When Lana Del Rey released her sixth album Norman Fucking Rockwell! in 2019, it felt like a coronation. Beyond the immediate critical approval, the album was nominated for a number of GRAMMYS, including Album of the Year, and appeared on major publications’ “Best of the Decade” list. It was a fitting reward for a pop mainstay, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum — and it doesn’t quite capture just how influential she has been for an entire decade.

Upon the release of her major-label debut, Born To Die — released 10 years ago today, on Jan. 27, 2012 — Lana Del Rey arrived as a game-changer for pop and music as a whole. With an orchestral production flair and a deep sense of melancholy in her lyrics, she planted the seeds not only for her own success, but for the sounds that would guide some of the decade’s biggest pop stars. 

While it’s not Del Rey’s first album (she digitally released a self-titled album under the spelling Lana Del Ray in 2010), Born To Die did serve as her sort of formal introduction to the world. At the time, though, the pop landscape wasn’t exactly ready for her gloomier vibe: Dominated by the likes of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, a young Justin Bieber, and a newly minted One Direction, early 2010s-era pop was defined by brightness in sound and optimism in spirit. Sure, they sometimes sang of heartbreak and pain, but the pain was temporary, and usually backed by uptempo beats and bright, open synths. The stars and their music might have been sad for fleeting moments, but they were not necessarily sad at their core.

In comes Lana Del Rey, who was freshly signed to a deal with Interscope Records, and wasted no time shifting the perspective of pop music with the Born To Die lead single “Video Games.” The slow, sparse intro of chimes and harp — which opens into a symphonic flood — was unlike anything happening in pop at the time; there’s not even percussion until a snare drum comes in over the second half of the track. And while Del Rey’s voice has undeniable power, she lets it shine through a controlled and steady march, never belting.

The rest of Born To Die sticks to this sound, never straying from Del Rey’s vision of baroque pop. The title track begins the album with prominent strings, a common thread throughout the album — from the crescendoing roar of “National Anthem” to the eerie, haunting “Dark Paradise.” 

It was a bold and unexpected choice in the context of pop music at the time. What’s more, it wasn’t just done in a single song: Here was a full album that could embrace the trends of where pop was headed, drawing more from hip-hop than rock — deftly weaving hip-hop’s influence into the record with ad-libs and perfectly placed beats — while still making it sound like a full orchestral suite. 

Beyond sounding different, Born To Die felt different. There was no veneer of melancholy layered amongst danceable beats; all 12 tracks radiate a deep, profound sorrow. More than just mourning superficial breakups, Del Rey’s anguish reaches farther, whether it’s a world designed to pit women against each other in the name of “love” (“This Is What Makes Us Girls”); the commodification of beauty and womanhood (“Carmen”); or a profound nihilism and loneliness (“Summertime Sadness”).

The latter track introduced Lana Del Rey to a more mainstream audience 18 months after Born To Die's release, when French DJ Cedric Gervais dropped "Summertime Sadness (Remix)." The GRAMMY-winning remix amped up the downtempo original with synth-laden production and punchy beat drops, ultimately turning the track into a sleeper hit — and Del Rey's biggest to date — by landing at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Yet, the albums that followed Born To Die showed that tasting commercial success didn't steer the singer away from her unique stylings. And even if the "Summertime Sadness" remix had something to do with listeners catching on, Del Rey's sad-to-the-core music clearly made an impact: Born To Die went platinum in January 2014, five months before its follow-up, Ultraviolence, debuted at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart. (Not only is BTD now certified 3x Multi-Platinum by the RIAA, it has also spent 400 weeks — more than 7 years' worth — on the Billboard 200.)

The truth that Del Rey unveiled has pervaded throughout pop in the decade since. It's hard to imagine something like Lorde's intimately vulnerable Melodrama or the divorce-inspired tales of Kacey Musgraves' star-crossed or Adele's 30 resonating quite as deeply without Born To Die coming first. 

Sonically, it hasn't been uncommon for some of the biggest pop stars on the planet, from Kesha to Ariana Grande, to incorporate string arrangements into their tracks. Del Rey herself continued to pioneer the symphonic sound over the years, most heavily on 2015's Honeymoon.

Taylor Swift herself, whose sister albums folklore and evermore share a similar somberness to the softer moments on Born To Die, has acknowledged Del Rey's monumental place in the world of pop. While accepting the Billboard "Woman Of The Decade" award in 2019, Swift called Del Rey "the most influential artist in pop," adding that her vocal stylings, lyrics and aesthetics have "been repurposed everywhere in music." 

Born To Die also ushered in plenty of cultural influence, too. As Tumblr sees a resurgence, so does the sad-girl persona that is "Tumblr Girl," largely a mirror of Lana Del Rey's aesthetic. In fashion, flowing dresses, frilled jackets and flower crowns (which are now festival staples) can all be traced back to Born To Die's single art and music videos.

Though turning West Coast Americana into an art form is not a new phenomena, Del Rey popularized it on an unprecedented scale while also utilizing it to further her lyrical message. She flipped symbols of the American Dream — flags flowing, muscle cars speeding down the highway — from images of triumph into portrayals of sadness, like the male protagonist carrying Del Rey's bloody body from the wreckage in the "Born To Die" video.

Del Rey adds to those themes within her lyrics, smartly criticizing the rose-colored glasses that have tainted American history. Take Born To Die single "National Anthem," whose patriotic imagery builds up a dream relationship before revealing the pitfalls of a manifest-destiny mindset in the bridge. "We're on a quick, sick rampage/ Wining and dining, drinking and driving/ Excessive buying, overdose and dying/On our drugs and our love and our dreams and our rage," she sings.

The singer/songwriter has refined this approach since Born To Die, eventually perfecting it on Norman F</em><em></em><em></em><em> Rockwell!, an album named after one of the most recognizable American artists and searing in its cultural criticism. Del Rey first continued her Americana disillusionment with 2021's Chemtrails Over The Country Club, which sonically delved into sparser folk elements. Her second 2021 LP, Blue Banisters, brought back the emotional intensity of her early Born To Die days with even greater maturity and lyrical flair. 

Ten years in, Lana Del Rey has gone from boundary pusher to trendsetter within music and culture. She allowed pop to be sad, further pushed it towards its future of hip-hop and orchestral sensibilities, and crafted powerful imagery as poignant as it was memorable.

As she charted a path for something different, she also cemented herself as a critically and culturally adored pop star. Born To Die didn't just introduce the world to Lana Del Rey — it allowed her to mold it for years to come. 

2021 In Review: 8 Trends That Defined Pop

In today's viral era, internet personalities are not always hard to come by. But what isn't so easy to find is an internet personality with longevity — and Madison Beer has proven she's more than a fleeting viral star.

Beer started posting cover songs to YouTube in 2012, showing off her pop prowess and ethereal vocals at the age of just 13. She briefly went on the teen pop star trajectory after Justin Bieber signed her to Island Records that same year, but first found her true musical voice on her debut EP, 2018's As She Pleases. And once she took full control with her debut album, 2021's Life Support — co-writing and co-producing all 17 songs — she fully settled into Madison Beer the artist.

Now on the cusp of releasing her second album, Silence Between Songs (due Sept. 15 via Epic Records), Beer aims to expand on the mix of unflinching vulnerability and infectious melodies she's showcased since stepping into her own. She first gave a taste of that with "Home to Another One," an airy track that's a mix of Lana Del Rey and Tame Impala — two of her biggest inspirations, the former of whom even gave Beer feedback on the album. 

Del Rey's approval is one of many reasons Silence Between Songs is special to Beer, along with the fact that she once again co-wrote and co-produced every song. But perhaps the most important aspect of the project is the freedom she found through the nearly three-year process.

"As an artist, sometimes we're told that if we take a break someone will replace you, someone's gonna be coming up right behind you," Beer says. "I don't subscribe to that anymore, and I think that's been a really freeing thing."

Beer spoke to GRAMMY.com about how becoming more grounded in her personal life inspired the new music, and why, despite her online fame, she's "actually quite terrified of the internet at times." 

Congratulations on the release of "Home to Another One" and the album announcement. I would imagine it's nerve-wracking because one is never really sure how things will be perceived. What's it like finally starting to get everything out there?

"Home to Another One" I actually only just made six months ago, so it was one of the last additions to the album before I turned it in. It hasn't been too painful of a waiting process like the other ones. But I think the reveal of the album title was actually kind of the most intense for me. I've been sitting on it for three years, so to have it out there feels pretty surreal. But people's responses have been really positive and people feel excited, which I'm so grateful for. 

It is a bit of a new sound for me; it has a different energy from my other songs. But the real fans who listen to my interviews or see me on tour, they know my music catalog of things I listen to is quite electric or different; there's not just one genre I love. There's nothing I can do that would really surprise them, because they know I love all kinds of music.

Album titles, and titles in general, are always tricky. Tell me how you came up with yours, Silence Between Songs? 

I was really young when I first saw a poem or a book about this kind of idea. It was about missing someone, and it said "I miss you so much in between the time it takes for the next song to start." 

I always thought that was such a cool concept, and wanted to do something with that idea for my debut album. But when we started creating the album in 2020, the song "Silence Between Songs" was one of the first that we created, so it was the first title I had in mind. We worked off of that, and now three years later, it has proper meaning for me. I've grown so much since I started creating it, and the album is really about how you can grow by tuning the noise out. 

It's a testament to the title that you stuck with it for three years and nothing overtook it. How have you found that you settle down and tune the noise out? 

Definitely, the title has been non-negotiable for me since. But coming off of tour, it's hard to decompress and settle down. I actually did have a hard time coming back from my last tour, and coming back down to reality; you're just so crazy busy, and it's such a dopamine hit every day. It was a bit hard to settle back down, but it is in those moments that I learn the most about myself. 

Now I prioritize my alone time and down time; I let my body rest and don't feel pressured to go out and do things all the time. If I want to stay home and relax in bed the whole weekend, I'll do that. I'm trying to understand and not feel guilty for the downtime and rest times. 

As an artist, sometimes we're told that if we take a break someone will replace you, someone's gonna be coming up right behind you. I don't subscribe to that anymore, and I think that's been a really freeing thing.

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Is that why you felt like you had to keep going? 

I think in the past it was that thing of whether people I worked with or people online; this notion who's always going to be willing to do more than you and do everything, and if you aren't you're gonna get replaced. That was a real fear I had for a long time. I don't let that happen anymore, though. I've been dropped from a label and I've been replaced, so the fear is real, and for a long time I was quite scared of that. But I'm not anymore. 

Do you ever worry about revealing too much or too little of yourself? As an artist, too much may seem like oversharing; yet too little, you're not being totally honest. Where's the balance for you, and how have you struck it? 

It's definitely interesting to discuss, because in this day and age of social media a lot of us have this pressure to be relatable and likable. But again, I don't put that pressure on myself, because I think that I'm not the kind of person who wakes up every single day and feels the need to make a video about these personal things. I'm down to do it when I feel like it, but I feel it's inauthentic to force yourself into doing it just to be liked. So I try to just post when I feel like it. I think my fans know me and my fans love me. I don't need to win over the hearts of the general public in order to get my music out there and to be received. I don't want to ever force myself into doing anything I don't want to do.

"Home to Another One" is a melancholy anthem with a breakdown. I'm wondering what the genesis of that song was?

Well I thought, "What is my pop sound?" In the past when I've made upbeat songs, they've kind of been maybe not so authentic to me, or songs that I wouldn't get in the car and want to listen to. So I thought, "What can I do that is poppy and fun, but still is me, and not selling out to make a song that's classified as upbeat?" 

When I heard it, vocal-wise, it reminded me so much of Lana Del Rey. Would that be fair to say?

Definitely. I'm a huge, huge fan of hers and I feel she's integrated in me in ways I can't even pinpoint.

When you're writing music, as a co-producer, do you know where your songs are going to go style-wise off the bat? What's your process?

I am a co-producer on all of the songs, which has been another awesome endeavor of mine. I'm lucky to work with my amazing producer Leroy Clampitt who's willing, and actually eager, to hear my opinion, and wants me to co-produce everything. 

It's not really calculated, I don't think. It just really flows. It's kind of a bummer that we didn't have a camera in the room when we were making it, because I was really involved in every single sound that you hear. My relationship with Leroy is really special because I can make a sound like mmmmm and he'll know what I mean. Everything is very meticulously planned, but it's not like, "I want this type of synth." We let the song flow. and build as we go.

A lot of artists are credited as co-writers on songs, but not many are credited as co-producers. Why was it important for you to be credited as a co-producer on your own tracks? 

Working with the same producer for five-plus years now, I feel like I can voice my opinion and it not be weird. Leroy was the one who was gracious enough to say he thought I should get a co-producer credit. He said, "You've done just as much as me." All of the ideas stem from me and us, and we do everything together.

Your debut album came out a couple years ago and you started working on this in 2020. Why such a long process?

It wasn't supposed to be. Time gets away from you, and I definitely went back in the studio many times to redo things and edit. We've had multiple test pressings of the vinyl, and many times I thought it was finished and then went back in. 

I don't know, I feel like this is kind of how I am. I'm never really overly satisfied. But my goal now is to try to get an album out within the next year or so after this one drops. I want to get into a groove of dropping music more frequently and not taking three-year gaps between all of them.

You have such a massive internet footprint, with 34 million followers on Instagram alone. Is a following like that a gift or a burden? How do you grapple with that in your mind knowing you can pick up your phone and post something for an audience of millions?

I've been steadily gaining flowers for 12 years, so it's something that didn't happen overnight for me. There's a big difference in the way I go about it now than a couple years ago. I don't force myself to be engaged all the time or posting every single day. 

I'm actually quite terrified of the internet at times. The way it moves can be really scary and I think we don't give each other room to make human errors. If I do state an opinion online or want to say something, It's not that I don't care what people say about it, but I know my intentions are. I'm never going to appeal to and please everyone, but I do know when I want to speak and share, it's authentic and it's coming from a good place.

Kesha Reveals The 10 Most Important Songs Of Her Career, From "Tik Tok" To "Eat The Acid"

Nick Waterhouse holds an affection for a certain version of San Francisco — one that is reminiscent of Beat culture, but decidedly contemporary. His is a North Beach life filled with drunken, late-night trips to the famed City Lights bookstore, DJ gigs at clubs that no longer exist, hours spent behind the counter at one of the city’s most revered record stores, and long, stoney car rides with its most lauded music critics.

And yet, in a refrain familiar to many denizens of the cool grey city of love, Waterhouse’s San Francisco has slipped away with time, gentrification and disease. On his sixth album, The Fooler, the singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer earnestly attempts to recapture the essence of his city lost. Waterhouse doesn’t indulge in nostalgia, instead using it to frame a universal story about what happens when your "heart and your memories can betray you in really nice ways." 

"It's a record about human connection and memory, and places and the disappearance of places," Waterhouse tells GRAMMY.com. "The life that we've all led the last few years — everything is radically changing. [But] I don't posit mourning in remembering these things or these lost places."

An evocative, cerebral portrait of time, place and space, The Fooler’s 12 tracks meld R&B, garage and soul — the primordial aural ooze seeping from jukeboxes in San Francisco institutions like Tosca, Specs and Café Trieste during Waterhouse's salad days. He channels the sonic boom of Phil Spector and the voice of Lee Hazelwood on lead single "Hide And Seek," evokes Dylan and the surf-rock of the Allah-Las (whom he produced) on "Late In The Garden," while literary greats like Virginia Woolf inform the narrative.

While Waterhouse has achieved what he calls a "new creative impetus" and newfound narrative songwriting skills, he has kept busy outside the confines of memory. In recent years he left his native Los Angeles for Europe, co-produced and played guitar on Lana Del Rey’s latest album, and collaborated with Jon Batiste on 2021’s GRAMMY-winning We Are. He’s revived efforts on his label, Pres, and will embark on a small tour of the U.S. and European this spring.  

But for all the physical and sonic terrain traversed, Waterhouse is pulled back to the place where he first found creative success — beginning with his 2012 revival soul-leaning debut, Time’s All Gone — and found his voice. "This is the total distillation of all the spirit of what my time in San Francisco was. And what I was, in my heart, thinking and feeling too — but with some good distance and perspective," he says of The Fooler. 

You needn’t haunt the bars along Columbus and Vallejo streets in San Francisco, have found love on Muni, or know the difference between the Lower and Upper Haight to enjoy The Fooler, but you’ll certainly find yourself enraptured by the dreamy figures in Waterhouse’s nuanced, yet capacious city of memory.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The press release for this album is one of the headiest I’ve read recently, with a lot of literary references and existential questions. Was this always more of a conceptual album for you?

Completely. Then this record is like the skeleton key to decode earlier works. But with this record, I also had a breakthrough in writing. And I had a sudden knowledge of how I could use perspective as a songwriter; there were traces of it in earlier works, but this is finally what I think was a holistic expression.

That feeling of discovery was a big part of what drove this, and the themes in it. It's a record about human connection and memory, and places and the disappearance of places. I was listening to an interview with John Vanderslice this morning and he talked about how radically changed in such a short period of time [San Francisco] was, but even now, it's a major metropolitan area with the most vacancies of any first world nation.

With your previous work, were you mostly writing from your own perspective, asserting yourself as the character?

In a way, yes. I always was very careful not to write selfishly — the editor in my head was like, there has to be a reason that the song makes it to being done.

This record exists in the same city that Time’s All Gone was happening in, but that record was from the street level. It was like from the bus, from only where I was sitting. I was working two jobs and anxious; it was paycheck to paycheck, going through a relationship that was fragmenting; going through an apocalyptic breakup with somebody that ended up being very meaningful in my life, but I'm not with them anymore.

Now it's like 10 to 12 years later, I can see all of that floating above it. It's like this big dialogue between the characters and the world around it. And it's looking in the windows of all these places in the city, looking into other people's lives, and almost looking into people's spirits.

I thought a lot about Virginia Woolf and consciousness. The thesis is like, what does it mean to be in a space and have human connection? How do people change your life, and who changes? 

The genesis of The Fooler occurred during a trip to San Francisco earlier in the pandemic. In addition to that cataclysmic change, I read that you had a number of really big changes happen in your life — you moved out of the country, you ended a relationship. How has that impacted the sound and spirit of this record?

Some of the things you're describing happened after this record, some of them were happening during, some of them were happening, maybe unconsciously before. A lot of the topics in the record are also me touching those things. And taking from them the meaningful collagen, the bone marrow, and using it to tell a story that isn't a literalized, confessional story. That was a huge breakthrough for me writing.

Is there one tune that you feel is a high watermark of this newfound ability to write in this narrative style?

"The Fooler" to me is that song, because lyrically it's so tight and it tells this story. It’s about space and memory and it's obscure enough for people to hang their own meanings on, but to me it still has meaning. "Was It You" is more of a literal storytelling, but it's also a city song. "The Fooler" and "Late In The Garden" are epiphany songs.

I wanted to write a musical novel. I wanted to write something that made me feel like James Salter’s Light Years, one of my favorite books, Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, or Mrs. Dalloway. They're going inside and outside, and perspectives change, but it's hitting at the same core human element.

I'd love to hear more of your history about you in San Francisco. Do you see this record as a sort of tribute to that time in your life?

When I was 19, I moved on to Vallejo Street with my then closest friend from Southern California. It was hanging out at [bars like] Specs and Tosca and going to City Lights drunk at 11 o'clock to buy a book, and hang out and write, and talk to people that have ideas, and talk about all the stuff that needs doing and will be done. I also studied literature at San Francisco State and the University of East Anglia.

On my last day of university, I lived in the Upper Haight at the time — I was in exile from North Beach — and I had gone through a massive tragedy that completely disrupted and ruptured my world. I was in a really bizarre state of mind, and I was comforting myself. I was just surviving. 

I was listening to a lot of Them and Van Morrison, and I was working at the record shop that brought me joy, which was Rookys in the Lower Haight. And a lot of the sound that went into the sonics of this record are these specific types of New York City records made by people like Bert Berns, and Bob Crewe, and Ellie Greenwich. Dick Vivian, who ran Rookys, was playing those records a lot.

There was this girl who I thought was the most mysterious and beautiful person I'd ever seen. We took the train twice a week to San Francisco State and we never spoke. The very last day of this course we were in, I realized she was sitting in the back of that class. She came up and sat in front of me, and she turned around and she's like, "So where are we gonna go get a drink right now?"

And I fell in love with this person. We ended up living together. Her father was the piano player for Van Morrison. All these confluences of strange things started happening. I'm not a mystical person, but it was this feeling. The way that she lived, and her humor, and her mind — she was so literary and intelligent and wry and funny, and stylish. Our life was this life that I had dreamed of.

We [once] went to a book signing at Tosca in North Beach, and the journalist Joel Selvin turned to us and he goes, "I'm writing a book on Bert Berns right now." Then Selvin started inviting me over on weekends, where he'd smoked dope and take me for a drive in his Shelby Cobra and play me all this Bert Burns stuff, and tell me all the stories that I've been dying to hear.

That sound became North Beach for me. That sound became like my salad days, because it was always on in the background and everywhere I went. I was DJing a lot — we would be at  Edinburgh Castle, or at the Knockout or at Casanova, or the Elbo Room, or Koko in the Tenderloin and all the music in that period of time was like girl groups and ‘60s soul and the R&B I liked.

I orbited in similar circles, and went to many of those bars and soul DJ nights. I remember seeing you perform your first album at Bimbo’s in North Beach.

When I had my career from my first record, I went out on tour and I basically left the city and never came back fully, and the city never came back to me too.

I struggled for a long time. I had a really hard couple years trying to enter another part of my life like, Do I make records now? I tour? I don't like this. I want to go back to North Beach. I want to listen to Bert Berns records in Tosca and have my girlfriend and have my life back and have my network of friends.

Then I realized everybody else's life was getting totally disrupted, and everybody was leaving or moving. That ex, when we split up, she went to New York and I went to L.A. All our friends went off to New York or to L.A. or to Austin or to Chicago or to Berlin. And those were the people who could tell the wind was changing then.

So much of what you're saying resonates really deeply with me as a Bay Arean who no longer lives there — you want to revisit that life, but realize that it's not there anymore.

Goodbye to all that, really. The cheap thing is for it to be nostalgia, right? But it gets to a deeper thing about what is memory, what is desire, what is unrequited love? What is society doing to people?

It's about release, surrender. But also why everything's worth doing even if it's gone, or you're tricked. "Unreal" and "No Commitment" are songs about the outside world to show what these characters are rebelling against or living among. And then like other songs like "Looking For A Place" or "Was It You" or "Was The Style" those are like, what is worth living for?

"Hide and Seek" is about adult relationships; they're not about visceral stuff that could be mistaken as youthful. All these songs, too, are love songs with no love in the choruses. "Hide And Seek" is not a toxic relationship, but it's about the uncertainty of what love feels like, and when people are glancing off each other instead of connecting all the way.

Cover art for The Fooler — a couple in front of City Lights Books in North Beach

I and others have previously cast you among the wave of retro soul artists. How has that characterization shaped your music, if at all?

What I'm doing is not aping. I'm expressing myself with the tools and the vocabulary that I have on hand, and a listener has to trust me, that I'm doing what I'm doing in good faith.

I always had much more in common with — and actually lived among and worked among and incubated with — the San Francisco garage scene. Ty Segall is playing drums on my first record. But you know, when you make your first record with horns and gospel-style vocals, and the people who work on your record — including your publicist and your distributor — put out Daptone-related stuff or Mayer Hawthorne or Aloe Blacc related stuff, you're put into the bloodstream as another one of those cells. It also switches how people hear stuff. I struggled with that from the beginning.

Back to The Fooler, is there anybody playing on it that you want to highlight or any interesting production facts that you think are worthwhile to note?

Making it with Mark Neill, at his place, was really revelatory for me. I surrendered to Mark to be the artist. And I also brought in my childhood best friend, Anthony Polizzi, who's playing second guitar or piano, who's a part of my DNA. Almost every record I've put out has a song co-written by us; we haven't lived in the same city together since we were 17.

[Mark] understood the sound was the place and we talked a lot about these records specifically that were influencing us whether they were little Anthony and the Imperials records, or they were loving spoonful records, or they were Bert Berns records. And he was looking into me to find who I was, and for me, it helped push me.

What else is on your plate that is contributing to your new creative impetus?

I'm writing a lot. I have been working on a lot of other projects; I'm working on another record with Jon Batiste to follow up the work that we won a GRAMMY for. 

I'm finding that in a lot of my writing, [my breakthrough] helped me comprehend how I want to write and what I'm actually trying to strike at. Every day, I try to get closer or touch it if I can. So it's been good. It's turbulent, but it's productive.

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Lana Del Rey is "straight vibing." At least, that's how she approached creating her profound ninth studio album, Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Rather than tapping into the world-building technique she used on Norman F—ing Rockwell!, Del Rey's latest work feels more natural and personal.

On Did You Know, Del Rey's dreamy alternative pop drifts from saccharine to unearthly, her tracks tangling together in curious harmony. Her voice reverberates often, as if she's actually traveling through the ​​now-hidden Jergins Tunnel under Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach — yet, unlike its titular inspiration, her album is anything but hollow.

A painstaking honesty ricochets throughout the record as Del Rey unveils familial grief and reflects on the intensity of love in its many forms. A spirituality and self-awareness hover in each mature and intimate track, while the album benefits from a list of collaborators long enough to match her song titles.

In honor of the artist's spectacular new self-portrait and ahead of her headlining sets at Lollapalooza and Outside Lands, here are five key takeaways from Lana Del Rey's Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.

She Pays Homage To Her Family

While some of Del Rey's most well-known songs unravel romantic fantasies, familial relationships are the linchpin of Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.

Del Rey longs for intergenerational connection on her track "Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing," its title taken from the chorus. Contrasting a domestic closeness with the vastness of the Pacific, the singer/songwriter offers a spark of comforting warmth.
The musician, born Elizabeth Grant, also honors her family name by opening the album with "The Grants." Inspired by John Denver's 1972 "Rocky Mountain High" — specifically, the line "And he lost a friend, but kept the memory" — Del Rey reflects on loving her family now as well as after death. With a heavy heart, the song's tender offering of hope is a masterclass in coping with grief.

"When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too," she said in a past interview while promoting Born To Die. "I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal."

Within this context, Del Rey's deep reflections on death and family on Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd feel weightier. In the interview, she explained how her fear of mortality tended to overshadow her life — but now, in accepting life's transience, she's finding the light.

She Thrives With Tonal Shifts

Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd might be Del Rey's most tonally sporadic album yet, but it works to her advantage. Where Born To Die and Norman F— Rockwell! cling to listeners with cohesion, Del Rey's latest album waxes and wanes.

While the musician is renowned as dream baroque pop royalty, her latest creative ventures dip into other genres. Gospel chimes in on "The Grants," folk weaves its way into the Father John Misty collaboration "Let The Light In," and trap flickers memorably across "Taco Truck x VB" and "Fishtail." (The latter two are produced by Jack Antonoff, Del Rey's close collaborator and friend who remains alt pop's ubiquitous producer.) Elsewhere, idiosyncratic rap verses stand out as the highlights of ambitious single "A&W" and Tommy Genesis' raunchy collaboration "Peppers," interrupting Del Rey's more classic balladry.

The album also boasts the highest number of features of all her records. Jon Batiste, SYML, RIOPY, Father John Misty, Bleachers, Tommy Genesis and Judah Smith all make welcome appearances, adding to the album's distinct tonal shifts with their own styles. Though some moments feel especially jarring — namely, Smith and Batiste's interludes — Del Rey ultimately finds strength in this risk-taking diffusion.

She Weaves In Her Past — Not Just Lyrically, But Sonically

Beyond its lyrical reflections on family and past relationships, the album also peers into Del Rey's sonic past. Pieces of Norman F— Rockwell! reappear in many tracks on Did You Know, bridging her sixth and ninth studio albums with an aural nostalgia.

Fans correctly speculated that Norman F— Rockwell!s iconic "Venice B—" would surface in new track "Taco Truck x VB," and Antonoff's grittier, trumpeting version indeed shimmers through in the song's second half. "A&W" welcomes strings from "Norman F— Rockwell!", and "Candy Necklace" featuring Batiste sweetly references "Cinnamon Girl" (and even calls back to Born To Die's "Radio").

These interpolations exhibit the playful extent of Del Rey's masterful discography. Although her sound is ever-changing, the multifaceted musician can still return to her musical roots in a way that experimentally builds upon her catalog. Her music almost always feels reminiscent and bittersweet, and this album takes this nostalgia to a new, otherworldly level.

She Leans Into Spirituality More Than Ever

Del Rey's music seems to be unfailingly cinematic. Historically, her tragic romantic storytelling enlightens Americana tales with an often glamorous melodrama. With Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, Del Rey continues to captivate her audiences, but this record taps into a different form of transcendence — a spiritual one.

Featuring heavy gospel influences, opener "The Grants" sees the musician hold memories of her loved ones close to her heart and into the afterlife. "Do you think about Heaven? Oh-oh, do you think about me?" she asks. "My pastor told me when you leave, all you take/ Oh-oh, is your memory." (Later on "Taco Truck x VB," she shouts, "Never die!").

Del Rey takes a step back for "Judah Smith Interlude," a four-and-a-half-minute-long sermon by pastor Judah Smith, who also appeared on Justin Bieber's 2021 EP Freedom. Though Del Rey and her friends occasionally punctuate the track with snide background remarks, Smith leads the track with abrasive preaching against lust.

While the album strays into darker territory here, Del Rey finds her way back to a somewhat uncharacteristic optimism — on standout "Kintsugi," she sings of thoughts "brought by the sunlight of the spirit to pour into me." Just like that, her radiance returns.

As Always, She Finds Beauty In Brokenness

Del Rey's track "Kintsugi" is named after the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold. The artform highlights the beauty in embracing flaws, even underscoring them, and Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd exquisitely champions this notion.

"That's how the light gets in," Del Rey gently repeats in the chorus, the line doubly serving as a nod to the art of kintsugi and Leonard Cohen's "Anthem." As Del Rey learns to nurture the cracks of her broken heart, she learns how to be kinder to herself, how to love herself.

At the end of the track, she reassures herself a final time: "That's how the light gets in/ Then you're golden." She can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

For The Record: Why Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die' Is One Of Pop's Most Influential Albums In The Past Decade

It would be a near-impossibility to cover all the diverse women making art during Women's History Month — and celebrating creators every day, week and month is the goal — but any opportunity to elevate deserving female musicians is one to jump on.

This March, GRAMMY.com shines a spotlight on female-identifying music-makers. This month's 15 releases include entries from the Phoebe Bridgers-Lucy Dacus-Julien Baker supergroup boygenius, Chloe (of R&B sister duo Chloe x Halle), and indie creators like Lana Del Rabies and Jen Cloher; and Radie Peat of Irish dark folkies Lankum.

From bold returns (Sophie B. Hawkins) and buzzy up-and-comers (Nia Archives) to superstars (Miley Cyrus) to metal groundbreakers (Entheos), GRAMMY.com offers up a guide to the must-hear music from women this March.  

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the new release date for Ellie Goulding’s album.

Kali Uchis - Red Moon in Venus

Release date: March 3

Kali Uchis is clearly universal and boundary-crossing in her collaborations and appeal: She was nominated for a 2017 Latin GRAMMY Award for "El Ratico" (with Juanes); won a GRAMMY for Best Dance Recording for her feature on Kaytranada's single "10%" and was nominated for Best R&B Performance. Uchis (who sings in Spanish and English) has also toured with Lana Del Rey, worked with Diplo, Tyler, the Creator.

On Red Moon in Venus, her third studio album, the Colombian American singer continues her hot streak. Uchis describes her 15-track LP as a " timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith, and honesty, reflecting the divine femininity of the moon and Venus."

Jen Cloher – I Am The River the River Is Me

Release date: March 3

On I Am The River the River Is Me, the fifth album from Aussie-born singer/songwriter Jen Cloher digs deep into their Māori roots. The LP features songs about theirancestry, with powerful choruses/phrases in the te reo Māori language. The gently intimate single "Mana Takatāpui" is rife with sweet ‘70s-sounding guitar work, and celebrates queerness as a Māori woman. 

In contrast, the irresistible "Being Human" is delivered with a driving rock ‘n’ roll urgency, dynamics and shimmering and quirky guitar tones.  "My Witch" also mines creative ‘70s guitar sounds, and as Cloher told NPR, "It feels immediately fresh. It feels catchy. It's in your ear straight away." I Am The River the River Is Me arrives via indie label Milk! Records, run by Cloher in part with Courtney Barnett.

Entheos – Time Will Take Us All

Release date: March 3

The progressive metal genre may not be packed with women, but Entheos singer Chaney Crabb is a powerhouse on stage and in the metal scene. Time Will Take Us All, the band’s third release and first for Metal Blade Records, is darker and heavier than previous outings with a wealth of influences.

The dynamic and melodic "I Am The Void" illustrate the album’s concept of "growth and self-reflection that focuses on the true human commonality – that our time on Earth is fleeting," according to a release. Entheos furthers that "what we choose to do with that knowledge is up to each of us as individuals." Entheos, normally a two-piece with drummer and band co-founder Navene Koperweis, will bring an expanded, powerful live lineup on European and American tour dates in 2023.     

Nia Archives – Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall

Release date: March 10

Mining her life for material, Nia Archives told NME that on Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall, she’s "broadly talking about growing up as a person, reaching new levels of maturity, love and loss, rejection, estrangement, the come-up and the comedown… It’s six tracks with six different moods soundtracking the recent chapter in my life." 

The year 2022 was a big one for the English record producer, DJ and songwriter, whose "future classic" sound uses jungle, drum and bass and neo-soul.  Along with European and UK dates, look for Archives, who is a 2023 nominee for a  Brit Award for Rising Star, to perform her new single "Conveniency" — and more — at this year's Coachella.

Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation

Release date: March 10

Miley Cyrus has clearly empowered legions of listeners with "Flowers,'' its lyrics asserting, "I can take myself dancing / I can hold my own hand / I can love me better than you can." With more than 560 million Spotify streams, it's likely that "Flowers" and the album it’s on, Endless Summer Vacation, will be laurel in Cyrus’ crown. 

According to a release, the music and imagery of Endless Summer Vacation serves as a "reflection of the strength she’s found in focusing on both her physical and mental well-being." Cyrus, who produced her album with Kid Harpoon, Greg Kurstin, Mike WiLL Made-It and Tyler Johnson, describes the album as her love letter to LA, where the album was recorded.  

Fever Ray – Radical Romantics

Release date: March 10

Swedish singer/songwriter/producer Karin Dreijer, aka Fever Ray, has long earned her music bona fides, kickstarting  a career with guitar band Cool Honey, then electronic music duo the Knife, formed with brother Olof Dreijer. Dreijer released their debut solo album under the alias Fever Ray in 2009, and now, the third Fever Ray album features Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross along with sibling Olof.  

A visual and musical shape-shifter, Dreijer explained the title Radical Romantics: "Everything needs to be dissected and loved and torn and built back up again and we're dreamers aren't we?" On the lead single "Carbon Dioxide," shades of Nina Hagen and ‘80s new wave lead the bubbling, electro-pop tune.

Frankie Rose – Love as Projection

Release date:  March 10

With a lengthy resume that includes Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and Beverly, Frankie Rose has an impressive legacy, and further cements her status with Love As Projection. 

The drummer/guitarist/singer's sixth solo album melds '80s influences with contemporary electronic pop; the single "Anything" sounding like it could be on the soundtrack of a John Hughes movie. (Fittingly, Rose interpreted the Cure’s iconic Seventeen Seconds LP in 2019.) "This album is about having to focus our collective energies on the small things…we can control to find joy," Rose told the Vinyl Factory. "A distraction from the larger systemic problems that feel so overwhelming and are so very out of our collective hands… for now."

Lankum – False Lankum

Release date: March 24

"Go Dig My Grave" from 2023’s False Lankum is nearly 9 minutes long, featuring singer Radie Peat’s plainspoken singing and ominous, mesmerizing musicality inspired by the Irish tradition of keening (lament). Together, these effects create a marching doom vibe. The dark folk lineup (Cormac Dermody, and brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch), utilize traditional Irish instruments, including uilleann pipes, along with guitars, percussion, fiddle, banjo, piano and double bass. Peat employs bayan, concertina, harmonium, organ, electric organ, harp, mellotron for a sound that mines the traditional for a modern context. 

The end result, as The Guardian described, contains "ambient textures of Sunn O))) and Swans, plus the sonic intensity of Xylouris White and My Bloody Valentine." False Lankum follows the Dublin doom folk quartet’s 2019 breakthrough The Livelong Day, which garnered the band numerous awards in Ireland, including the RTE Choice Music Prize (Ireland’s equivalent to the Album of the Year GRAMMY). 

Sophie B. Hawkins – Free Myself

Release date: March 24

Sophie B. Hawkins' 2023 "anti-Valentine" song "Better Off Without You" features wrenching words about an ex: "We changed the world / Until you took my best friend to bed." The song and sentiment appear on Free Myself, the singer/songwriter’s first album in more than a decade. 

Tracks such as "Love Yourself" and "I’m Tired Of Taking Care Of You" further themes of romantic empowerment. The Free Myself, Hawkin's seventh studio album, shows the multi-instrumentalist in top form:  raw, poetic but accessible and relatable, as inclusion of her tracks in cinematic and moody television shows "Ozark," "Stranger Things" and "Euphoria" have proven.

Lana Del Rabies – STREGA BEATA

Release date: March 17

Lana Del Rabies is the alter-ego of Phoenix-based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. In her Del Rabies guise, as hinted at by the moniker, An seeks to  "re-contextualize  the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women," creating what she calls a "dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project." As such, she’s done a spare, industrial take on Tori Amos’ "Cornflake Girl,'' plus two LPs, including the boldly titled In the End I Am a Beast. 

On her third full-length album, STREGA BEATA (loosely translated as "Blessed Witch") Del Rabies delves into dark themes, buoyed by elements of industrial, gothic noise, metal, darkwave and ambient. From opener "Prayers of Consequence" to the final cut, "Forgive," the album, as its creator explains, "is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure "Mother" creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes."

Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

Release date: March 24

Lana Del Rabies is the alter-ego of Phoenix-based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. In her Del Rabies guise, as hinted at by the moniker, An seeks to  "re-contextualize  the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women," creating what she calls a "dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project." As such, she’s done a spare, industrial take on Tori Amos’ "Cornflake Girl,'' plus two LPs, including the boldly titled In the End I Am a Beast. 

On her third full-length album, STREGA BEATA (loosely translated as "Blessed Witch") Del Rabies delves into dark themes, buoyed by elements of industrial, gothic noise, metal, darkwave and ambient. From opener "Prayers of Consequence" to the final cut, "Forgive," the album, as its creator explains, "is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure "Mother" creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes."

Boygenius – The Record

Release date: March 31

Boygenius is made up of the girl geniuses Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, together a super-group collective whose debut EP expanded minds in 2017. As Baker told Newsweek, the trio of friends took the tongue-in-cheek band name because of "the archetype of the tortured genius, [a] specifically male artist who has been told since birth that their every thought is not only worthwhile but brilliant." 

The trio’s debut full-length, The Record, offers bright indie rock bounce on "$20," a low-key haunting on "Emily I'm Sorry" and to the straight-ahead fullness on "True Blue." Other intriguing song titles from the full-length include "Leonard Cohen" "Satanist." In addition to a headlining tour, boygenius will appear at Coachella in 2023.  

Deerhoof – Miracle-Level

Release date:  March 31

Deerhoof singer/bassist/songwriter Satomi Matsuzaki’s origin story is the stuff of dreams: She joined Deerhoof within a week of immigrating to the United States from Japan in May 1995 to attend college. And in 2023, the singer and self-taught bassist is front and center on Miracle-Level, Deerhoof’s 19th LP and the first sung in Satomi’s native Japanese. It’s also the influential DIY band’s first to be made totally in a professional recording studio with a producer (Mike Bridavsky). 

Miracle-Level kicks off with the joyful noise of "Sit Down, Let Me Tell You a Story," and contains the delightfully oddball "My Lovely Cat!" plus one song that’s as awkward but interesting as its title: "Phase-Out All Remaining Non-Miracles by 2028."

Critical praise has been near-universal over the lineup’s career, the New Yorker praising an "adventurous compositional style that features complex rhythms, electronica, atonal flourishes, and the pacific singing of Satomi Matsuzaki, whose sonic detachment from the group’s noisier and more aggressive side is curiously affecting." 

Chloe Bailey - In Pieces

Release date: March 31

As half of the GRAMMY-nominated powerhouse R&B duo Chloe x Halle, Chloe debuted as a solo artist in 2021 with platinum single "Have Mercy." The singer/dancer/producer’s full-length solo debut, In Pieces, launches with the sonorous "Pray It Away" before then teaming with Chris Brown for her "How Does It Feel" single. Inspired by naysayers, Chloe posted about In Pieces on her Instagram, writing "My tears are like the water. My heart is like the sun. Through chaos, beauty grows. There’s power in my pain.. It’s me breaking free."

Ellie Goulding – Higher Than Heaven

Release date: April 17 (adjusted)

On the energetic new single "Like a Saviour,"  Ellie Goulding expresses what so many felt during the last several years: "Trying to find my faith in tomorrow" and wishing for a saviour to lead her "out of the dark." The tune, off Higher Than Heaven, the English singer-songwriter’s fifth album, was inspired by the pandemic. But it’s not a wallow in darkness. In short: Expect musical and lyrical celebrations of love and sex, plus the wisdom and power of cutting out when things go bad.

As Goulding teased on Instagram: "‘Let it Die’ is about when a relationship plays out much longer than it needed to. Instead of giving love to yourself you spend it all on someone else and have nothing left, which is when it can become toxic and harmful." "Let It Die," which has notched 13 million streams, preceded the LP, along with  "Easy Lover" (featuring Big Sean) and "All by Myself."  Given the singles’ out-of-the-box success, it’ll be no surprise if  Goulding has another "Love Me Like You Do" (from the  Fifty Shades of Gray soundtrack) on her hands, the hit that  earned Goulding her first GRAMMY nom for Best Pop Solo Performance. 

Listen To GRAMMY.com's Women's History Month 2023 Playlist: Swim In The Divine Feminine With These 40 Songs By Rihanna, SZA, Miley Cyrus, BLACKPINK & More