Like Hopper, Del ReyвЂ™s realism functions doubly as impressionism-literal representation as a means to capture the feeling of life in America. His work buzzed with the tension between tradition and progress, the cold power of the new against the sublimity of the natural world. Hopper painted isolated, voyeuristic scenes of the anxiety and ennui of an increasingly urbanized nation set against the totems of Americana (diners, motels, highway gas stations). And more than any specific predecessor within the folk canon, they remind me-as does much of Lust for Life-of the paintings of Edward Hopper, a realist who captured a new American landscape, as figurative as it was physical. These are titles that may have once implied a campy wink but now appear entirely sincere-songs for figuring out exactly where the fuck we are now. That impulse towards a communal understanding of her universe appears most obviously in songs like вЂњGod Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women in ItвЂќ and вЂњWhen the World Was At War We Kept Dancing,вЂќ two pared-down folk ballads with souped-up low ends (the former includes instrumentation by Metro Boomin, with errant gunfire punctuating the chorus). The effect is that of a slow pan, the frame creeping outward from Del Rey and stretching gently towards the horizon. вЂњLook at you kids, you know youвЂ™re the coolest,вЂќ she sings reassuringly, relinquishing her role as the protagonist. Perhaps the most significant departure here is evident from Lust for LifeвЂ™s first song, вЂњ LoveвЂќ-a warm, grainy, вЂ™50s-rock anthem (and by far the albumвЂ™s best single) in which Del Rey shifts focus from her own internal struggle to address her audience directly. вЂњIвЂ™d rather have static.вЂќ Beyond a symbolic вЂњPardon Our DustвЂќ sign for a nation in turmoil, itвЂ™s an apt representation of the moment Lust for Life captures-a record of transition, documenting not so much the result of a profound change in worldview as the process of change itself. вЂњIвЂ™m not going to have the American flag waving while IвЂ™m singing вЂ™Born to Die,вЂ™вЂќ she said recently, of her current tour visuals.

As it turns out, Lust for Life isnвЂ™t outright happy or overtly political (and thank god for that), though Del Rey is re-examining her relationship with Americana.

This would be Del ReyвЂ™s вЂњhappy album,вЂќ fans predicted-or worse, an obligatory pivot into wokeness. Even stranger: the tracklist is packed with features for the first time since weвЂ™ve known her. First, that smile, beaming from the belladonna of sadness, posed in front of the same truck from the Born to Die artwork. Two things immediately set Lust for Life apart from the rest of Del ReyвЂ™s catalog. Lust for Life presents her as something more interesting: a great American storyteller. For years, it seemed Del ReyвЂ™s artistry lay in her ability to offer herself as a concept pursued to its logical end. But her fourth full-length, Lust for Life, suggests that at its best and truest, Del ReyвЂ™s music is sublimely simple: one voice, one story, one meaning. Her layers on layers of symbolism can be disorienting, as I imagine Del Rey intends them to be, encouraging endless cross-references and deep-dive readings of her work that seek to apply some grand cinematic theory to it all-and perhaps there is. Her songs overflow with the iconography of America at its most mythic: purple mountainsвЂ™ majesty, rocketsвЂ™ red gleaming, Monroe, Manson. Still, even for the converted, itвЂ™s almost too easy to trip into the endless black holes of Del ReyвЂ™s universe, where Hollywood sits at the very center in glamorous ruin. Every word, every sigh, every violin swell, the Whitman quotes and JFK fantasies and soft ice cream. If thereвЂ™s anything about Del Rey thatвЂ™s obvious by now, itвЂ™s that she means it-all of it. Instead, doubling down on her palette of inky blues and blacks, the singer-songwriter has delivered a trio of dark, dense, radio-agnostic albums that stand wholly apart from any of her pop music peers. Since the drastically superior Paradise Edition reissue of Born to Die, Del Rey has neither swayed nor settled.

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