Lana Del Rey Calls Out Critics And Fellow Artists In Impassioned New Note

Last August, Lana Del Rey released her sixth album, Norman Fucking Rockwell to rapturous acclaim. By the end of 2019, it landed high on countless publications' best-of lists, and it also even earned a Album of the Year nomination at the Grammys just a couple of months later.


Although it was a long journey for Lana, as she writes out in a pointed new note posted to Instagram early Thursday (May 21). "With all the topics girls are finally allowed to explore I just hope to mention over the last ten years I think it's pathetic that my minor lyrical exploration detailing my some days submissive or passive roles has often made people mention I've set girls back hundreds of years," she wrote.


The catalyst for her note, it appears, is the recent chart success of a number of female artists she mentions by name. Right now that Doja Cat, Ariana [Grande], Camila [Cabello], Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc — can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling cute by being in love even if the relationship isn't brilliant, or dancing for cash — or whichever I want — without being crucified or saying that I'm glamorizing abuse??????"


"I'm fed up with female writers and alt singers saying that I glamorize abuse once in reality I'm just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all right now seeing are very prevalent abusive relationships all over the world," she continued.


She also clarified that her frustrations are also rooted in, as she sees it, whose perspective gets incorporated in feminist art and whose doesn't: "There has to be a place in feminism for girls who look and act like me — the sort of woman who says no although males hear yes — the sort of ladies who are slated mercilessly for being their authentic, delicate selves. The sort of females who get their own stories and voices taken away from them by stronger ladies or by boys who hate women."


The note also mentions a decade of "bullshit reviews" she acquired and why she feels her art has "paved the way for other ladies to stop 'putting on a happy face' and just have the ability to mention whichever the hell they wanted to in their music," unlike, she writes, her own early experiences. One of these "bullshit reviews" may be storied critic Ann Powers's September 2019 take on Norman Fucking Rockwell, which was largely celebratory however also noted, as criticism does, "uncooked" spots and "B-plus poetics." Lana did not agree, tweeting back at Powers that "there’s nothing uncooked about me. To write about me is nothing like it is to be with me. Never had a persona."


This interaction has resurfaced again among the reactions to Lana's new note, which span from the fans of the artists she said defending their faves to others calling out what they visualize as hypocrisy to still others commenting on the inherent racial politics of a white artist calling out largely nonwhite artists. There really are also those defending her and urging detractors concentrate on her larger points about the significance of women's points of view in music.


Amid all of the discussion the statement is generating, it's easy to miss a key detail Lana concludes with: She's got two forthcoming books of poetry and also a brand-new album set to drop on September 5. "I'm sure there will be tinges of what I've Been pondering" in the new music, she wrote. While we wait to discover what that might sound like — and why producer Jack Antonoff, of whom she posted a FaceTime virtual jam session photo, will support shape it — read her note in full above.