Lana Del Rey has two No. 1 albums and six Grammy nominations to her name, regularly works with some of the biggest names in music, and made what many considered to be some of the best music of 2019. Yet here the singer-songwriter-poet is on the cover of Interview magazine, talking with partner-in-crime Jack Antonoff, calling herself “an underdog.†“I’m not the kind of artist who’s ever going to get justified,†Del Rey told Antonoff. “I will die an underdog and that’s cool with me.†The comments came as part of a longer rambling about how Del Rey “was always right†about, well, everything. “I subscribe to the idea that what’s going on in the macrocosm, whether it be in the presidency or a virus that keeps us isolated, is a reflection of what’s going on in the individual home and inside bedrooms and what people intimately talk about,†she said. Later, she added, “I’m not saying it’s more relevant than ever, but my concern for myself, the country, the world — I knew we weren’t prepared for something like this, mentally.†It wouldn’t be the first time we called her a prophet.
Elsewhere, she and Antonoff didn’t shed much light on new album Chemtrails Over the Country Club, which was supposed to be out September 5. Describing the sound, Del Rey said, “It was like, ‘Is this new folk? Oh, god, are we going country?’†As for tracks, she said she thought “White Dress/Waitress,†which Del Rey and Antonoff recorded at Jim Henson’s studio, would be “a defining moment.†Another song, “Dealer,†which may or may not have been added to the track list, features Del Rey “just screaming my head off.†“People don’t know what it sounds like when I yell,†she said. “And I do yell.†And the title track is about her “stunning girlfriends†and “beautiful siblings,†who inspired a lot of the album. The album as a whole sounds like the Midwest, added Del Rey, a self-proclaimed Angeleno. “It’s not cooked or oversaturated, and there’s still space to catch that white lightning,†she said of Oklahoma, debatably part of the Midwest. No word on what brought her back there, though.