Sondra Rey

Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass is the debut book by American singer and songwriter Lana Del Rey. A poetry collection featuring over thirty original poems and photography, including "13 longer poems" and several short pieces, the collection will be Del Rey's first published work and will be released by Simon & Schuster on September 24, 2020. "Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic."

Call Honeymoon the third installment in a trilogy if you will but there's no indication Lana Del Rey will put her doomed diva persona to rest after this album. Over the course of three albums, Lana Del Rey hasn't so much expanded her delicately sculpted persona as she has refined it, removing anything extraneous to her exquisite ennui. Honeymoon doesn't drift or float, it marks time, sometimes swelling with a suggestion of impending melodrama but often deflating to just an innervated pulse. Apart from the syncopated chorus on "High on the Beach," any lingering element of the hip-hop affectations of Born to Die have been banished and so have the shade and light Dan Auerbach brought to Ultraviolence, a record that feels cinematic in comparison to Honeymoon…

Lana Del Rey knows perfectly well her Lust for Life sounds sleepy in comparison to Iggy Pop's full-blooded roar, but that doesn't mean the title of her fourth album is ironic. Compared to her previous albums, especially its somnolent 2015 predecessor, Honeymoon, Lust for Life is positively ebullient in tone, if not in tempo. Lana Del Rey may sing about a "Summer Bummer" but the song isn't in sway to a narcotic undertow; it simmers, offering a cool bit of seduction for muggy August nights. LDR retains this delicate balance throughout the lengthy Lust for Life (at 71 minutes, this is an album as playlist, designed to be looped over and over as mood music), never quite succumbing to either despair or ecstasy but rather finding a place where there's no separation between the two emotions.