Honeymoon is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter, and record producer Lana Del Rey. It was released on September 18, 2015, by Interscope and Polydor Records. Produced by Del Rey alongside longtime collaborators Rick Nowels and Kieron Menzies, Honeymoon marked a departure from the more guitar-driven instrumentation of Del Rey's previous effort Ultraviolence (2014) and a return to the baroque pop of Born to Die (2012) and Paradise (2012). Lyrically, the album touches on themes of tortured romance, resentment, lust, escapism and violence.
Honeymoon received positive reviews from music critics, appearing on the 2015 best albums lists of many publications. At the time of its release, several critics considered the album Del Rey's best work to date. Commercially, Honeymoon was a global success, topping the charts in Australia, Greece and Ireland, and reaching the Top 5 in over 20 countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, where it debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, selling 116,000 units in its first week. The album was supported by the release of two singles: "High by the Beach", which peaked at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Music to Watch Boys To".
Background and recording Del Rey finished the recording of her third studio album, Ultraviolence, in March 2014, and by June of the same year she had begun working on a follow-up idea stating that the process was "growing into something I really like. I'm kind of enjoying sinking into this more noirish feel for this one. It's been good". In a December 2014 interview with Galore Magazine, Del Rey revealed she had begun working on a new album. In January 2015, Lana Del Rey announced via Billboard that she had begun work on her fourth studio album, announcing she was going to release an album entitled Honeymoon sometime that same year. At the time of the announcement, Del Rey also said that she had written and recorded nine songs that could possibly be featured on the album and stated that she was covering Nina Simone's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". During the interview with Billboard, Del Rey stated that the album would be different from her previous release, Ultraviolence (2014), but similar to her first major release, Born to Die (2012), and the extended play Paradise (2012).
During the album's recording process it was reported that producer Mark Ronson had collaborated with Del Rey for Honeymoon, but their writing sessions did not produce any material for the album. In December 2014, Del Rey stated to Grazia magazine that she wanted to introduce orchestrations with monumental choruses with a touch of subdued grunge for the album, during the recording sessions she played ten songs to Mark Ronson and stated that the album would be exploring a sound close to the golden age of jazz. Besides working with Ronson, Del Rey also worked with Dan Heath and Rick Nowels, with the pair Del Rey began writing small pieces for independent films continuing to state that "Dan Heath and Rick Nowels are two of my dearest friends and producers and we are always up to something". Heath would eventually not feature on the album; however, Rick Nowels went on to co-produce and co-write each song with Del Rey. In January 2015, Del Rey confirmed the song "Music to Watch Boys To" which was initially intended to be the title for the whole album, she also revealed that she wrote it in a visual, noirish way saying "the title (of the song) lends itself to a visual of shadows of men passing by, this girl's eyes, her face. I can definitely see things". The same month, Del Rey stated she was aiming to record a few more songs to tie the project together. "High by the Beach" was recorded as one of the last tracks for the album. Its development started with its chorus, which was inspired by frequent drives along a beach.
Composition
Music and lyrics
Musically, Honeymoon has been variously described as a retro-styled work of "grand, cinematic baroque pop", "elegantly melancholy dream pop", "haunted jazz" and a return to "the cinematic trip hop" of Del Rey's debut album Born to Die, while also incorporating elements of trap, blues and downtempo pop. The album's production was noted as containing sighs, whispers, subtly layered vocals, melodies that lazily unwind, decaying synths, echoing guitar lines, strings, hazes and restrained drum patterns. Built over chopped-and-screwed samples, hints of jazz and Morricone-like soundscapes, Honeymoon has been characterized as Del Rey's most sophisticated album. According to Nick Levine of Time Out, Honeymoon was seen as a departure from the "grungy" tones of Ultraviolence opting for a "glossier" production, which was characterized as containing swirls of cinematic strings, twangy guitars and exquisitely miserable melodies. Andy Gill of The Independent noted Del Rey's vocals as being "multi-layered cooing", airy and ethereal. Gill continued in-depth to say:
Honeymoon finds Del Rey reverting, after the more atomised, individual characters of last year's Ultraviolence, to a composite persona closer to the dissolute subject of her Born to Die debut. Not only does her vocal delivery remain the same throughout, but also its protagonist's "voice"; while the emotional impact of what might sometimes be traumatic developments seems somehow damped, as if experienced through a narcotised haze. Happy or sad, angry or apologetic, dominant or submissive, it's apparently all the same to Del Rey, who floats through these songs with a weird indifference.
Lyrically, Honeymoon features content that touches upon tortured romance, bitterness, lust and violence. It also features lyrical content involving eroticism, drugs, mythology, and "the American soul".
Songs The album opens with the title track, a baroque pop and blue-eyed soul song. The Verge described the song as containing "sweeping strings and stuttering snares" that "float through the background of the song". Time called the song "characteristically broody" and "cinematic", and suggested it "leans closer to the sounds of her breakthrough LP Born to Die than the material she cooked up with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach".
"Music to Watch Boys To" contains a "narcotic haze" according to Alex Hudson of Exclaim!; Hudson stated that the song is built over a synth orchestrations, with flute-like sounds and "crawling" beats that serve as "the sultry backdrop for the vocalist cooing breathily about pink flamingos and creepy, destructive romance". "Terrence Loves You" has been described as "hypnotic", with Del Rey singing over piano, strings, and a "moaning" saxophone. The song contains an interpolation of the song "Space Oddity" by English singer-songwriter David Bowie from his eponymous second studio album. The song opens with isolated guitar notes plucked and dropped, before moving into the distance as piano chords appear, followed by violins, and Del Rey's vocals. The chorus is delivered in an operatic style and lyrically talks about strength in the face of abandonment. Throughout the chorus there are brief saxophone sections inserted and David Bowie references with lyrics such as "Ground control to Major Tom/Can you hear me all night long?".
"God Knows I Tried" features guitar backing with layered harmonised vocals, with lyrics that touch upon Del Rey's struggles with fame and finding relief away from the public eye. "High by the Beach" is a hip hop-influenced synth-led, trap-pop song. Relatively upbeat and structurally sedate, it serves as a combination of all Del Rey's musical styles, particularly recalling the hip hop and trip hop influences of Born to Die (2012). It is more uptempo and pop-indebted than her previous releases, and is based around laidback, airy electronic production and a swooning orchestral arrangement. The song comprises a slow and clear trap beat, prominent, dreamy synth beeps, hip hop-influenced percussions and Roland TR-808 drums; in contrast with brooding, eerie organ instrumentation, pertaining to an additional slow and airy feel. The drums were noted to put emphasis on its hi-hat. "Freak" contains a steady bass thump and lyrics about drugs that have been compared to the work of the Weeknd. Amy Davidson of Digital Spy noted the song had a similar "sultriness" to that of "High by the Beach", Davidson continued to call the song a "slow motion" and compared it to a '90s R&B song. In a review for The Guardian Kitty Empire noted the song contained trip hop beats with lyrics that celebrate California. "Art Deco" is a slow jazz-styled ballad with hazy beats and saxophone riffs, the lyrics of the song contain "hollowness and American ennui". "Art Deco" was rumored to be about rapper Azealia Banks. Del Rey dismissed these allegations in an interview with NME, saying that the song "is actually about a group of teenagers who go out every night."
The eighth track on the album is an interlude entitled "Burnt Norton (Interlude)", the short spoken-word piece features Del Rey reciting an extract of the first poem from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, which speaks about the nature of time, and meditates on the idea of fate, with an underlying suggestion our present experiences are out of our control. The words are recited over an art rock instrumental production. "Religion" was noted as being one of Del Rey's most optimistic love songs, however the song was also noted for still be "tinged with the singer's favourite kind of noirish self-destruction". Lyrics that were noted for being optimistic were; "Everything is bright now" but this lyric is immediately followed with resignation "No need to survive now". "Salvatore" mixes violins, military drumbeats and verses sung in Italian which have been described as evoking "1940s Italy via Frank Sinatra". Lyrically, the track was seen as a sequel to "Summertime Sadness" with lyrics such as "Summer's hot but I've been cold without you". "Salvatore" was described as a two-step song by Nina Corcoran of Consequence of Sound, Corcoran noted the song sound as being "straight out of a resort hotel ballroom" before to continuing to describe the track as having jazz drums with "clean and rich" production.
"The Blackest Day" is a post-breakup ballad, that primarily deals with the stages of grief. The first verse explores themes of denial, apparent in lyrics such as "I don't really wanna break up, we got it going on". The second stage of grief, anger, is exemplified by the tone of the bridge: "You should've known better, than to have, to let her, get you under her spell of the weather". The second verse shows Del Rey bargaining: "Carry me home, don't wanna talk about the things to come/Just put your hands up in the air, the radio on", before Del Rey reaches the point of acceptance in the outro: "I'm on my own again". "24" is a cinematic song that received comparison to the James Bond theme songs, due to its musical style and lyrics which were noted as being sung from the perspective of a Bond girl. In May 2024, it was revealed that the producers of the Bond film Spectre (2015) rejected "24" as the film's theme song, opting instead to use Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall". "Swan Song" is a smooth, elegant theatrical song, that contains humming and low beats, with tragic lyrics that hear Del Rey repeatedly whisper "I will never sing again" and contains themes of Del Rey pleasing to run away from responsibility. The album closes with a cover of Nina Simone's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", which showcase Del Rey's operatic readings of classical '60s Hollywood melodrama and contains organ riffs.
Packaging and artwork