Lana Del Rey is turning country: Her new album, titled “Lasso,” will be released in September. Meanwhile, a new “country trap” ballad she co-wrote with Atlanta rapper Quavo has been steadily climbing the charts.
“strict” The track pairs acoustic guitar and Del Rey’s breathy vocals with Quavo’s tight verses and thick trap beats, with lyrics that mash up together to express resilience amid everyday adversity through imagery of the rural and urban underclass, where “blue-collar, red-dirt attitude” meets “808s blaring in the trunk of an Atlanta neighborhood.”
Above all, Del Rey exemplifies the playful humor and patriotic attitude that lies at the heart of the conservatorial resurgence, and if this kind of thing has “crossover appeal,” all the better.
It’s no surprise that fans responded to the song: The lines between country, pop and hip hop have never been more blurred, and Del Rey has embraced elements of all three since her 2012 major label debut, Born to Die.
That this album, released in the middle of the Obama administration, is now rocketing up the charts is a testament to Del Rey’s staying power, her ability to maintain pop stardom during a particularly shaky time in the music industry. Unlike other survivors like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, Del Rey has always distanced herself from liberal trends, which, combined with her old-fashioned femininity, is enough to make her seem vaguely conservative. Contrast that with Swift, who alienated her early fans by trading femininity for universal female appeal. Celebrity Activities.
Musically, though, Swift is more palatable to many conservatives, for whom hip-hop culture evokes D&I privilege, sexual promiscuity, urban lawlessness, and, maybe, twerking. Some fans on the right admire Del Rey’s self-consciously American aesthetic, while others view her tendency to blend genres with suspicion. Right-wing infighting? Nothing new.
Even Del Rey’s rural America, the last bastion of conservative identity in our pop culture, is not immune to rebukes from the right. Look no further than the controversy surrounding 23-year-old Haley Welch from Tennessee, whose crude but harmless comments became a talking point online.
Why? There are a lot of cute young women making raunchy jokes about sex online. What struck people about Welch was that she (and her delightfully nasal voice) seemed so obviously real.
At the time of her “discovery,” Welch was happily living with her grandmother in a neighborhood roughly the size of Oberlin College’s Class of 2024. She worked in a bedspring factory and had never driven on an interstate or been in a plane.
Conservatives would normally applaud this icon of wholesome country life — if they weren’t stunned by Welch’s audacity to use her fame to make money and then denigrate culture.
Unlike the critics, the people who talked about Welch’s comments understood it was all in good fun, and it’s unlikely any of the passersby seen in the original video were offended by Welch’s vulgar comments.
“North Richmond Rich” singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony’s viral fame He followed a similar trajectory: At first, conservatives loved his accent and populist lyrics like “Hillbilly Elegy.” But he soon failed the right’s purity test, speaking unsparingly of “diversity” and lamenting that his songs were being “weaponized” by conservative activists.
Anthony may no longer be the sensation he was last summer, but judging by strong ticket sales for his current tour, people still seem to enjoy his music.
What the right needs to think about is how to reach the “bar stool conservatives” who naturally identify with people like Welch and Anthony: They’re instinctively drawn to anti-wokeness but aren’t necessarily willing to engage in culture war debates about “traditional values.”
“Tough” may be somewhat unorthodox for Del Rey, but it speaks to a theme that runs through all of her work: the freedom to embrace regional roots. Del Rey herself was born in Manhattan. After spending her childhood in upstate New York and attending boarding school in Connecticut, she returned to Manhattan, where she launched her career. But in her music, she has always been drawn to more distant times and places in America.
Above all, Del Rey exhibits the playful humor and patriotic attitude that are at the heart of the conservatism revival. And if this kind of thing has “crossover appeal,” all the better; worrying about whether newcomers are “one of us” is a sign of deeper insecurity.
To look for signs of liberal encroachment in “Yellowstone” or Zach Bryan is to forget that their prominence is a victory in itself. That alone should hearten conservatives. If the right truly wants to claim liberalism, A cultural hubWhy not emulate Del Rey’s graceful, confident cool and start having a little fun?
