Lana Del Rey’s new album ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ – everything we know so far

Lana's sixth is coming in August 2019

What with getting embroiled in a row over playing in Israel and holding a magic hand-binding ceremony to try to oust Trump, you’d think Lana Del Rey had become more pawn in international political disputes than singer these days. But never fear Reyettes, Lana’s sixth album is incoming, and here’s what we know so far.

 

Latest news:

  • Lana has shared a new video for two of the album’s new songs, ‘Fuck It I Love You’ and ‘The Greatest’. Watch below.
  • A new trailer for the album contains snippets of music
  • Lana Del Rey has confirmed that ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ is out on August 30

When is the album due?

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Lana Del Rey has told fans that the record will arrive on August 30, having previously teased the month of release during a festival show this summer.

At the end of 2018, Del Rey confirmed that the new record had been completed. In an Instagram live video, she said that it was “completely finished”, while hinting at the next song to be released.

What’s the album called?

The excellent ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ She told Zane Lowe: “Working with Jack [Antonoff], I was in a little bit of a lighter mood because he was so funny. So the title track is called ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ and it’s kind of about this guy who is such a genius artist but he thinks he’s the shit and he knows it and he, like, won’t shut up talking about it.

“So often I ended up with these creative types or whatever, and you know, they just go on and on about themselves, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ But there’s a little bit of merit to it also. They are so good. I just like the title track so much that I was like, ‘OK, I definitely want the record to also be called that.'”

Is there artwork?

Yes! On July 31, Del Rey shared the record’s cover on Twitter along with its full tracklist. Check out the post below.

What tracks will feature?

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‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ contains 14 tracks including ‘Fuck It I Love You’, ‘How To Disappear’, The Next Best American Record’, and ‘Bartender’. See the full list of songs below.

Norman fucking Rockwell
Mariners apartment complex
Venice bitch
Fuck It I Love You
Doin’ time
Love song
Cinnamon Girl
How to disappear
California
The Next Best American Record
The greatest
Bartender
Happiness is a butterfly
hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but I have it

View this post on Instagram

NORMAN FUCKING ROCKWELL tracklist next to Duke ?

A post shared by Lana Del Rey (@lanadelrey) on

Who is producing the album?

St Vincent, Taylor Swift, and Lorde hitmaker Jack Antonoff. The collaboration came to light back in August, when Lana Tweeted a picture of her self and Antonoff wearing matching outfits, and Antonoff has since been confirmed as producer for Lana’s new project. “We’ve been working since December. [Jack] comes out to LA for about nine days a month,” she told Mac, “We have a collection of songs that I’ve sequenced and I really love.”

What does it sound like?

“It was in the vein of a Laurel Canyon sound,” she told R1, “and it’s kind of transformed a little bit because there’s some surf elements to some of the songs – it’s not really surfy like Dick Dale but a lot of electric guitar, a little Red Hot Chili Peppers influence in there.” Not sartorially, we assume…

Can we hear any music?

 

Snippets of the album appeared in a new trailer, posted on Lana’s Instagram on August 1.

Her latest single ‘Doin’ Time’, a cover of Sublime’s 1996 song, arrived in May 2019.

This followed ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’, which was released as the album’s first public cut: a classically Del Rey smoulder of silken acoustic country music and orchestral washes. “This song is kinda about this time I took a walk late at night with the guy I was seeing and we stopped in front of his friend’s apartment complex,” Lana told Annie Mac, “and he put his hands on my shoulder and he said ‘I think we’re together because we’re both really similar, we’re both really messed up’.

“I thought that was the saddest thing I ever heard. I said ‘I’m not sad, I didn’t know that you thought you were relating to me on that level… I’m actually doing pretty good’. He was upset and that was when I wrote the song. I’ve had to step into that role where I was showing the way and being the brighter light… I thought I’d put it out and it would be one of those things that I felt good just to have out there for myself, but it’s cool to be able to share it with people too. I didn’t expect to do that.”

Watch the video below.

A second track, ‘Venice Bitch’, followed a week later. Del Rey told Zane Lowe it also features a reference to the titular Norman Rockwell, which “didn’t have to be there”.  “I don’t even remember if I threw it in there intentionally just to pop that message in a little further,” she said. “I can’t even remember what I was thinking, but I think when I was writing this song, it was a more happy take on love and it was just sort of about like, ‘I tour, you write. We make it work.’

“And also, you know, I love having painter references because I think sometimes when you’re writing you’re sort of trying to paint these ideas into existence because I’m very visual too. So yeah, I don’t know. I know it’s a crazy title, but that’s just the title of the record.”

Since then, Del Rey has teased two more new songs. One is a collaboration with Machine Gun Kelly, which the star posted a clip of on her Instagram page. Look, this is gonna end bad for you,” Kelly could be heard rapping on the since-deleted snippet. “I’m gonna go mad for you. I know you wanna be bad for me but I don’t wanna move too fast for you.” It is currently unclear whether the track will feature on ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’.

Days later, she teased a track thought to be called ‘Sylvia Plath’, named after the poet and author of The Bell Jar. In a recording that has also been deleted from her Instagram, the singer could be seen lip-syncing along to a recording of the song. It seems to have undergone some changes since then – on January 9, Del Rey shared new track ‘hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it’, which featured some of the same lyrics and referenced Plath in the chorus: “I’ve been tearing around in my fucking nightgown/24/7 Sylvia Plath.

During a surprise performance at Apple’s annual event in Brooklyn in October 2018, the star debuted another new song live. ‘How To Disappear’ saw her accompanied by the record’s producer Jack Antonoff on piano. The official audio was released days later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tQCaAFXcKc

On New Year’s Day 2019, Del Rey also shared a snippet of another song during an Instagram Live broadcast. The singer was seen sitting in a car singing along as a string-laden track played, with the lyrics “In your car, I’m a star/And I’m burning through you” audible.

https://twitter.com/DelReyLatest/status/1079907017899327488

In June 2019, Lana shared a snippet of ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’, the album’s title track. Listen below.

View this post on Instagram

Title track #normanfuckingrockwell @jackantonoff

A post shared by Lana Del Rey (@lanadelrey) on

Lana has shared a new video for ‘Fuck It I Love You’ and ‘The Greatest’. Directed by Rich Lea, the video sees Del Rey variously playing pool, on a boat, and at a bar. You can see the video below:

What are Lana Del Rey’s tour plans?

We only know of one show in the UK so far – at Dublin’s Malahide Castle on June 22. Eagle-eyed fans might notice that’s the week before Glastonbury, so perhaps we’ll see Lana down at the farm too?

Here are all the places you can catch her so far in 2019:

March 2019

22 – New Orleans, BUKU Music Art + Project

June 2019 

22 – Dublin, Malahide Castle
27-29, Odense, Denmark, Tinderbox Festival
28-29 – Stockholm, Sweden, Lollapalooza

July 2019

18-21 – Benicassim, Spain, Benicassim Festival

Anything else?

Yep, in April 2019 she shared one of several snippets of new music. In the clip, we see her singing an unnamed new song – captioned with mysterious new lyrics.

“You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are, when you’re lying in my arms baby. You don’t ever have to go faster than your fastest pace, or faster than my fastest cars,” she croons.

In March 2019, Lana Del Rey also uploaded what appear to be lyrics for a track titled ‘Quiet Waiter-Blue Forever’. The words begin: “You move like water sweet baby sweet waiter / Making the night smile to no one you cater / Silent wood worker from midnight till later.

The post was followed by snippets of another track, with the final of the three captioned as: “Some of my haikus from Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.” See the updates below.

View this post on Instagram

Quiet Waiter-Blue Forever

A post shared by Lana Del Rey (@lanadelrey) on

On February 19, Lana shared what looks to be a lyrics sheet for a track called ‘happy’. Either that, or it’s a rather beautiful poem….

Some of words read: “People think that i’m rich and i am but not how they think / i have a truck with a gold key chain in the ignition / and on the back it says: happy joyous and free / happy / and when i drive / i think about the last time my friends were driving with me / how the radio was so loud that we couldn’t hear the words / so we became the music.”

View this post on Instagram

a poem from my book….

A post shared by Lana Del Rey (@lanadelrey) on

Fans reacted to her Instagram post, with one person writing : “this is so beautiful :’)” and another saying: “This made me feel something ??”

In news beyond the album Del Rey released two songs in August 2019: ‘Looking For America’ and ‘Season Of The Witch’.

The former is a standalone song written in response to recent mass shootings in America, while the latter is a cover of Donovan’s 1966 classic recorded for the new Guillermo del Toro-produced movie Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

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