Hollywood and The Weeknd

Lana Del Rey is on a roll lately. A week after releasing her duet with The Weeknd, it was also announced that she has recorded a song with Fleetwood Mac’s lead singer Stevie Nicks. I know, that name might not ring any bells to a younger audience, but she’s a bit of a big deal. She’s also one of those singers coming from a generation where you had to really lay down a track perfectly, while recording, and she can. In short, she got skills.

It goes without saying that I can’t wait to hear that track, but last week I was also very surprised by “Lust For Life” with The Weeknd. I’m not a real big fan of Lana’s sound and was hoping that The Weeknd would give her a little bit of a boost, musically, but the song is clearly a Lana Del Rey track with The Weeknd on it. However, the song is pretty easy to get into and does captivate me a little more than most of her material.

The slow jam is accompanied by a moody black and white video that reminds you of an old Hollywood movie without much happening in it. It actually only shows Lana and The Weeknd seated on the Hollywood sign. They are not even performing the song, so to speak. There’s no singing and hardly any movement.

To me, the video is not as captivating as the song, which has a little more change and variation in it. The added harmonies, which trademark’s The Weeknd’s sound do add a little something extra to the song that you wouldn’t usually find in a Lana Del Rey track.

The combination of these two artists recording a duet together is something I wouldn’t have come up with myself. When The Weeknd starts singing on this track, following up on Lana’s vocals, I actually have some trouble placing it as The Weeknd. I do hear it later though, but in the first few lines it almost sounds like Lana’s. It’s amazing what a change of music can do.

As I said before, I think this is one of Lana’s catchier tracks, but I still don’t think that it’ll be played on the radio in between other mainstream pop music, despite The Weeknd’s feature. However, having heard this, I can’t wait for her duet with Stevie.