A Ranking of Every Lana Del Rey Album
I must disregard word count and review all 8 studio albums…I must. She is, after all, the artist of the decade.
Lana Del Rey is one of the best songwriters of the decades: she’s a poet, a comedian (that’s why they call her Lanita!), and an artist with one of the most powerful, top-quality discographies. Most importantly, she’s an ICON.
I’ve ranked her eight released studio albums to the best of my ability. I did have to set some boundaries, since the Lana-verse is full of lore: I did not include any works of the Lizzy Grant era since they’re technically “unreleased” and labelled as EPs. Violets… does not count on account of being spoken-word poetry. Lastly, I’m lumping in the Paradise B-sides to Born to Die (2012); we’re only caring about Born to Die: Paradise Edition (2012).
Now, enough distractions! Let’s dive into the Lana-verse:
8. Honeymoon (2015): I’ll be honest: I can only remember four songs off this album. This album is just boring: she’s still going for that crooning, Old Hollywood vibe seen in Ultraviolence (2014), but it’s so slow! Each song is almost too long, and none have a BPM anywhere above a resting heartbeat, so skipping around is unavoidable. After the melodramatic titular track, I never received the satisfaction of a more energetic follow-up. And it’s disappointing because the title of the second song is literally “Music to Watch Boys To”! It’s so iconic and so early Lana, but the song is an uncompelling 5 minutes of breathy harmonies and strings ripped straight from Ultraviolence.
“Art Deco” gets a pass and the privilege of being a classic LDR song because it’s so funny and iconic. Like, the references to Born to Die? The nods to The Great Gatsby via plagiarism from Fergie’s song for the 2013 reboot, of which Lana also wrote a banger for? Her use of the word “ghetto,” which makes us think she doesn’t really know what a ghetto is? The fact that the “ghetto” lyric made people think LDR wrote this song about AZEALIA BANKS of all people (woof, by the way, but she denied it)? Real.
Anyway, literally no songs on this album matter except “God Knows I Tried,” “High By The Beach,” (another classic in the LDR canon) “Art Deco,” and “Salvatore.” These, and “Freak” I guess, are the only iconic ones.
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7. Chemtrails Over the Country Club (2021): No one gets this album like I do. Like, it’s certainly not her best by a mile, but I did not appreciate any of the hate it got. For the first album truly in her folk, Joni Mitchell-esque, singer/songwriter era, it was great!
We can’t ignore the vocals or the incomprehensible artistic choices made. The vocals in “White Dress” and “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” are holding on for dear life. Whenever I listen to these songs, I get so f*****g scared. The only thing saving these songs are the ridiculous yet 100% earnest lyrics that make me giggle any time I sing along. Wearing a white dress while I’m on the way to the Men In Music Business Conference also makes me feel like a god, Lana! How did you know?!
Also, if she was going to pick a Joni Mitchell cover to end the album, why did she choose that one?! What about “For Free”—Joni’s arguably most tone-deaf and out-of-touch song about watching a poor clarinet player perform for free after a day of frivously shopping for luxury clothes and jewelry—spoke to LDR so profoundly?! Again, I am so scared right now!
However, by the second track, we are reminded that—even though she can be a little ridiculous at times—Lana Del Rey is still an incredible songwriter. Songs like “Chemtrails…,” “Dance ‘Till We Die,” “Tulsa Jesus Freak,” “Wild at Heart,” or “Yosemite” make the whole album worth it. They’re exemplary tracks in the folk-pop, singer/songwriter genre, and though they discuss heavier, more emotional topics, they still have that classic LDR wit that place them in the relevant, modern day.
I also think her mix of instruments was compelling and modernized an otherwise folksy album. The simple piano and acoustic guitar, paired with tambourines, slide guitars, intentional yet subtle placements of vocal filters, bongos, and hip-hop tracks, removed any risk of getting bored. Also, I think the guitar arrangements are really pretty, especially in “Not All Those Who Wander…” and “Yosemite.” They feel intimate, improvised, and they add a sense of passion and warmth to each song. She played with the pacing and tempos throughout the album, shifting from powerful waltz-ballads (“Wild At Heart”) to upbeat, sexy bops (“Dark But Just a Game”), to almost acapella, whimsical (albeit ridiculous) solos (“Not All Who Wander Are Lost”). Furthermore, the songs aren’t too long—the album is the perfect length—so it’s not boring. It’s just, unfortunately, her album that appeals most to horse girls.
6. Lust for Life (2017): According to a Twitter draft from August 2021, I wrote: “Lust for Life is hilarious because it’s just LDR moaning, ‘I want to make a difference in my life, but I’m also young, hot, and American so we all just need to hang out and chill and live our lives to the fullest!’ Oh, and every song hits.” That still pretty much sums it up.
Lust for Life is the last of the “Old Lana” albums—she’s still idealizing looking hot and getting high somewhere sunny in California with a an old hag man throwing money at her—but also the beginning her maturity as a writer. The sound is consistent throughout; with the hip-hop inspirations, slide guitars, and Spanish guitars, you certainly get the point that the album was meant to be enjoyed in warm, sunny weather. It is a final “hurrah!” to all those youthful summers, with many songs looking to past relationships, fleeting moments, and feelings of self-recognition through large gatherings at concert festivals and dances for inspiration.
Not every song “hits,” much to past me’s dismay; many of the songs are worth skipping, making the album overall a little too long to keep interest. Furthermore, this album has many collaborations with other artists, and while some work—The Weeknd in “Lust for Life” and Stevie Nicks in “Beautiful People Beautiful Problems”—neither A$AP Rocky (with Playboy Carti for “Summer Bummer”) songs work at all. I always find myself skipping them when I’m listening to the album because they interrupt the mood.
“Love” is one of the best introductions to a Lana Del Rey album, and it successfully sets the tone for how the album will sound. It’s care-free, it’s full of youthful spirit, and it’s a beautiful transition to the titular track. “Coachella – Woodstock In My Mind” is a legendary track off the album. It’s got everything: religion, showing concern for random children, references to dad rock bands, reminders that singing and being a popstar is making a difference on Earth…like, it’s so ridiculous, it’s iconic. It’s also the second in a streak of five of the most powerful songs on the record, putting it in between “In My Feelings”—(so iconic for “Could it be that I fell for another loooooooooser?” by the way)—and “God Bless America – And All the Beautiful Women In It,” another long, powerful anthem dedicated to the girlies (the backbone of society). Then, with almost no time to recover from the power of that track, we’re met with “When the World Was At War We Kept Dancing,” a hilarious song that really does not have its priorities straight but bangs. “Is it the end of America? / No it’s only the beginnin’ / If we hold onto hope, we’ll have our happy endin’ / When the world was at war before, / We just kept dancin.’” So true!
Lust for Life is such a fun album to listen to, even if its length and skips drag it down a little. It was designed to be the sound of the summer in 2017, and it exceeded expectations in that regard.
5. Blue Banisters (2021): Famously, LDR did not promote this album at all. She dropped the first three singles at the same time (with the Pixart-edited sunburnt selfie) on some random day in May 2021. She drops the persona she cultivated in her early discography completely, giving us what she calls her “most personal album” that responded to her past, the pandemic, and her family relations for emotional support. She wanted to write this album for herself, and if anyone tuned in to listen, they did so intentionally.
Now, to just drop a well-produced, sonically and lyrically compelling album that also has some of LDR’s best songs to date casually just shows how powerful Blue Banisters really is. To me, this is her most underrated album. The reviews said the slow songs were “boring” and a bit corny, the modern hip-hop tracks were sparse, and her comments on Black Lives Matter and the pandemic were randomly thrown in there to talk about her personal problems (as a rich, white woman in her mid 30s). Some of these critiques have their merit, sure, but for the most part, Blue Banisters was anything but boring.
Blue Banisters has the following standout tracks that elevate the album into greatness: “Black Bathing Suit,” “Dealer,” “Thunder,” “Nectar of the Gods,” and “Living Legend.” The lyrics, the vocals (especially on “Dealer”), the musical accompaniment, and editing are so unforgettable that I can’t help but scream incomprehensibly whenever I hear these tracks. They’re also some of her greatest songs of all time; “Living Legend” has that same grandiose, gorgeous, and melancholic quality songs like “The greatest” and “A&W” do. “Dealer” (feat. Miles Kane) let Lana just go f*****g crazy on the vocals, and it worked so well that it makes me want to throw up! The interlude in this album—an iconic feature in almost every Lana Del Rey album—provides the necessary bridge from “Arcadia” to “Black Bathing Suit,” and it adds that melodramatic, Latin hip-hop flare (that’s why they call her Lanita!) that shows LDR’s awareness of what’s interesting in music. She carries the tradition of folk and infuses it with modern pop in such a smart, relevant way that we have to give praise.
To compile a list of every iconic line in this album would be one of the greatest challenges; as introspective and gut-wrenching many lyrics are, LDR is still a comedian. In “Sweet Carolina” Lana sings, “’Crypto forever’ screams your stupid boyfriend / Fuck you, Kevin!” This is the best line in terms of pure, unhinged comedy because…why would you randomly say that?! Who is Kevin, and why do we hate him?!
However, there is also one hard skip. “Arcadia” is awful and LDR’s worst song ever. Every time I hear “My body is a map of LA / I stand straight like an angel with a halo” in that weird baby voice I need to skip to the interlude. It’s ridiculous in a not iconic way, and I really wish she just kept it as a single so that we could just forget this corny track forever. I’m sure that leaving out “Arcadia” from the track list would have made this album a 9/10 instead of an 8/10 (personal ranking). Love everything else so dearly, but seriously: f*** “Arcadia.”
4. Born to Die: Paradise Edition (2012): 11- to 13-year-olds had no business singing every word to “Off to the Races” without missing a single beat at the time of Born to Die, but here we all, ten years later, shouting it like gospel singers at Easter Mass. I can’t even properly review Born to Die: Paradise Edition because this album is so insane. The full (and, ok yeah, ill-advised) Lolita and Carmen fantasies—and the corresponding bangers that came out of them—and the #cancelled track “Cola” (regrettably also a banger) where [redacted] is “in the sky with diamonds.” The opening strings to “Born to Die” which are Pavlovian to me at this point, making me jump out of whatever chair I’m sitting in. “Diet Mountain Dew” and “Video Games” in their entirety because they’re about Lana’s gamer ex-boyfriend who was addicted to World of Warcraft. Even “Million Dollar Man,” which, on top of genuinely being a great song with good lyrics, gave us this iconic rendition.
I literally don’t even care to analyze the sound or production of the album (we all know daddy paid for it, so of course it sounds awesome); they’re not as important as the cultural impact as the lyrics and vibes songs like “Blue Jeans,” “Dark Paradise,” and “Radio” had on us for the past 10 years. I don’t care that LDR’s vocals could sound messy and frightening at times—that was her persona! You had to be there to understand why we rise from our seats, salute the flag, and blast Lana Del Rey’s “National Anthem.” An iconic, insane album with legitimate banger after banger, Born to Die: Paradise Edition has been cemented in history as one of the most legendary albums by Lana Del Rey, even if it’s not her best. This is the album that helped her become artist of the decade!
3. Did you know there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd? (2023): This album is a magnum opus. The stream of consciousness adopted in the middle section (“Kintsugi” and”Fingertips”); the interludes; the collaborations with Jon Baptiste, Father John Misty, Tommy Genesis, and Bleachers. The modern twist on the folk and jazz styles of music, all while revisiting of some of her older work (either with the “Venice Bitch” remix in the final track or with the general Ultraviolence vibes of “A&W” and “Peppers”) in refreshing ways. Her lyrics are consistently strong and emotional, bouncing back from the questionable choices made in her previous two albums. The hip-hop that “A&W” and “Peppers” bring, contrasted by folksier songs like “The Grants” and “Sweet,” which make me want to throw up. Her vocals are adventurous but don’t scare me at all: they could be soft and sweet in the high-pitched, whispery voice (“Candy Necklace, “Paris, TX”), or they could be rattling my bones in her classic, rich alto (“Let The Light In,” “Sweet”). I also don’t skip the Judah Smith interlude because I respect artistic intent and know it’s ironic like the good LDR fan I am. <3
When I first listened to Ocean Blvd, I’ll be honest: I thought some of the longer songs (except “A&W”) were skips. I still think “Margaret” and “Fishtail” are skips (sorry Jack Antonoff; your fiancée is still a great actress), but I have since learned my way with the songs that adopt the stream of consciousness lyric style. Seriously, I’ll be quietly listening to “Kintsugi,” and then erupt into screams by the second verse. Conversely, some lyrics in this album are, like I’ve said for every album so far, just funny. For instance, I thank LDR every day for writing, “If you want some basic bitch, go to the Beverly Center and find her!” in “Sweet.” “Peppers” is timeless in that it dates this album precisely as a post-COVID album, making the following iconic line even more hilarious as time passes:
“A&W” (AMERICAN WHORE! SAY IT PROUDLY!) is the second best song LDR has ever written. It’s over seven minutes of pure genius, and I go from mourning my childhood and the innate pain of womanhood to throwing down to “Your mom called / I told her / YOU’RE FUCKING UP BIG TIME!” Best beat drop in LDR history; best in-song transition in LDR history…I could listen to this song on repeat for hours.
“Let The Light In” is Lana’s third best song ever. I love her, I love Father John Misty, and I love when they collaborate. That’s all the intelligent thoughts I have; it’s my most streamed song of 2023 so far. Ocean Blvd is going to be my most streamed album of 2023.
2. Ultraviolence (2014): I can’t even explain why this album is this high on the list. I can’t even review it properly because it’s so insane, and you had to be there to experience it. I said all I needed to say with this album back in October when I was streaming LDR with my roommate while we did homework: “This album could have ended wars!”
“Ultraviolence,” “The Other Woman,” “Sad Girl,” “West Coast,” “Pretty When You Cry,” “Florida Kilos”—I can’t even begin to begin how much these songs influenced not only my music taste but also pop culture in general, as you can’t watch a series of Kendall Roy (Succession) fan edits without at least one of these songs. “Brooklyn Baby” and “Fucked My Way Up To The Top” are not even guilty pleasure songs anymore; they’re just such bangers that I don’t even care how insane the lyrics are. No skips, just powerful song after powerful song, and they’re all for the girls. And if you don’t get it, then forget it ‘cause I don’t have to f*****g explain it!
1. Norman F*****g Rockwell! (2019): Two words: “The greatest.” As you’ve guessed it, LDR nailed it on titling that song because she was right, it is the greatest song she’s ever written. This song alone captures everything NFR! is: timeless and beautiful lyrics, discerning fantasy with reality, and music you can never get tired of. A perfect end-of-summer-album, I’ve never heard anything like it—not from the artist herself, let alone from other alt pop musicians—and nothing after it will recreate the magic it created.
It makes perfect sense that NFR! got so much praise: it placed in Rolling Stones’ Top 500 Albums of All Time (a wrong and too low #321), was the highest-ranked album by a female artist to be placed in Pitchfork’s Top Albums of the past 25 years (17th overall…embarrasing and doubtful that 16 men are above the first top female artist, and that NFR! is not in the top 10), and did not get anything lower than Top 25 in most major music critic magazines. This is not to say that I’m biased and ranked based on previous reviews; on the contrary, I think Pitchfork should have given this album the Perfect 10, and that it should have not gotten anywhere lower than Top 5 of 2019 if not the #1 spot. I put NFR! here because it is simply Lana’s greatest album of all time.
It’s compelling, beautifully produced, heartbreaking, introspective: the range of complex emotions given in the first three tracks alone can convert anyone on the fence about LDR’s music to a fan. No lyric, no matter how dramatic they are, gets the label of “ridiculous”; they’re earnest in their passion and desire for love, and the metaphors LDR crafts with these feelings are masterful. The songs transport you to the vintage, Americana world LDR builds, and suddenly you’re also dreaming of going yachting and clinging onto an emotionally unavailable white boy. Her vocals are incredible (like always), but you can feel that every note is sung with intention and purpose. The cool, powerful alto adopted in “Doin’ Time,” “How to Disappear” and “California”— contrasted with the sweeter and softer voice in “Cinammon Girl,” “Fuck it I love you,” and “Hope is a dangerous thing…”—gives the album texture. Each song can exist on their own, becoming unique in their own right, yet they all still complement each other in one, perfect unit.
I can’t find a single negative thing to say about Norman Fucking Rockwell!, nor can I find anything more to discuss. I can’t even select a few songs as examples of my praises because each one has all these strengths in unique ways. It’s modern art, a masterclass in songwriting and music production, and a full-on masterpiece. No one ever, except Ms. Lana Del Rey, could create something like this album.
Am I a Lana Del Rey expert? You be the judge. Feel free to listen to my two, curated Lana Del Rey playlists: one that’s a simple “Best Of,” and another that’s dedicated to all the songs that make me want to throw up.*
*Disclaimer: You need a Spotify to be able to listen to these playlists. Sorry in advance.
Header image edited by author. All images are credited underneath the photograph.