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Jul 26, 2017At 72 minutes, the album’s 16 tracks feel bloated and sluggish at times and the hip-hop contributions by A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti are ill-conceived; reminiscent of Christina Aguilera’s tribute to a Marilyn Monroe poster, Back to Basics. But despite a handful of missteps, Del Rey continues to reinvent and redefine herself in new and captivating ways, and Lust For Life is just one more step in that profound and lovely evolution.
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Jul 28, 2017Throughout this accomplished, assured new record, Lana manages to repeatedly freeze time and capture those fleeting cinematic moments that make us who we are, while reminding us of who we could be.
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Jul 27, 2017Lust for Life represents the thawing of the ice queen we thought we knew, and the strange death of her American dream. The warmth and humility revealed beneath are all the more thrilling for how well they were kept under lock and key. Human after all.
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Jul 25, 2017Lust For Life deals with themes that’ll be familiar to Lana devotees; faded Hollywood glamour, skewed Americana and terrible love. But this time around, Lana is even more grandiose than usual, with lush, sweeping orchestration draped elegantly over each of the album’s 16 tracks.
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Jul 25, 2017Although the reinvention teased before release never materializes, Lust for Life is still a return to form which should cement Del Rey’s status as the queen of femme fatale pop.
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Jul 24, 2017Lust for Life is a spectacular 72 minutes long. It trades in the same intently, atmospherically narcotic sound Del Rey and primary producer Rick Nowels have favored since the beginning.
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Jul 24, 2017Even if Lust For Life isn’t a game changer, it fulfills the potential of a sound that she has been slowly perfecting since she first entered the scene. The album, like Lana Del Rey, has earned the right not to be overlooked.
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Jul 24, 2017The ageless 32-year-old arrived at a languid sound, a detached authorial voice and a set of obsessions on her 2012 debut Born to Die, and her fourth album remains true to them all.
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Jul 21, 2017While many of the song titles and clumsy references may have a discerning music fan scoffing at Del Rey’s predictability, there remains an admirably unflinching quality to this record (even if it is five tracks too long). She has evolved elements of her once disturbing narrative, and her ardent fanbase will detect clear leaps made since her debut.
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Jul 21, 2017Witty, complex, and endlessly intriguing, Lust For Life is a painstakingly woven record from start to finish, with very few gripes.
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Jul 21, 2017Del Rey’s deliciously twisted pop fuses hip hop beats with her breathy vocal delivery; their mutual power is in their ability to keep things hidden, whilst seeming utterly explicit. It’s a heady mix to be caught up in.
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Jul 20, 2017Lust for Life is her most expansive album; it has 16 songs, stretching nearly 72 minutes. It also, in rare moments, hints at a wink behind Ms. Del Rey’s somber lullabies.
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Jul 20, 2017Del Rey has sometimes been characterised as a modern day torch singer but on Lust For Life she sounds like she is finally ready to take that torch and burn down her ex’s house with it. Lust For Life lets a bit of light into the darkness of Del Rey’s moody past works, hinting at emotional recovery without drastically altering her sensuous musical palette.
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Jul 25, 2017There are moments on Lust for Life that, while less successful on a pure songwriting level than some of Del Rey’s more focused work, are fascinating distillations of what a Lana Del Rey song mean.
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Jul 31, 2017While Del Rey’s voice remains firmly at the forefront, the spare arrangements encourage listeners to fill in their own emotional blanks for once.
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Jul 26, 2017Where the first half of the album is strong but routine, the back half finds mixed but more interesting results.
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Jul 28, 2017As usual, it’s best listened to when you’re in your feelings, and since good news is in short supply, that might be often enough for her gauzy vision of love to feel like a balm, the more wide-eyed the songs the better.
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Jul 28, 2017At 16 tracks, Lust for Life is overlong and sometimes unfocused, with inevitable dips in quality here and there.
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Jul 28, 2017Lust For Life shows Del Rey finding maturity and herself in what seems like the first time.
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Jul 28, 2017With some more judicious editing, a good album could have been an outstanding one, but even so, this is still superior, well-crafted noir-pop that maintains Del Rey’s impressive career to date.
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Jul 25, 2017If Lust for Life starts to slow down toward its conclusion--"Tomorrow Never Came" seems like the logical conclusion, but there's a three-track coda afterward--it nevertheless delivers upon its promise of a sunnier Lana Del Rey, and the very fact that she can find so many textures in a deliberately limited palette is impressive.
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Jul 25, 2017For much of the record, Del Rey sounds at her most contented when she's indulging nostalgic impulses, whether her own or borrowed.
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Jul 24, 2017In something of a seismic shift for the usually downcast artist, the constant of the songwriting here is a buoying faith in the power of love, and all the many forms it can take: romantic (“Love”), carnal (“Cherry”), platonic (“Coachella”), effusively adulatory (“Groupie Love”), fetishistic (“White Mustang”), and, yes, self-loving (“In My Feelings”).
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Jul 25, 2017No matter how deserving Lana is of accreditation, and how close she is to true vindication, less than half of the tunes on Lust for Life are worthy of Born to Die, Paradise, Ultraviolence, or Honeymoon, despite the handful of very promising singles that would make you think otherwise.
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Aug 1, 2017The optimism of Lust For Life is a pleasant surprise, though the album is still painted in the same shades as Del Rey’s previous releases. At times it’s some of her best material, but it seems like a record best experienced in pieces than as a proper whole.
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Jul 26, 2017Lust For Life may be a scattered, confusing record, but it's a beautiful ride--one worth repeated listens, even if Lana's intentions--like her enunciation--aren't always clear.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3,084 out of 3730
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Mixed: 95 out of 3730
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Negative: 551 out of 3730
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Jul 21, 2017
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Jul 21, 2017
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Jul 21, 2017