Album Review: Lana Del Rey, ‘Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’

With each new addition to her discography, Lana Del Rey — one of our greatest contemporary American songwriters and the mind behind that infamous Question for the Culture — gets more and more existential. Mortality and alternate timelines where she isn’t a world-famous pop star dominate the lyrical landscape of her new album, Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. A well-balanced combination of the folksy Americana iconography of Blue Bannisters, the stuttering trap-pop/soft rock mélange of Honeymoon, and the heady songwriting of Norman F*****g Rockwell, Lana Del Rey’s latest project is the work of an artist who equally prioritizes self-reflection and subversion. Across the record, songs shapeshift within themselves, iconic background singers and stirring sermons become interludes to separate the album’s different suites, and guest artists and new collaborators return in full force. Both familiar and forward-thinking, Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, is a solemn exploration of loneliness, desire, and legacy.

The geography of the United States has been a towering influence on Del Rey’s songwriting since her landmark debut studio album. From the faded opulence of Coney Island to the rural religiosity of Oklahoma, Del Rey has traversed America throughout her discography, assuming different characters, connecting seemingly disparate narratives, and using fiction as a proxy for her own introspection. On Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd., the “Summertime Sadness” singer re-focuses her attention on the West Coast, specifically the Jergins Tunnel in Long Beach, California. She locates the bulk of the album’s emotional heft in the one place where the sun doesn’t shine in the ultimate example of coastal radiance. In the chorus of the album’s title track and lead single, she sings, “Open me up, tell me you like me / Fuck me to death, love me until I love myself / There's a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard / Don't forget me.” This lingering sense of insecurity and longing underscores much of Del Rey’s existentialism. As one of the most successful and impactful artists of the 2010s, Del Rey will not have to worry about being remembered by the masses. Instead, she finds it more useful to ponder how she will remember herself, how her lover will remember her, and how she can ensure her memory amongst the people she cares about the most.

Album standout “Sweet,” is a mournful love song that tracks the uptick in folk and Americana influences on Lana’s vocal performance. The dips in her riffs recall the elasticity of a yodel as she croons about her desire to be swept away from a life of loneliness and longing. “If you want someone, then just call me up / And remember where I'll be / Sweet in barefeet / You can find me where no one will be,” she sings wistfully. It’s a smart bridge between the album’s title track and second single “A&W,” a shapeshifting career high that functions as a quasi-epic. A two-part survey of childhood, sex addiction, and drug abuse, “A&W” anchors Del Rey’s existentialism by using it as a lens to reflect on the many lives that comprise both the character of Lana Del Rey and the person who is Elizabeth Grant. “Fingertips,” a chorusless recitation of soul-baring lines of poetry, cranks the album’s stream-of-consciousness bent to maximum intensity. An exaltation of an imagined life as a nameless townie famous to her family and loved ones, “Fingertips” finds Del Rey singing such ominous lines as “Will I die? Or will I get to that ten-year mark? / Where I beat the extinction of telomeres? / And if I do, will you be there with me, Father, Sister, Brother?” Death is an ever-looming presence on Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel, particularly “Kintsugi,” a heartbreaking Leonard Cohen-interpolating documentation of a funeral.

Across her latest record, Lana expands her musical scope to accommodate the vastness of American geography and her own existentialism. Album opener “The Grants” commences with an a cappella intro courtesy of the rich and soulful voices of Melodye Perry and Pattie Howard, two vocalists who previously worked as backup singers for the late Whitney Houston. Their gospel foundation simultaneously presents a contrast to Lana’s languid pseudo-drawl and establishes a throughline of Black music that hasn’t been this present on a Lana Del Rey album since 2017’s Lust for Life. Grammy-winning jazz pianist Jon Batiste lends his talents to both “Candy Necklace” and “Jon Batiste Interlude.” While the latter is self-indulgent fluff, the former is a harrowing look at how lonely people willingly accept the most superficial expressions of love. The glittery trap influences of the second part of “A&W” re-emerge on both “Fishtails” and the “grittier” original version of 2019’s “Venice Bitch” by way of album closer “Taco Truck x VB.” For all of her forays into traditionally Black sounds, Del Rey can’t help but wallow in her own self-victimization with eye roll-inducing lyrics like “I'm folk, I'm jazz, I'm blue, I'm green / Regrettably, also a white woman / But I have good intentions even if I'm one of the last ones / If you don't believe me, my poetry, or my melodies.”

Sappy wedding songs (“Margaret”) aside, Tunnel houses some of Lana’s most sonically interesting records in quite some time. “Peppers” repurposes Tommy Genesis’ “Angelina” into a peek at what a non-remixed Lana Del Rey dance track would sound like, “Let The Light In” dips a toe into country with the help of Father John Misty, and “Fishtails” offers up some murky trap-pop balladry. Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is a sonic quilt. An immersive collage of heavy samples, inquisitive poetry, and stunningly nuanced soundscapes that try their best to capture the breadth of America and its many histories and mythologies, Lana’s latest — as bloated as it is — stands as her strongest album since 2019’s Norman F*****g Rockwell.

Score: 80