“People wanted even more people of colour on my album, [but] to a point a photo just sometimes is what it is,” she added. “Half the people in the photo are people of colour.” “Without wanting to sound bitter or defensive, it’s a simple fact that she’s had a lot of very unfair press,” says Mawson at one point. “We’ve been working with her for 10/11 years now, and some years are better than others. But obviously the start was brutal. She was accused of being some kind of fraud. Really she was a revolutionary.” In 2020, Lana answered MW’s question about the biggest challenge


she’d faced with just three letters: SNL – her 2012 Saturday Night Live performance, which (unfairly) attracted barbed reviews. “Ed was with me that night and was a calm, reassuring force as usual, though in the moment we didn’t really know what was to come...” Lana reflects. “Ben’s hilarious. It’s his absolute strong point; in the midst of a calamity he’ll be on the bow of the ship with a beer in his hand, laughing. So, he kept me laughing and I sensed from when he told me that there was nothing to worry about that we could get through it. Although I’m sometimes defensive of my position or reputation, I do my best not to take things too seriously, I just really don’t like people who try to tear folks down.” It begs the question, following Norman Fucking Rockwell!’s acclaim, just how well understood does she feel as an artist in 2021? “If there’s confusion around my story after I’ve been so direct and given so much information about myself, I can only imagine it’s a reflection of people’s own ambivalence about their own authenticity,” she says. “The only time I get defensive is when people twist what I say in a long-form interview and try and make me appear to be stupid or assign views to me without knowing me at all. Happens all the time.”


One group of people who have zero confusion about Lana is her team, who are quick to point out the impact her vision, aesthetic and approach to music has had. She has served as something of a North Star for a new generation of artists. “There have been lots of people who’ve followed in her trail, shall we say?” offers Mawson. “Not copied, but been influenced heavily.” By now it’s well-documented that a Lana album campaign is different to many of the ones typically dissected in these pages. She does promo, but much more selectively than most. Historically, she hasn’t done much by way of live TV performances, though Tap say she is making use of pre-records for television on this campaign. Likewise, she tours, but often off the beaten track. “She’ll pick and choose routings that make pretty much zero sense, but there’ll be some important thing that she’s got in her head,” smiles Ed Millett.


Ben Mawson recalls the time he went to visit her on tour, not in New York, LA or even a Miami or Chicago, but in Bugs Bunny’s favourite place to re-orientate himself: Albuquerque. “She’s very keen to go to as many places as possible,” he says, “but


they’re often not the most natural touring places.” This approach came as something of a shock to self-diagnosed “strategy person” Tom March when he started working with Lana. “Initially I was a bit like, ‘There’s no strategy here!’” he laughs. “To my brain, I was like, ‘That’s not how you do things!’ But then you realise that’s how you do things if you’re Lana, and that’s what her fans love. It comes directly from her. You realise she’s right. She knows her audience better than anyone.”


March points to just some of the things Lana excels at, from her full creative control of her videos (“They’re vital for who she is”) to her relationship with her audience (“She talks to her fans for ages on Instagram Live”).


There are lessons – valuable ones – for the music industry in the way Lana conducts campaigns that are indivisible from the art itself.


“Every new artist I speak to talks about creating their world and their own aesthetic,” suggests March. “And everyone still cites Lana.”


musicweek.com


“Lana’s career is a lesson: you don’t always have to take the most commercial decisions”


ED MILLETT, TAP MUSIC


“If your artist has conviction in what they’re making, then you can trust that,” says Ed Millett. “At the beginning of your career when you’re getting given all these opportunities, it’s like, ‘You gotta do this interview – if you don’t do it, then you haven’t ticked that box!’ She did it to a point, but there was so much that wasn’t right for her. And over time, you learn your life and career aren’t necessarily defined by the opportunities that are presented to you.” “Often they’re presented as, ‘You’ve got to do this!’ but the beauty is nothing hangs on one particular yes or no,” adds Mawson. And if Lana and Tap’s views on things don’t align? “How do we resolve differences?” ponders Mawson. “Well,


she’s the boss, ultimately. We can’t force her, obviously, to do anything and that’s not what managers are there to do. It’s funny, me and Ed have often worried about a particular release 0r launch because it’s unconventional, but the music always speaks for itself. It’s so powerful and wonderful, the [different] rollouts don’t really matter.”


“Her path has been a lesson that you don’t always have to take the most commercial decisions,” says Millett. “Just pick the most authentic ones and you’ll be there a decade in.” Indeed, not only is Lana still around for album number seven, Chemtrails is also shaping up to be massive.


“We’ve already doubled the amount of pre-orders we had for the last album,” beams March. “We’re in a very, very strong place.” The key question already – given her prolific nature – is, what’s next? Even ahead of Norman Fucking Rockwell!’s release, Lana was teasing song titles for Chemtrails, citing clusters of words that piqued her interest – almost like she had a premonition of the next record.


“She’s already got two albums in mind, I think,” says Millett. “And there’s the other poetry book still to come.”


So, are there already words or titles that Lana is homing in on? “Spending so much time in a close circle of country music friends, I could see one option for a title coming from that,” she hints. “I also have a secondary title I like that summed up 18 months of my life.”


Given that Tap oversaw Dua Lipa’s record-breaking livestream, is there potential for Lana to dip a toe into that world, too? “She’s got her own plan for something,” says Millett. “I’m not going to say what it is, but she’s had it for years, and it might actually now [be] something we could pull off.”


With all that said, from the outside looking in, it seems Lana is primed for even more success in 2021 and beyond, and yet she told Annie Mac, “I will die an underdog and that’s cool with me.” Why, for all her success, does she feel this way? “Well, I guess I’d consider an underdog somebody who’s not completely understood,” she replies. “It’s easy to champion somebody who fills in all the gaps for you and is able to present every single facet of who they are so you don’t miss a beat, but all things considered that’s just not something I’m willing to do. I still believe some thoughts and processes are sacred and for that reason, in a time of such public entitlement, someone like me may fly slightly under the fighter jets.”


And that, it seems, is more than enough for Lana Del Rey. “It’s what I prefer,” she says. “It’s the path I chose.”


Music Week | 31


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