I've posted some questionable things on the blog before... most notable was my brief obsession with
Japanese singles for those early 80's MTV hits. Those records, however, were very much a comfort for me during a period where America's political climate had me angry and depressed a lot of the time, so I felt justified posting them here. But with this latest record that I picked up, I wasn't so sure if I should include it on a blog that mostly focuses on hardcore and metal. When I saw the post that Marcus did for
Olivia Rodrigo a couple of months back, it cleared my head of this doubt. Even though this falls outside of what I normally buy for records, it is very much a snapshot of where my head is at... plus if I've learned anything over the past year it's that I won't limit myself to the restrictive musical views I've held in the past. This is my mind wide fucking open.
Last year, my friend Sarah introduced me to Lana Del Rey with her song
West Coast. I found it somewhat interesting upon first listen, but it wasn't something that I expected that I'd really spend much time with. It was way outside of what I typically listened to, but it provided a nice break in my routine, and after hearing it a handful of times it really started to work its way into my brain. Soon after, the song would pop up on a random shuffle and as soon as I'd hear those funky opening notes my ears would instantly perk up and I'd be like, "wait, who is this again?", and I started to be interested in checking out what else Lana had to offer. Through the Fall of 2023, I started making a personal playlist on Spotify for Lana Del Rey songs that I found interesting, and before too long I was really enjoying it and revisiting those songs daily.
Yeah, I was shocked as well... but still, I figured that I was really only going to get into some of her songs, and she wouldn't be a full album artist for me. That changed this year, as I started takind a deep dive into Born To Die... and then when that wasn't enough I started repeat listens of Norman Fucking Rockwell, and Chemtrails Over The Country Club. I don't know, man, there is just something about her voice that is melancholic and sad, and it gets me every fucking time.
Look, if you've been a long time follower of this blog, you know that I'm a sucker for alernative artwork for records. I can't resist a special limited cover... and Lana Del Rey has a number of those for her albums. So while I was thinking about buying my first Lana album, and checking those different covers, it only fueled the fire to want to get one into my collection. I'd been listening to
Chemtrails a lot recently, and the album has a couple of my favorite songs from Lana with
Let Me Love You Like A Woman and
Dark But Just A Game, so finding the red vinyl special cover for that album, at a really reasonable price, had me adding it to my cart and checking out. Writing this has me checking out other alternate covers for her records, so who knows where this will lead me, but I kinda want more.
I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this latest song, Tough. It's a collaboration with some hip hop artist that I'd never heard of before, Quavo, and I kind of expected it to be a bit underwhelming. I mean, how far was I expected to push my musical boundaries, and how much could I take?
I'm not sure if this song is going to appear anywhere else, or if it is considered a Lana song featuring Quavo, or a Quavo song featuring Lana...whatever... I'm just happy to own this song on vinyl and it didn't end up as a digital only release.
