Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Norman Fucking Rockwell!
Del Rey holding out her hand on a boat around a man
Studio album by
ReleasedAugust 30, 2019 (2019-08-30)
Recorded2017–2019
Studio
(Los Angeles)
House of Breaking Glass (Seattle)
Electric Lady (New York City)
(London)
Rough Customer (Brooklyn)
Genre
Length67:43
Label
Producer
Lana Del Rey chronology
Lust for Life
(2017)
Norman Fucking Rockwell!
(2019)
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
(2020)
Singles from Norman Fucking Rockwell!
  1. "Mariners Apartment Complex"
    Released: September 12, 2018
  2. "Venice Bitch"
    Released: September 18, 2018
  3. "Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have – but I Have It"
    Released: January 9, 2019
  4. "Doin' Time"
    Released: May 17, 2019
  5. "The Greatest"
    Released: September 13, 2019

Norman Fucking Rockwell! (abbreviated to NFR! in some releases) is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey released on August 30, 2019, by Polydor and Interscope Records. The album was primarily produced by Del Rey and Jack Antonoff, with additional contributions from Zach Dawes, Andrew Watt, and longtime Del Rey collaborator Rick Nowels. Musically, Norman Fucking Rockwell! features a soft rock sound consisting of psych-rock songs and piano ballads and features references to various classic rock artists. The title of the album is a reference to painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell.

Five singles were released to promote the album: "Mariners Apartment Complex", "Venice Bitch", "Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have – but I Have It", "Doin' Time", and "The Greatest". Del Rey embarked on her fifth concert tour, The Norman Fucking Rockwell! Tour, to promote them. It commenced on September 21, 2019, and concluded on November 30, 2019.

Norman Fucking Rockwell! received universal acclaim. Music critics praised the album's lyricism, production and Del Rey's musical progression. The album reached number one in seven countries, including the United Kingdom, becoming Del Rey's fourth number one album in the region. In the United States, Norman Fucking Rockwell! peaked at number three, marking Del Rey's fifth consecutive top five album in the country. At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, it was nominated for Album of the Year, while the title track received a nomination for Song of the Year. Norman Fucking Rockwell! was frequently listed by numerous publications as the best album of 2019, and since its release has been regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 2010s as well as a career highlight for Del Rey. Rolling Stone included the album in their 2023 updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Background

When in attendance at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, Del Rey confirmed in an interview that she had begun work on her next album. She revealed the title of one song, "Bartender", saying that she did not know if it would make the album's tracklist. The album was recorded under the working title Bird World in its earlier stages of development. In September 2018, Del Rey premiered the album's second single, "Venice Bitch", in Zane Lowe's Beats 1 show, and joined for an interview where she confirmed that the album's title and its title track would be Norman Fucking Rockwell!. She revealed that the album was nearly complete having recorded eleven tracks for it. It was later reported that the album was scheduled for an early 2019 release. In October 2018, Del Rey performed alongside Jack Antonoff, with whom she had collaborated on the record, at an Apple Music event, where she premiered the song "How to Disappear". On December 31, 2018, Del Rey teased the song "Happiness Is a Butterfly" on social media. A snippet of the album's title track was shared by Del Rey in June 2019. In July 2019, Del Rey performed at the FIB Benicàssim Festival, where she revealed that the album would be released the following month.

Composition

FLOOD Magazine described the album's sound as "a mellow soft rock" and noted Del Rey's improved lyrics tackle larger themes than her previous work. According to critics, Norman Fucking Rockwell! features "psych-rock jams" and piano-based ballads. Consequence of Sound described the record as featuring "psych-pop lullabies, tales of complicated, consuming romantic love, and overt odes to the tarnished dream of California." It has been characterised as a "pop classic", as well as embodying folk rock, and existing somewhere between the desert rock and "minimalist" trip hop of Del Rey's previous efforts.

The album features a strong influence from 1970s classic rock. Kitty Empire of The Observer noted that "strings and synth washes soundtrack multiple love songs", and also noted several classic rock references throughout the album, including Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl", Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone noted the album's "Laurel Canyon '70s soft-rock fantasies", including references to Joni Mitchell and the Eagles.

No Ripcord described Norman Fucking Rockwell! as "a remarkably sharp pop record that retains her fascination with pop-culture iconography and the rosey simplicity of a post-war America where classic rock and blue jeans ruled and takes them to much deeper places".

Release and promotion

The album's cover art, release date, and track listing were announced by Del Rey on July 31, 2019. The cover art features Del Rey and Duke Nicholson—actor Jack Nicholson's grandson—posing on a sailboat, with the album title and Del Rey's initials written in a comic-inspired style. The photo was taken by Del Rey's sister Chuck Grant. The following day, Del Rey released an album trailer. On August 2, Urban Outfitters announced an exclusive vinyl of the album featuring an alternative album artwork, also photographed by Chuck Grant.

Throughout 2018, Del Rey shared snippets via social media of several songs intended for the album, including "Happiness Is a Butterfly", "How to Disappear", and "Cinnamon Girl". She performed "How to Disappear" on October 29 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, debuting the full song for the first time. A trailer for the album was released on August 1, 2019. It features three of the album's singles—a cover of Sublime's "Doin' Time", "Mariners Apartment Complex", and "Venice Bitch"—as well as the title track. On August 22, 2019, "Fuck It I Love You" and "The Greatest" were released as promotional singles, along with a double music video. The music video runs at 9:19 minutes long, with the same shoot as the album trailer.

Singles

"Mariners Apartment Complex" was released as the album's first single on September 12, 2018. The following week, on September 18, Del Rey released the second single, "Venice Bitch" and revealed the album title. "Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman like Me to Have – but I Have It" followed as the third single on January 9, 2019.

Del Rey released a cover of Sublime's "Doin' Time" on May 17, 2019, for a documentary about the band; its music video was released on August 29, 2019, one day before the release of Norman Fucking Rockwell! A double music video for "Fuck It I Love You" and "The Greatest" was released on August 22, 2019; "The Greatest" was later released as the album's fifth single on September 13, 2019, in Italy.

Tour

On August 1, 2019, Del Rey announced two legs of a tour in promotion of Norman Fucking Rockwell!. The first leg took place in North America in the fall of 2019 and the second in Europe in early 2020. The European leg of the tour was subsequently cancelled due to illness.

Film

On December 20, 2019, Del Rey released a 14-minute-long short film featuring the songs "Norman Fucking Rockwell", "Bartender", and "Happiness is a Butterfly". The film was directed by Chuck Grant and premiered on YouTube.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
AnyDecentMusic?8.5/10
Metacritic87/100
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic
The A.V. ClubB
Consequence of SoundA−
Entertainment WeeklyB
The Guardian
The Independent
NME
Pitchfork9.4/10
Rolling Stone
Uncut8/10

Norman Fucking Rockwell! received widespread acclaim from music critics and is also the most critically acclaimed studio album of Del Rey's career to date. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 87 based on 28 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Jenn Pelly of Pitchfork wrote that the album "establishes [Del Rey] as one of America’s greatest living songwriters". In his review for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield wrote "the long-awaited Norman Fucking Rockwell is even more massive and majestic than everyone hoped it would be. Lana turns her fifth and finest album into a tour of sordid American dreams, going deep cover in all our nation's most twisted fantasies of glamour and danger." He concluded that Del Rey "has finally made her pop classic." In a five-star review for NME, Rhian Daly called the album "nothing short of stunning." Kristel Jax of Now wrote "Del Rey has shifted her kitschy patriotic fixation, dropping her flag-draped persona and making peace with a more complex, dystopian reality", also giving the album five stars. For Slant Magazine, Sal Cinquemani described the album as "a heady collection of psych-rock and piano dirges that pour into each other and rarely shift tempo from track to track" as well as "frank assessments of the psychic effects of a world spiraling into chaos." Also writing positively, Alexandra Pollard of The Independent wrote "The album is sultry and soporific, sitting somewhere between the minimalist trip-hop of Del Rey’s early days, and the scuzzy desert rock she has toyed with over the years," and concluded that "This is Del Rey at her most assertive." In his 'premature evaluation' for Stereogum, Tom Breihan wrote that the album is "a beautiful opus for a new dark age — a fond look back at the world we just wrecked", calling it "yoga music for the apocalypse."

In a more mixed review, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian described the album as "an alternately beguiling and frustrating experience", concluding that despite Del Rey's evident talent, "it's hard not to wish that she would broaden her perspective, adopt a different persona, shake things up a little." Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph similarly wrote that the album "reveals Del Rey to be something of a one trick pony, but what a beautiful trick it is."

Accolades

In 2021, Pitchfork readers voted Norman Fucking Rockwell! the 17th-greatest album overall, and the best album by a female artist, of the previous 25 years.

Year Organization Award Result Ref.
2019 Q Awards Album Of The Year 2020 Nominated
2020 Grammy Awards Album of the Year Nominated
NME Awards Best Album Won

Year-end lists

The album was placed in numerous year-end lists of 2019, topping those by many publications. According to Metacritic, it was the most named album in the year-end rankings of 2019 albums by critics.

Select year-end rankings of Norman Fucking Rockwell!
Publication List Rank Ref.
Billboard 50 Best Albums of Albums of 2019: Staff Picks
6
Clash Clash Albums of the Year 2019
22
Entertainment Weekly The Best Albums of 2019
9
The Guardian The Best 50 Albums of 2019
1
NME The Best 50 Albums of 2019
3
The New York Times Jon Caramanica's Best Albums of 2019
6
Jon Pareles' Best Albums of 2019
7
Paste The 50 Best Albums of 2019
19
Pitchfork The 50 Best Albums of 2019
1
Rolling Stone The 50 Best Albums of 2019
3
Slant The 25 Best of Albums of 2019
1
Time The 10 Best Albums of 2019
4

Decade-end and all-time lists

Publication List Rank Ref.
AllMusic 200 Best Albums of the 2010s
Cleveland.com 100 Greatest Albums of the 2010s
43
NME Greatest Albums of the 2010s
89
Noisey The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s
62
Paste The 30 Best Pop Albums of the 2010s
17
Pitchfork 200 Best Albums of the 2010s
19
Rolling Stone The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s
32
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020)
321
Slant Magazine The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s
3
Stereogum The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s
67
Uproxx All the Best Albums of the 2010s
15

Commercial performance

Norman Fucking Rockwell! debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 chart, earning 104,000 album-equivalent units (including 66,000 copies in pure album sales) in its first week, becoming Del Rey's sixth US top ten album on the chart. In its second week, the album dropped to number nine, earning an additional 35,000 units. In November 2021, the album was certified Gold by the RIAA for selling over 500,000 units. In January 2024, the album was certified Platinum for selling over 1,000,000 units.

In the United Kingdom, Norman Fucking Rockwell! debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, selling 31,539 copies, becoming her best sales week in the country since Ultraviolence (her following album, Chemtrails over the Country Club, would open up with higher weekly sales than Norman Fucking Rockwell!). The album became Lana Del Rey's fourth number one album in the UK, tying Taylor Swift as the female artist with the most solo number one albums in the UK during the 2010s. In France, the album sold 8,000 copies in its first week, 800 more than Lust for Life's first week.

Track listing

No.TitleWriter(s)Producer(s)Length
1."Norman Fucking Rockwell"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
4:08
2."Mariners Apartment Complex"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
4:06
3."Venice Bitch"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
9:38
4."Fuck It I Love You"
3:38
5."Doin' Time"3:22
6."Love Song"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
3:49
7."Cinnamon Girl"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
5:00
8."How to Disappear"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
3:48
9."California"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff[a]
  • Dawes
5:05
10."The Next Best American Record"
  • Nowels
  • Kieron Menzies
  • Dean Reid
  • Mighty Mike[c]
5:49
11."The Greatest"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
5:00
12."Bartender"
  • Del Rey
  • Nowels
  • Del Rey[a]
  • Nowels
4:23
13."Happiness Is a Butterfly"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Nowels
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Nowels[c]
4:32
14."Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have – but I Have It"
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
  • Del Rey
  • Antonoff
5:24[d]
Total length:67:43

Notes

  • Digital releases of the album feature the single version of "Fuck It I Love You", which credits different personnel than the album version.
  • ^[a] signifies someone solely credited on physical releases.
  • ^[b] signifies someone solely credited on digital releases.
  • ^[c] signifies an additional producer
  • ^[d] physical releases of the album include an outro on "Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman like Me to Have – but I Have It", making the length 5:58.
  • All track titles are stylized in sentence case, except “Mariners Apartment Complex”, “Venice Bitch”, “Cinnamon Girl” and “The Next Best American Record” which are stylized in title case, and “Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman like Me to Have – but I Have It” in all lowercase.

Credits and personnel

Charts

Certifications and sales

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA) Gold 35,000
Belgium (BEA) Gold 10,000
Canada (Music Canada) Platinum 80,000
Denmark (IFPI Danmark) Platinum 20,000
France 31,000
Italy (FIMI) Gold 25,000
Poland (ZPAV) Platinum 20,000
United Kingdom (BPI) Gold 100,000
United States (RIAA) Platinum 1,000,000

Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

See also


This page was last updated at 2024-02-22 07:21 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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