Gone are annoying trifles like Born to Die’s “Carmen” and “Diet Mountain Dew”; in their place are slow, atmospheric songs filled with theatrical melancholy
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Ultraviolence sounds tragic and beautiful—darkly-shaded ballads are what she was created to make, and this album is nothing but
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The first section of the album is so gorgeous and rich, Ultraviolence at first seems better than it is.
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But this thing Lana Del Rey is going for isn’t easy to sustain, and it starts to go south during the back half of Ultraviolence. The album grows tiresome somewhere during the stretch where “Pretty When You Cry” leads to “Money Power Glory” and then on to “****ed My Way Up to the Top”. The melodies are a little less interesting and, instead of melodramatic fables, she settles for button-pushing.
The masochism, the self-hatred, the drugs, the emotional world filtered through the tragic figures American teenagers are drawn to gets old. You can feel Lana Del Rey inching into territory where she’s daring you not to like her, and by the time you get to the Ultraviolence bonus track “Florida Kilos”, a Harmony Korine co-write that might as well be called Spring Breakers: The Audiobook, you begin to remember why many people find the whole project repellant.
Blackout reminds me how instantly recognisable Britney's vocals are, treated or untreated: Her thin Southern huskiness is one of the defining sounds of 00s pop.
Pitchfork is so ******. I regret following they writers/reviewers on twitter because it made me realize just how stupid that publication is. They're all bums
