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Lana Del Rey · S4 E2
Honeymoon
Jazz, trip-hop, and the slowest album she's ever made, on purpose
September 18, 2015. The first track on Honeymoon is a six-minute string arrangement with no drums, no hook, and no interest in your Spotify playlist, and there are thirteen more songs just like it.
"Lust for Life" ft. The Weeknd (Lana Del Rey, 2017). Two years after Honeymoon, Lana makes the most optimistic, commercial song of her career, dancing on the Hollywood sign with the biggest R&B star in the world. She could only do this because Honeymoon proved she didn't need to. Freedom to ignore the charts gave her the freedom to come back to them on her own terms.
“It was a tribute to Los Angeles and, because of the soundscaping — we had a lot of amazing strings — I think the mood was the narrative.”
— Lana Del Rey on Honeymoon, The Current, November 2015
The Sound of Not Caring
Honeymoon doesn't build to a single climax. It drifts. Strings wash over trip-hop beats, Lana's voice sits deep in reverb, and the tempo rarely pushes above a slow walk. Rick Nowels and Lana designed the album to feel like driving down a coastal highway at sunset with nowhere to be.
Sources
Complex
Pitchfork
NME
Lust for Life ft. The Weeknd, Lana Del Rey (2017)
After Honeymoon's deliberate retreat from anything radio-friendly, Lana swings the other direction and writes a pop anthem with a massive chorus. Listen for how the production opens up compared to Honeymoon's dense reverb: bright synths, a clean beat, The Weeknd's falsetto floating alongside her like a second instrument. There's zero defensiveness in her voice, no need to prove she's a real artist. That's the gift Honeymoon gave her: she already proved it, so now she can just have fun.
Sources
Billboard
Rolling Stone
Pitchfork
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Pitchfork's Honeymoon review represent for Lana's career?
The Verdict
Honeymoon lands in a strange critical space: too slow for pop fans, too lush for indie purists, too uncommercial for the mainstream. Some reviewers call it her best work. Others use the word "indulgent" like an insult. But the word you stop hearing entirely is "fake," and for Lana, that matters more than any score.
Sources
The Guardian
NME
Rolling Stone
Honeymoon: The Legacy
The Blackest Day, Lana Del Rey
From Honeymoon (2015). If the title track is the album's dream, this is its nightmare. Over five minutes of slowly building devastation, Lana traces a relationship collapsing in real time, her voice cracking in places she'd normally smooth over. This is the Honeymoon track that proves the beauty and the pain were always the same thing.
The Blackest Day, Lana Del Rey (2015)
"I just wanted to be held" she sings over strings that keep swelling but never resolve. The lyrics strip away the cinematic glamour of the rest of the album and leave something uncomfortably raw underneath.
What is the last track on Honeymoon?
Honeymoon is finished, and buried inside its 14 tracks is a love song that borrows from David Bowie. Next: "Ground control to Major Tom," a devastating goodbye, and the Honeymoon deep cut that fans call her greatest song.
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