Lana del Rey, “Norman F*cking Rockwell” 8/10

Lana del Ray’s sixth studio album finally lives up to the hype surrounding the American singer. For a long time Lana has been praised as being one of the best female songwriters of our time. Listening through her back catalogue, however, shows that Lana’s discography lacked a lot of substance behind her titanic image. Finally though Lana has put together an album that has the feeling, power, and production thats deserving of the praise Lana’s been getting for years now. From the intro track you can feel the difference between this new album and her past 5 other albums. With its strong piano arpeggios and captivating vocals, the simplicity of the melody allows you to focus on Lana’s incredibly strong lyrics. Tackling gender norms, feminism, and love, Lana’s lyrics tackle these issues while never clinging to the pretentious teenage edginess that her previous albums bled of. The biggest duds of the album are the songs that fail to distinguish themselves. While there’s no bad tracks, there are tracks that fail to leave an impression. While this is Lana’s best record yet, it’s not perfect by any means. However, this new project shows a maturity to Lana’s sound that spells a good future for the artist.