Excavating, studying and ultimately mythologizing the self has long been Lana Del Rey’s M.O. To accuse her of self-indulgence would be to miss the point, when she has spent the better part of her career making an art of it.
At her best, she is a compelling main character, constantly analyzing and revealing the contents of her mind. She readily embraces what she is quick to identify as her flaws, rarely interested in presenting a sanitized image of herself. Her sprawling ninth album, Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (★★★☆☆) deliberately carries her preoccupation with herself almost to the level of an obsession.
Already no stranger to asking big questions, or at least the profoundly angst-inducing ones, Del Rey gets perhaps more existential than ever before on Ocean Blvd….
