US dream pop star Lana Del Rey yesterday announced the upcoming release of her new studio album, Norman F*cking Rockwell. Due for release some time next year, the album will be Lana’s first full-length release since 2017’s Lust For Life, a hip-hop-’60s mashup that featured appearances from A$AP Rocky, The Weeknd and Sean Ono Lennon, the son of Yoko Ono and the late Beatles legend.
Del Rey confirmed the plans in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 show. Speaking about the new release, she said that the proceedings were more fun than usual. “Working with Jack [Antonoff, co-producer and ex-Bleachers member], I was in a little bit of a lighter mood because he was so funny. So the title track is called ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ and it’s kind of about this guy who is such a genius artist but he thinks he’s the shit and he knows it and he like won’t shut up talking about it. So often I ended up with these creative types or whatever, and you know, they just go on and on about themselves, and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah.””
“But there’s a little bit of merit to it also. They are so good. I just like the title track so much that I was like, “OK, I definitely want the record to also be called that”, she added. Norman Rockwell was a renowned 20th-century American artist known for his realist illustrations of everyday life. They graced the front cover of The Saturday Evening Post for over fifty years.
Ahead of next year’s release, Del Rey released the track, ‘Venice Bitch’, as a teaser single. Nearly ten minutes long and packed with blissed-out sunny guitars, the psychedelic song was not initially popular with her more pop-minded bosses. “I played it for my managers and I was like, “Yeah, I think this is the single I want to put out.” And they were like, “It’s 10 minutes long. Are you kidding me? It’s called ‘Venice Bitch.’” Like, “Why do you do this to us? Can you make a three minute normal pop song?” I was like, “Well, end of summer, some people just wanna drive around for 10 minutes get lost in some electric guitar””, she said.
