3... but unfortunately the lyrics are so mind numbing and godawful throughout, AND she references Kings of Leon in a way that could be be misconstrued as positive, so I'm taking away a full point. 3.1/5 (-1 for the KoL) -> 2.1/5 -> 2/5

2/5. Over the years I have become much friendlier toward pop music and have gained an appreciation for a lot of pop artists both current and past and their place in culture/music history. That being said I have never cared for Lana Del Rey very much. I can respect just how influential she was to the music of the 2010’s, there is a direct line between “Born to Die” and all the moodier down-tempo pop that would come later in the decade, but her music and artistic persona have just never clicked for me, I find it all drab and boring. Most I can really say is that I enjoy a few tracks off of her album “Norman F*cking Rockwell.”

Which is all a long winded way of saying, Chemtrails over the Country club really didn’t do much for me. Even a track featuring Weyes Blood who I really enjoy didn’t make me feel much of anything. I’ll openly admit that this one’s more of a me thing and less about the merits of the music itself, but I just didn’t care for it.

Favorite track(s): White Dress, Dark but Just a Game, Dance Till We Die

You can tell that this edition of the list was published in 2021 because it's the only possible year that this quite boring album could be chosen to represent Lana's output. But this list has made me appreciate what we have, so she escapes 2 stars.

Only one song made my ears prick up.

Look…I love Lana. I love this album. But it’s an odd choice for this considering she had Norman Fucking Rockwell which is the 🐐 and also the very influential Born to Die.

Trochę dziwi mnie wybór akurat tej płyty do zestawienia, bo Born To Die, jeśli bierzemy jedną płytę z dorobku Lany, jest akurat dużo bardziej reprezentacyjny dla tego, kim ona jest i co robi w muzyce. Ale do rzeczy - to jest dobra płyta, w jej skali i w ogóle w swoim gatunku i klimacie 'old money daddy fucking wannabe'. Lubię Lanę i jej zakręconą osobowość w muzyce, dlatego godnie też oceniam ten album.

Very interesting choice of album for the list, coz it feels like a sequel to NFR. It's a 4.5, but I'll round it up to a 5, coz I'm sure I would give it a 5 if I had no context. Love almost all these songs, my favourite is Yosemite or Wild at Heart (and weird on top) but NFR is better x. Lovely cover of For Free at the end which is one of my favourite Joni songs xx

Question for the culture: why is Ladies of the Canyon not on this list, when 2 of the songs on that album have been featured as covers so far? (And it has Big Yellow Taxi on) Clownery really x

The singer's twee whisper was so annoying I let some flies and mosquitos in the house just to cheer myself up. Considered violence at one point.

Couldn't get all the way through.

2.18

Altijd al een giga soft spot voor Lana, maar dit staat niet eens in de top 5 Lana albums. Belachelijke keuze.

My prediction that this would be the kind of bland vocal pop music that I don’t usually like wasn’t completely off base. But some of it turned out to be less conventionally melodic and more interesting than usual for this genre, with some of the lyrics complex enough to make me want to look them up later on. I doubt I’ll return to this, but I’m glad to have improved my unfounded previous opinion of her work.

Favorite track: White Dress, which was quite poignant while not being cloying, and had a great video.

3 grew on me

If Lana took more time on this and combined it with the best ideas from Blue Bannisters and Ocean Boulevard, she'd have the greatest album of the 21st century.

But who am I to tell Lana what to do, when she's in inspired, inspirational, genius goddess with an immaculate voice and genuine standout personality in pop music.

Fun to read all the very negative reviews. Foo Fighters fans unsure what to make of autistic women.

Okay, so this is going to be a biased one. Probably my most biased review yet.
Firstly, I have to say, that i think this is a record, where the highs are super high, and the lows are kinda sounding like b-sides. With that out of the way.... I am not the biggest Lana fan ever, this is her only album of hers i absolutely LOVE. She has other amazing records, but this one stuck with me ever since it came out. And now the gushing:

THIS is the album that made me fall in love with hi-fi. This is where it all started. I got my Sennheiser HD600s, had them for a few weeks, they sounded good. But the level of quality that this record has, mixing, recording-wise is just phenomenal in my opinion.

If we don't even look at the lyrics, which i actually rarely do, the title track and breaking up slowly have been stuck in my head since 2021, and i have a hard time thinking they would ever leave it.

Not a flawless record, but easily one of my favorites of all time.

Not bad nor great

Some haunting tones. Better and different than I was thinking it would be, 3