Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd review
On Mar. 24 2023, Lana Del Rey released her highly-anticipated ninth album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. In true Del Rey fashion, the singer-songwriter had been teasing the album months beforehand on social media, sharing family photos, concept art, and nude monochrome portraits. The album concept felt far less elusive than some of her previous works, which hinged not upon specific aesthetics, but on Del Rey’s shifting songwriting concerns, which began to favor rambling meditations over catchy hooks. Ocean Blvd is a seamless combination of both interests: a tribute to the Americana that made her and a showcase of her ever-improving lyricism.
Where her previous two albums, Blue Banisters and Chemtrails Over the Country Club, both released in 2021, failed to uphold the striking redefinition of her 2019 fan-favorite Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is her most ambitious project yet. Its sixteen tracks grapple with intergenerational trauma, the pressures of stardom, religion, oblivion, and online dating.
The album’s opening track “The Grants” makes immediate reference to Del Rey’s real name, Elizabeth Grant, which has been long-suppressed by the singer in her early career but glorified by fans who admire the playful lyrics of her first tracks as Lizzy Grant. The track at once acknowledges this glorified image of her younger self and notes that her familial line retains sentimental importance to her, even as she continues to evolve away from her career’s infancy: “I’m gonna take mine of you with me,” she repeats, “Like ‘Rocky Mountain High,’ the way John Denver sings.” Over precise piano and dreamy choral supplements, Del Rey makes sense of those who came before here—her family lineage, yes, but also her many projected selves and their many musical influences.
Del Rey is at her most honest on this record, expressing her fear of being forgotten on the album’s eponymous track, and acknowledging her unfortunate capacity to accept less than she deserves: “It’s not about having someone love me anymore,” she boredly announces on the seven-minute single A&W— “this is the experience of being an American whore.” Where Del Rey once reconciled the flawed ways in which male eyes perceived her through distorted representations of Nabokov and sugar daddy testimonies, she now approaches topics of over-sexualization bluntly; she knows who she is, and she knows how and why men misunderstand her.
The album features two distinct interludes that string together this series of densely-packed songwriting into a cohesive musical collection: “Judah Smith Interlude” features a sermon from a controversial celebrity pasture overtop familiar rambling piano; the juxtaposition from the end of its neighbor track, “A&W,” which eventually culminates in a catchy trap beat, is jarring and contemplative. The other interlude, “Jon Batiste Interlude,” is the musician’s second feature on the album, following “Candy Necklace.” The track once again combines warbled dialogue with dreamy piano, chronicling what appears to be a collaborative process between Batiste and Del Rey; alternating between anxious sonic threshold and Batiste’s cathartic shouts of “I feel it in my soul,” the interlude prepares listeners for the album’s second half.
This second half takes a much more traditional approach, favoring piano-based ballads and romantic string sections, letting Del Rey’s songwriting transition from tongue-in-cheek to wholly and poetically genuine. On the meditative “Margaret” (which features her producer Jack Antonoff under his stage name Bleachers), Del Rey takes inspiration from the greats of American songwriting: “My shirt is inside out, I’m messy with the pen / He met Margaret on a rooftop, she was wearin’ white / And he was like, ‘I might be in trouble.’”
As per usual, Del Rey punctuates her effortless poetics with lines that may feel cringe-worthy to some, or quintessentially sardonic to others: “My boyfriend tested positive for COVID, it don’t matter / We’ve been kissing, so whatever he has, I have,” she purports in the penultimate track “Peppers,” and in “Sweet”: “If you want some basic bitch, go to the Beverly Center and find her.”
Equal parts consciously ridiculous and uncomplicatedly introspective, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is the most distinct Lana Del Rey project since Norman Fucking Rockwell!, and perhaps ever. Del Rey has never been more self-aware, and she has finally learned to wield her iconic image to reinvent herself yet again, assuring her place as one of the most impressive songwriters of our generation.