On March 24, Lana Del Rey released her ninth album, following her 2021 album ‘Blue Banisters.’ ‘Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’ is a pop album including sixteen songs and an hour and eighteen minutes of play time.

As a longtime listener of Del Rey, these songs really take me back to one of my favorite albums, ‘Norman F****** Rockwell’, while still adding a new twist on her music. During the past few years, Lana has been going towards more of a poetic, serene, and dream-like music that, in my opinion, isn’t something you can listen to everyday. The mood is very specific, which I know many prefer, but as someone who listens to music to be in a good mood, the slowness infecting every song really brings me down. This was my opinion for her last two albums ‘Blue Banisters’ and ‘Chemtrails Over the Country Club,’ which are two of her least popular albums. But that is not the case for this new album.

Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (my abbreviation for this album) manages to incorporate this slow theme while mashing it with a more modern and upbeat beginning or ending. For example, ‘A&W’, one of my personal favorites, is the perfect example. For about the first half of this 7 minute song, it’s slow, then transitions to an upbeat and funky ending that is entirely captivating and mesmerizing. The same can be said for ‘Paris, Texas’ but it doesn’t transition to an uplifting beat. Instead, there is one in the background of the beat that gives it a unique, dream-like feel. When listening to it, it sounds like it should be in Coraline with the unique beat and soft vocals.

I asked some people around campus what they thought of this new addition to her music. “I think it’s really good,” an anonymous student said. “She has a good mixture of slow and upbeat songs on it and there's a lot of different emotions. It’s one of my favorite albums.” I also asked Muskah Younis, a senior. She said, “I don’t listen to Lana a lot but I heard this was a good album so I decided to listen to it. I don’t really like how long her songs are, like A&W but it was great. I can’t wait to finish listening to it.” After finishing the album, I’m very content with this album and my favorite songs I listen to on a daily basis are A&W and Peppers.