On March 29, Lana Del Rey released a two-and-a-half minute trailer for her upcoming album, “Lust for Life.”
The black-and-white video features Del Rey delivering a quirky monologue about her creation of the album. The style of the trailer mimics the 1960s television show “The Twilight Zone,” which everyone keeps pointing out even though it is unlikely most people actually watched the show.
Eerie sci-fi music plays in the background as Del Rey gives a strange and unusual performance, using telepathy to move random objects in her home in the ‘H’ of the Hollywood sign as she coyly offers up clues to what she has been doing.
While staying true to her indie-pop roots, the trailer seems to mark a transition from 2015’s “Honeymoon,” which featured songs mostly centered around love and heartbreak. Though the only single from “Lust for Life,” “Love,” is clearly about relationships, it is not clear yet how much of this album will be focused on love.
The trailer did not reveal any major themes for the new album, but in a charmingly self-aware, borderline parody of herself, Del Rey hinted at some darker themes and potential political undertones.
In an interview with BBC Radio 2, Del Rey said that this album is more “socially aware” than anything else she has done.
Multiple viewings of the trailer raises more questions than answers. Is the only object with color — a strawberry — a reference to a cover she will be doing, perhaps of The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever?” Is the “XO” she mixes into the pan an exact replication of The Weeknd’s record label? If so, will they be collaborating for the fourth time? Is the title of the album a reference to Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life,” which also explores dark topics?
The release date of the album was also not revealed, though there is speculation that it may correlate to the images of seven planets, and the offbeat “especially on Tuesday’s” line.
Based on the trailer, Del Rey is either preparing to thematically top her best album “Ultraviolence” (2014), or she is preparing to take Jessica Lange’s title as the Supreme. Either way, we are eagerly awaiting her next move out of “smack-dab in the middle of Holly-weird.”
