What Happened to Lana Del Rey’s Country Album?

“Girl, where is ‘Lasso’?”, “Girl, where is ‘Lasso’?”, writes a user under the latest post shared by Lana Del Rey on social media, a page from a hiking magazine with an old photo of her dad, Rob Grant. It’s just one of the many comments left under the post by fans of the American singer-songwriter, wondering what happened to “Lasso”.
“Lasso”, for those who missed the previous episodes, is not a person, but Del Rey’s long-awaited new album, her country breakthroughofficially announced last january – after weeks of teasers and rumors – and was originally scheduled for this month.

Month that is now about to end, while .of “Lasso” there is not even a shadow to be seen: what happened? Will it really come out? And if so, when? The fanbase of the 39-year-old American pop star with over 40 million copies sold worldwide is in turmoil. But as always when Lana Del Rey is involved, there are few certainties and many mysteries. Too many.

Fans have resigned themselves to a longer-than-expected wait

Fans have learned that Keeping up with the voice of “Summertime sadness” is particularly difficult, between announcements, second thoughts, projects that slip and in the meantime change shape and content “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” was originally titled “White Hot Forever” and was expected in 2020, only to be released a year later: in that case, it must be said, there were reasons of force majeure, with the pandemic pushing the protagonists of pop to rework their respective agendas.

The next “Blue banisters” was supposed to be called “Rock candy sweet” and released in June 2021, only to then change titles and arrive in the fall of that same year “because sometimes life changes you in time for the next chapter”. Between the two albums, Del Rey was supposed to release a Christmas album of American standards and classics, which ultimately never came out. And the reasons that pushed the singer-songwriter to postpone the release of “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” by two weeks last year have never been clarified. Perhaps only Kanye West has driven fans crazier. And now it’s the turn of this “Lasso”: the fans – who however remain very faithful to Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, this is the singer-songwriter’s real name: last June in Milan, under the stage of the i-Days at the Ippodromo Snai La Maura there were almost 70 thousand spectators – they have now resigned themselves to a wait that is evidently longer than expected, in the absence of official communications from Lana.

The first spoilers of “Lasso”

Of the King announced that he had recorded an entire album of country covers as early as 2021inspired by songs from her repertoire such as “Ride” and “Video Games”: “I went back to my early days and listened to ‘Ride’ and ‘Video Games.’ I realized there was a bit of country in there. Maybe the way ‘Video Games’ was mastered makes it pop: but there is definitely something American in there”. Two years later, in September 2023, Del Rey returned to the subject, revealing that after “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” she had worked on a concept album “with an American vein”. And he flirted with the genre on several occasions, in his public appearances: from the concert cover of “Stand by your man” by Tammy Wynette to that of the classic “Unchained Melody”, passing through the recording of a reinterpretation of “Take me home, country roads” by John Denver, a standard devoted to the landscape and country roads of West Virginia.

There has been absolute silence over “Lasso”

On the evening of January 31st, Lana Del Rey was a guest in Los Angeles of the NMPA Songwriter Awardsthe awards of the National Music Publishers’ Association, the society that represents American producers and songwriters for the purpose of protecting and promoting their interests in matters relating to the national and global protection of copyright. From the stage of the kermesse Elizabeth Woolridge Grant has made his country turn official Billboard, the “Bible” of the American music biz, has anticipated that the new album is the fruit of four years of work that saw Del Rey write and record between Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi together with her right-hand man Jack Antonoff, who she shares with Taylor Swift.

On the sidelines of the evening, the pop star says: “.If you haven’t already noticed from our winners and performers, the music industry is going country. We’re heading to country. It’s happening.“. Lana Del Rey then returned to talk about “Lasso” last August, in an interview with Vogue magazine: “I’m going to put out two new singles by the end of the year,” she said. It was the last time he made any statements about the long-awaited album: since then, there has been absolute silence about “Lasso”..