Lana Del Rey Announces ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’
Lana Del Rey is making news with some recent Instagram posts! In a lengthy text post last Thursday, and now in a new video post released this morning, Lana expressed her frustrations at how she’s been treated within the music industry since she came on the scene with Born To Die. She also called for a place for fragile women within feminism. Though it was not her intent, her original post was called out as problematic, with many people taking issue at her comparing herself to non-white singers. Before we dive into that can of worms, though, we do want to point out that Lana made some exciting music announcements. This September, she will release her next studio album, now titled Chemtrails Over The Country Club.
Music News
Within her new clarifying video today, Lana mentioned that her next album will be called Chemtrails Over The Country Club. This seems to replace her previously announced title, White Hot Forever. Based on the new title, it sounds like Lana will be diving into politics and conspiracy theories. Curious choice to bring up chemtrails, but our interest is piqued and we’ll withhold judgment until we’ve heard the new music.
In her earlier post from last Thursday, Lana also wrote that her new album will be released on September 5th. Given that the 5th is a Saturday, we can only assume that the actual release date is Friday, September 4th. In any case, we just have a few months before the album is out! And that means we’ll likely get at least one single before then, probably in early summer.
This comes just one year after her last album, the acclaimed Norman Fucking Rockwell, released last August.
Poetry Book News
Although we still haven’t gotten her first poetry book, titled Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, Lana has now indicated a second one is ready to go. In her video, Lana stated that she has two poetry books written. The title of the second book is still not known, nor do we have any concrete release dates yet.
Feminism & Harsh Judgment
Music and poetry news notwithstanding, the main point of Lana’s two posts was actually about her treatment – especially around the time of Born To Die, released in 2012. Lana points out that she was harshly judged and even belittled for her lyrics and image. Her lyrics often portrayed women in weak positions and in harmful relationships with more powerful men. Likewise, her image harkened back to Hollywood glam, the mid-twentieth century, and a time when when women had less agency. These elements of her music and image resulted in some backlash and claims of being harmful to the feminist movement, or even anti-feminist.
Lana also contrasted this with her perception of how other women have been treated. She identified women like Beyoncé, Camila Cabello, Cardi B, and Ariana Grande as representing similar themes in their lyrics and imagery, but also claimed that they weren’t treated as harshly by critics or the general public. Because of Lana’s choice of comparable artists, some thought her post was racist and trying to tear them down. However, it seems that if anything, she was celebrating their success and aligning herself with them… but also asking why she faced more negative press.
It’s unclear if Lana actually did receive more negative reception than the peers she mentioned; we’d have to do research and crunch some numbers before making any calls there. But we will say, we don’t see Lana’s comments as racist, but they may be a bit out of touch on the reality of other artists’ negative treatment.
Beyond all of that, Lana’s ultimate message was for a different kind of woman to be welcomed into feminism. While feminism loudly celebrates strong women and women who don’t subscribe to patriarchal expectations, Lana hopes for a place for other women: those who are “fragile” are more stereotypically feminine. Indeed, modern feminism is for all women – all people – and should be more welcoming.
Check out Lana’s two posts on the new music, new poetry, and her thoughts on feminism and judgement:
Norman Fucking Rockwell & Recent Songs
Lana just released her last album in August 2019. Following a host of singles – “Mariners Apartment Complex,” “Venice Bitch,” “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it,” her cover of Sublime’s “Doin’ Time,” and “The Greatest” and “Fuck It I Love You” – plus plenty of teasing and a live debut of “How To Disappear,” Lana finally released Norman Fucking Rockwell on August 30th.
It’s an excellent album that blends the best of Lana’s talents while pushing her ever forward. Read our full track-by-track review here.
Ever generous with her music, Lana released two additional songs on August 9th, although neither appear on her new album. She wrote “Looking For America” following the back-to-back shootings in the US in the first weekend of August. Lana then released the song just a few days later. Lana also recorded a cover of “Season Of The Witch” – originally by Donovan – for the recent Guillermo Del Toro film, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark.
In September, we got Lana’s new song “Don’t Call Me Angel,” recorded with Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus for the new Charlie’s Angels film. See the music video here.
At the end of last year, Lana put out a music video for three songs: “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” “Bartender,” and “Happiness Is A Butterfly.”
Future Projects
Never one to wait long between projects – or even stick to just music – Lana has several upcoming projects planned. In December, Lana announced plans to release a spoken word album on January 4, 2020. Proceeds from the spoken word album will benefit Native American organizations. However, it’s now May, and we still haven’t gotten the album; hopefully it’s still on-track for release.
On the day Norman Fucking Rockwell came out, Lana suggested that her next studio album will be called White Hot Forever. Of course, we now know it’s been renamed as Chemtrails Over The Country Club; it’s due in September.
Lana has also mentioned her idea to release of a covers album someday, one she would title Pacific Blue.
In addition to the future albums, Lana also has a film scoring project coming up, which will gift fans even more music. She’s composing for the upcoming film adaptation of Lewis Carroll novel Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.
And on top of all that, don’t forget Lana’s two poetry books, the first of which is titled Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass.
Chemtrails & More
There was a lot to process in Lana’s new posts, and we have much to look forward to! As always, keep checking back here for all the latest Lana Del Rey music news. We expect more news on Chemtrails Over The Country Club should be coming soon.
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