Lana Del Rey Returns With “West Coast”: Listen

It’s only right that during the most important music event on the West Coast — the Coachella music festival — pop music’s endlessly polarizing flower child Lana Del Rey debuted a new song inspired by that very place. “West Coast,” the first single from Del Rey’s upcoming album, Ultraviolence, has all the makings of a signature Lana Del Rey tack: brooding, velvety vocals; a few sparse guitar twangs; a continued obsession with America’s most iconic proper nouns; and a video that looks shot on Instagram.

Earlier this month, the leak of a disco-infused Lana Del Rey song, “Meet Me in the Pale Moonlight,” suggested the singer might be injecting her wistful shtick with a dash of Studio 54 glamour, but the only new sonic developments here are the laid-back track’s shifting tempos and windier production, likely courtesy of The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, with whom she’s collaborating on Ultraviolence. Fans will probably be pleased with the song’s springtime dose of some summertime sadness.