UV

As you may have heard, Lana Del Rey's sophomore album, Ultraviolence has leaked a week prior to release. It was bound to happen and I am ecstatic.

The first time I was introduced to Lana Del Rey, I was enamored with her sultry voice that came in waves and waves and waves. There was something grandiose about her, everything grandiose about her. 

I hadn't heard anyone talk about her at all until I saw my then-guilty pleasure Katy Perry tweet "Lana Del Rey all day." I googled the girl, listened to Blue Jeans and then in one sitting, every other song she had ever written. I was so entranced. I loved her strong, chaotic stories and the beautiful pictures she painted in every single song. I specially loved the lyrics though; she was a slave to her loves, she sung about being a masochist, she was sad. She could be sad, she could be mad, she could be free and there was something so fresh and freeing about a woman who sung about being empowered by men- ironically, it sounded to me that she was a strong, honest enough woman to admit to her innermost feelings. There might be one lyric that sums up all of her first album and it's in the second verse of "Off To The Races": "I'm not afraid to say, that I'd die without him." 

Apart from her damsel in distress style, you still have quite the starlet. Diet Mountain Dew, Radio and Carmen give you a little taste of Lana and her relationship with herself, her American dreams, her love for her city, the women she admires. She paints a big picture of love, but in the background she includes her love for certain places, certain pop culture icons, and sometimes just beautifully-sounding words. All in all, though, Born To Die was an introduction to the world, a story about a damsel, heroine, a Hollywood starlet paving her way through and apart from the sold-out Katy Perrys, Lady Gagas and Rihannas of the day.

Ultraviolence turned out to be so much more. She had already set her creative place with Born To Die so I believe that in this album she gave herself freedom to create a different tone with more obscure lyrics and less of the sassy fluff we all came to love about her. 

 I don't include Black Beauty and I'm not quite sure if it's because it was leaked a while ago and I associate it with her other leaks or if it's because it truly doesn't sound the same.

Either way, this time around, LDR plays up her dangerous side with sexier tracks, less of the romantic swirls, more of the sensual waves. 

West Coast's californian vibes take you to a beach at night, Shades Of Cool takes you on a slow ride down the street in a Blue Cadillac, Brooklyn Baby sets you in a 70's era campfire with a guitar and your cool boyfriend.. (In which Lana's actual boyfriend Barrie O Neill joins her in singing about how much cooler she is than him.)

Guns N Roses is a song that doesn't mean to take you anywhere, Lana sings calmly and beautifully about her regrets about her "better than the rest" love and his love for the band. 

The Other Woman is a song you'd hear blasting from a cream-colored radio on a beautiful vanity in a fifties blockbuster.

Sad Girl is Lana's attempt at making the side-chick role seem glamorous.. A successful attempt at that. She croons about "being a bad bitch on the side" and warns others; "watch what you say to me, careful who you're talking to- I'm on fire." 

This time around, she's her most empowered muse, a stronger Lana Del Rey. More confident, more casual, but just as cinematic. 

It was everybody's question what she would be left to do in this highly anticipated album and she answered it proudly: still herself, still her production, she still calls the lights, the sounds, she just casted a different crew and created new stories from the embers of Born To Die and created a whole different monster..

A monster I know will become an instantaneous hit once it is released and hopefully a turning point for her naysayers, for in this she proves that she is not a posing, collagen-lipped anti-feminist hipster but an intelligent woman who uses her knowledge on literature, emotions and obsessions and turns them into magical musical art.